Thurstaston Cliffs - 5th Feb 2010 11:10pm
I thought I'd put a couple of pictures up of the cliffs after seeing the "Thurstaston face" image in the Photo Gallery.
These cliffs are eroding boulder clay, and are designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and cannot be protected from erosion - it is the erosion that is important to their status.
There's a couple of pics of slips attached somewhere to this message
Sometimes this can cause unstable-looking outcrops to appear - here's one from a couple of years back
See the big crack from the top coming vertically down towards a smaller crack at lower left.... just to the left of this there was a lens of sand in the boulder clay which had been eroded/dug out by kids. That just made the potential for a collapse here worse. Also, within the dug-out hole, several horizontal holes had been driven in by an escape committee of rabbits, further undermining the overhang. Anyway, safest solution was to pull the lot down in a controlled fashion, as shown.
Final picture shows how everything looked 6 months later.
(There may or may not be 5 photos attached to this post, in some sort of random order, depending how badly I've messed it up)
These cliffs are eroding boulder clay, and are designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest and cannot be protected from erosion - it is the erosion that is important to their status.
There's a couple of pics of slips attached somewhere to this message
Sometimes this can cause unstable-looking outcrops to appear - here's one from a couple of years back
See the big crack from the top coming vertically down towards a smaller crack at lower left.... just to the left of this there was a lens of sand in the boulder clay which had been eroded/dug out by kids. That just made the potential for a collapse here worse. Also, within the dug-out hole, several horizontal holes had been driven in by an escape committee of rabbits, further undermining the overhang. Anyway, safest solution was to pull the lot down in a controlled fashion, as shown.
Final picture shows how everything looked 6 months later.
(There may or may not be 5 photos attached to this post, in some sort of random order, depending how badly I've messed it up)
Description: Thurstaston Cliff Slip