• Descent 302 is published on 15 February and it will soon be on its way to our subscribers.

    In the newsdesk, read a review of the underground events at Kendal Mountain Festival, plus tales of cannibalism and the Cavefish Asteroid.

    In regional news, we have three new connections in Ogof Agen Allwedd, a report on the iron mines of Anjou, an extension to Big Sink Cave in the Forest of Dean, a new dig in Yorkshire's Marble Steps Pot, student parties, an obituary for Tony Boycott, a tight find in the Peak District and a discovery in County Kerry with extensive formations.

    Click here for details of this edition

Duke Street and Eastern Front

When you project the Eastern Front into Kingsdale, it comes out in fresh air. If it had continued under a young, shallow Kingsdale and into Chapel le Dale much of that landscape has eroded away. There may well be nothing to find.

However, it is possible, as everything is, that it made a big bend or zig zag to the north and east and became Dale Barn (Perfidia etc). I much prefer the theory, though, that Expressway, Perfidia etc were early Kingsdale drainage as the valley cut down and drained to the lower Chapel le Dale.
 
A couple of photos from Duke Street 2 today. There wasn’t enough time for more unfortunately.

IMG_2187.jpeg

Scallops up to about 1m above stream level. Showing flow in the current stream direction NW to SE (not too surprising). The scallops around the upstream sump also show flow in this direction (again, not surprising), although they aren’t as clear as these.
IMG_2185.jpeg


Cross bedding in the lower sand deposits which seems to show flow contra to the current stream direction (SE to NW). Im no expert though. The handle is pointing towards DS1, and the blade towards escalator rift. There’s quite a lot of cross bedding in the sand layers, so these are worth a closer look.
 
So the flow was east to west, according to those scallops at least - that right?
So from an ancient major sink in proto-Kingsdale then? (Before it was deepened by the Devensian ice advance?)
Could very well be much further east, considering Dale Barn and The Battlefield in White scar and the limestone was continuous before the valley down cutting.
 
I think you're probably right. There some very big, very ancient passages under Ingleborough, including some enigmatic ones in the GG system.
 
Large passages do develop independently from one another. Dale Barn is more likely to have developed from a young downcutting Kingsdale and flowed to the lower and older Chapel le Dale valley. Duke Street/Eastern front would have predated that. Large passage under Ingleborough is more likely to have been formed by processes under that mountain than from developments under Gragareth. Is the Battlefield a passage? In any case I always imagined it was associated with drainage from Crina Valley area. I've never seen anything but idle speculation that suggests these features were ever part of the same system or development. I'd be doubtful whether they developed at the same time too.

Repeated some of this from earlier post.
 
There is a theory that the Battlefield passage is a fragment of an old sub Chapel-le-Dale system, the majority of which has now disappeared due to downcutting of the dale.

There is another theory that the big stuff in Dale Barn owes it's existence to a subglacial sink in an early Kingsdale.

The relative ages of these big passages is unlikely to be fully nailed down until more comprehensive stal dating data are available.

What I find interesting is that many of these fragments of extremely big passage tend to be developed roughly NW / SE. Is this related to parallel fracturing of the limestone in the area close to (and often parllel with) the Craven fault system? Or is it an expression of the generally NW / SE trend of the buried ridges and valleys in the Lower Palaeozic basement?

I guess there's a lot we don't know.
 
Stal dating won't tell you what age a passage developed. It'll tell you the age of the stal. Won't it?
 
Combined with knowledge of the glacial history it gives the best indication of passage ages, since a stal can't form until the cave is there (obviously).
 
Google Earth shows a dark tongue of vegetation just west of the road at the RH bend where it descends into Kingsdale. This vegetation, which appears to overlie moraine rather than limestone, could mark the point at which the Eastern Front once popped out of the ground. At the upper end of the tongue are a number of small shakeholes. Any thoughts?
 
Google Earth shows a dark tongue of vegetation just west of the road at the RH bend where it descends into Kingsdale. This vegetation, which appears to overlie moraine rather than limestone, could mark the point at which the Eastern Front once popped out of the ground. At the upper end of the tongue are a number of small shakeholes. Any thoughts?
Yep, that’s assumed to be the spot. The elevation of Eastern Front is between 290m and 300m above sea level.

I suspect it would be a very long term dig, but you never know…
 
Has anyone done any further pushing in Kail Pot? I've just watched this video from 2013 which looked intriguing


Whenever I've walked past and looked in it's always seemed like a place that should be going somewhere.
 
Yes, we had a few sessions in there shortly after the little green men (it is them in the video). It flatters to deceive. Surface shaft looks fantastic, the end not so much, and no encouraging draught.
 
What I find interesting is that many of these fragments of extremely big passage tend to be developed roughly NW / SE. Is this related to parallel fracturing of the limestone in the area close to (and often parllel with) the Craven fault system? Or is it an expression of the generally NW / SE trend of the buried ridges and valleys in the Lower Palaeozic basement?

I guess there's a lot we don't know.
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the alignment of Eastern Front/Necropolis/Duke Street is guided by discontinuities ( joints and minor faults) running parallel to the Craven Faults. Jeff Wade’s photo of the Eastern front shows this excellently:
IMG_2198.jpeg


Personally I reckon there’s a lot more we can learn just by making simple observations underground. Pontificating from the comfort of your sofa is fun too though 😉
 
"Personally I reckon there’s a lot more we can learn just by making simple observations underground. Pontificating from the comfort of your sofa is fun too though 😉"

Keep on having fun oldies :D
 
Does BCRA or CNCC have a vacancy for Head of Armchair Pontification? I think I'm very well qualified but I do prefer the settee as I don't own an armchair. I can focus various digging teams' efforts and as I only require Google maps and a cup of tea to enable this I am very cheap.
 
If there was a vacant position for Head of Armchair Pontification, I'm sure there would be lots of competition, and would lead quite a big team! I also use Lidar and coffee...
 
The elevation of Eastern Front is between 290m and 300m above sea level.

That's a very fine photograph of the Eastern Front you posted George!

Your comment above prompts me to ask if there is infomation on the typical elevations in DBC?
 
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