Bristol Channel Fault Zone

The Bristol Channel Fault Zone or Central Bristol Channel Fault Zone is a major south-dipping geological fault, or zone of faulting, running approximately west–east in the Bristol Channel between England and Wales.^[1] It makes landfall just south of Weston-super-Mare and the Mendip Hills.^[2] It forms a divide between the late Palaeozoic age South Wales basin to the north and the Culm Basin to the south. It marks a major change in the pre-Variscan geology of the United Kingdom, juxtaposing very different sequences of Devonian and Lower Carboniferous rocks.^[3] During the Variscan, the fault may have acted as either a strike-slip fault or a thrust fault or indeed both; its nature remains uncertain.^[4] During the Triassic to Jurassic, the fault zone was active as an extensional fault, controlling the development of the Bristol Channel Basin.^[1]

See also

• List of geological faults of England
• List of geological faults of Wales

References

1. Miliorizos M., Ruffell A. & Brooks M. (2004). "Variscan structure of the inner Bristol Channel, UK". Journal of the Geological Society. 161: 31–44. doi:10.1144/0016-764903-035.
2. The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal: Exhibiting a View of the Progressive Discoveries and Improvements in the Sciences and the Arts. Adam and Charles Black. 1841. p. 284.
3. Woodcock N.H., Soper N.J. & Strachan R.A. (2007). "A Rheic cause for the Acadian deformation in Europe". Journal of the Geological Society. 164: 1023–1036. doi:10.1144/0016-76492006-129.
4. Woodcock, N.H. and Strachan, R.A. (eds) 2000 Geological History of Britain and Ireland Blackwell Science, (p230, 263) ISBN 0632036567

51°20′N 3°13′W / 51.333°N 3.217°W / 51.333; -3.217