How is limestone pavement formed

Most limestone pavement is grazed, and the rock surface supports little if any vegetation. However, ferns and other plants typical of rocky habitats or woodlands flourish in the damp grykes out of the reach of grazing animals. A thin, well-drained turf of limestone grassland can develop around limestone pavement or in very shallow grykes. In some places, a regular pattern of hummocks and hollows reveals the hidden presence of limestone pavement under the turf.

Where limestone pavement is ungrazed, it develops into an open form of upland mixed ashwood, and may retain a rich flora. It is thought that limestone pavement was formed by the scouring action of glaciers on horizontally-bedded limestone. Grykes were probably formed by weathering and the action of rainwater on lines of weakness within the rock, although some deep grykes are considered to have been formed some 30 million years earlier during the Carboniferous period, when the landscape was probably wooded.

As grykes became bigger, soil washing into them may have vanished away into the underground cave systems characteristic of limestone country, revealing the rock. Human clearance of woodland and subsequent grazing speeded up this process. Limestone pavements are of very high biodiversity importance in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, are protected by Limestone Pavement Orders and continue to be on the UK and local list of priority habitats for biodiversity.

It has vivid pink flowers, intricately divided leaves and a distinctive red stalk joint which gives the plant its name. Within the British Isles, this species has a localised distribution on grassland, rocky areas, sand dunes and open woods on calcareous soils in northern and western areas. Limestone pavements Forming a distinctive and dramatic landscape, limestone pavement is made up of a series of clints the flat horizontal slabs of carboniferous limestone and grykes the vertical cracks between the slabs.

Most limestone pavements in the UK are formed on Carboniferous limestone and whilst there are superb examples in Yorkshire, they are an extremely rare geological feature in the south of England.

Backwell Environment Trust Limestone Pavement Whilst reinstating a stretch of little-used public footpath in Badgers Wood in July , volunteers uncovered an unusual limestone rock formation. What is a limestone pavement? How do limestone pavements form? During the ice ages, much of Britain was covered by ice sheets and glaciers. During this time, the soil and weaker surface rocks were often scoured away, leaving broad expanses of exposed limestone.