Recumbent fold near Little Haven, Pembrokeshire, west Wales

This photo shows the cliffs in the small sandy bay known as The Settlands between Little Haven and Broad Haven in Pembrokeshire, west Wales.

The rocks here are Upper Carboniferous Coal Measures and are part of the western extremity of the Pembrokeshire coalfield. The strata have been severely deformed by compressional tectonics during the Hercynian (Variscan) earth movements. In the centre of the photograph the rocks are folded into a recumbent fold, with the axis near horizontal - a sort of tilted " < " shape. A thrust fault separates this fold from the steeply dipping, inverted rocks on the LH side. These form the headland known as The Rain.

Scanned from a Kodachrome 64 transparency.