Nature’s Sculptures
The original bedrock consists of Millstone Grit sandstones containing various proportions of the minerals quartz and feldspar.
The process, known as chemical weathering, starts with chemical changes altering the minerals below ground level, resulting in solid rock effectively disintegrating. Rock below the water table tends to be effected more slowly.
As the ice sheets move across the ground, they scour out the gaps between the remaining rock leaving tors, rock pillars and piles of boulders.
An extraordinary feature found at Brimham are various holes, tubes and arches apparently carved out of the solid rock.
A challenge to geologists has been how have these been formed in rocks that have not been exposed to the force of river or water erosion for millennia.
The Wishing Rock
Dr Bruthans
In 2014, Dr Bruthans together with other scientists from the Czech Republic , published the results of a series of experiments they had undertaken on Cretaceous sandstone from the Strelec quarry.
"Sandstone landforms shaped by negative feedback between stress and erosion"
Explanation of Bruthans experiments with sandstone blocks.
Explain how these results can explain the formation of holes and rock arches.
