Beneath your feet

Gareth    Planning    

The reasons we love the great outdoors are as numerous and varied as the mountains and hills we climb, but whether it’s the nature of wilderness, the scenery, the challenge or even the solitude most reasons come back to a single factor; what’s under our feet.

From the limestone of the Peak District to the slates of the Lake District the geology beneath our feet shapes everything from the use we put our lands to through to the existance of the mountains themselves. The position of streams and bogs, cliffs and plateaux are all determined by the geology that underlies our island, and even the prevailing weather relies to an extent on the rocks beneath us. This is why the decision to make maps from the British Geological Survey available online is good news for the outdoor community.

In the same way that an Ordnance Survey map can tell us a thousand stories of what we see around us a geological map can tell us why a river sinks, or why our compasses go loopy on Skye. The British Geological Survey’s (BGS) new OpenGeoscience portal allows the public to study all the UK’s rocks on a simple Google map, down to a “scale” of 1:50,000 with overlays to show towns and streets. A range of educational and professional tools are also brought together on the website, including the huge national geological archive of tens of thousands of images have been amassed into the BGS library over the decades, showing different rock forms around Britain. The site is divided into six sections covering Data, Education, Maps, Pictures, reports and Software with maps and pictures of particular interest to hillwalkers.

Geological map of Wasdale area

The beauty of a geological map is the information it gives on both what what the eye can’t see and an explanation of why surface features are what they are. Knowing of the existance of magnetic rocks, for example, can help us understand why a compass can give false readings, or knowing where two different strata meet can help us predict flood routes following heavy rainfall – and so improve our choices and chances of escape when bad weather strikes.

Wastwater from Yewbarrow

The opening up of these geological maps is part of an overall plan to open up our digital mapping data across the board, with OS mapping due to follow suit early next year. There’s never been a better time to find out exactly what it is that makes our landscape so special – or why our wilderness is so valuable.

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