Landslides and mass movement

The dramatic landslipped towers of Chalk at Hooken Cliff, viewed westwards from Beer Head, Devon. The photo is a panorama compiled from three portrait format shots.

This is the toe of the landslide of 8th May 2008 just east of Church Cliff, Lyme Regis, Dorset. As well as Jurassic shales and limestones, the landslide also brought down debris from a former landfill site including many glass bottles and rusty motor car components.

The Spittles is an extensive area of landslides between Lyme Regis and Charmouth, Dorset. In the centre is the toe of the landslide of 8th May 2008 just east of Church Cliff. As well as Jurassic shales and limestones, the landslide also brought down debris from a former landfill site including many glass bottles and rusty motor car components.

Originally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group. This is a view looking up at the landslide area at the western end of Pinhay Bay, east Devon. The trees are at all sorts of odd angles and some have fallen completely due to the continuing intermittent landslide movements. The top of the landslide scar is seen in this photo: www.ipernity.com/doc/earthwatcher/39024280

At the foot of the landslide at Pinhay Bay.

Originally uploaded for the Guesswhere UK group. This is located next to the South West Coast Path which runs through the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliff National Nature Reserve, a conservation area of international importance. This is an area of extensive landslides which have created a jumble of ridges and chasms, now the location of luxurious woodland and special habitats for plants, birds, insects and other animals. The 'undercliff' is the area between the beach and the back landslide scarp face, which may be as much as 700 metres inland. Mostly this is dense woodland, but occasionally there are more open areas where landslides are still intermittently active, where the larger trees have either been uprooted or have not yet had the chance to mature (as is the case here, viewed from the back scarp face of one of the more recent landslides). Just visible on the distant horizon is the Isle of Portland, far across the other side of Lyme Bay.

Average coastal erosion rates for this part of the Holderness coast are in excess of 2.5 metres per year but sometimes a great chunk will go all at once. The main mechanism for the erosion is failure and collapse of the Skipsea Till (grey/brown in the photo) by rotational landslides. The slipped material is readily removed by the sea during storms and high tides, exposing a fresh cliff face which rapidly becomes unstable, eventually failing once more.

The cliffs in this section of the Holderness coast are comprised of the Skipsea Till (Devensian) Rotational landslides cause active retreat of the cliff line on average in excess of 2.5 metres per year.

Recent coastal erosion near Skipsea, East Yorkshire There were huts and shacks on the seaward side of the track until recently. At March 2011 Google Maps still show them.

Another view of The Spittles landslide near Charmouth, Dorset, this time looking east. Golden Cap is visible on the distant skyline. The Spittles is a wilderness of extensive, active, multiple landslides in Lower Lias (Lower Jurassic) shales, overlain by the Upper Greensand (Cretaceous) which forms the inland golden cliff to the leftt. In the foreground is a recent rotational landslide. The sloping grassy surface in the foreground was originally horizontal and level with the grass on the left. This section has slipped downwards and rotated anticlockwise. The yellow sand cliff in the left foreground is the landslide back scar. Panorama stitched manually from 2 wide-angle photos.

Ridge Cliff, east of Seatown in Dorset, is capped by the golden Upper Greensand Formation (Cretaceous). The afternoon sun bathes everything in a golden light which together with the blue sky is intensified by a polarising filter.

Ridge Cliff, east of Seatown in Dorset, is capped by the golden Upper Greensand Formation (Cretaceous). This is in turn underlain by Lower Jurassic strata including the the paler yellow Bridport Sand seen here in the middle of the section. The afternoon sun bathes everything in a golden light which together with the blue sky is intensified by a polarising filter.

Not an extraterrestrial planetary surface but craters where pebbles had been thrown into a wet mudflow derived from the Eype Clay (Lower Jurassic). The largest crater is about 8 cm in diameter. On the beach below Ridge Cliff, Seatown, Dorset.

View towards Golden Cap from Seatown, Dorset. The pale yellow scar in the foreground is probably the Down Cliff Sands (Middle Lias, Lower Jurassic) and is a back scar of the extensive landslipped area to the left mainly in the Lower Lias shales (Eype Clay and Green Ammonite Beds). Golden Cap exposes the Lower and Middle Lias sequence, overlain unconformably at the top by the yellow Upper Greensand (Cretaceous).

Just west of Seatown, Dorset. Low cliffs of landslipped Lower Lias shales (the 'Green Ammonite Beds', lower Jurassic) with mudflows. The bedding in these cliffs is completely disrupted by the landslides. None of it is in its original place.

Just west of Seatown, Dorset. Low cliffs of landslipped Lower Lias shales (the 'Green Ammonite Beds', lower Jurassic) with mudflows. The bedding in these cliffs is completely disrupted by the landslides. None of it is in its original place.

Just west of Seatown, Dorset. Low cliffs of landslipped Lower Lias shales (the 'Green Ammonite Beds', lower Jurassic) with mudflows. The bedding in these cliffs is completely disrupted by the landslides. None of it is in its original place. Golden Cap in the background with its yellow capping of Upper Greensand.

Low tide and slack water at Lyme Regis, Dorset, looking east towards Charmouth on a fine, still, Spring afternoon. The Spittles and Black Ven and their landslides are visible in the cliffs left of centre.