24 September 2010

Friday fold: Siccar Point, Scotland

Posted by Callan Bentley

As with last week, I’m going to show you someone else’s fold today. This one should have strong resonance with most geologists, because it’s a fold in the tilted (and contorted) older strata exposed below the famous unconformity at Siccar Point, Scotland:

fold_siccar

I found this image on the British Geological Survey’s online repository of images, which are available for public use with attribution. I found out about the BGS photo repository via a post on StructuralGeology.org.

The photo was taken by T.S. Bain in 1979. Rock hammer (lower left) for scale.

The specific rock type here is shale, and their age is Silurian. Note the thinning of the limbs of the fold, and the relatively thick hinge area.

Happy Friday – may your workday rapidly thin (like the limbs of this “similar” fold), and your weekend be as thick as this fold hinge!