Ice, Incision and Execution in the eastern Yorkshire Dales – citizen cave science and climate studies in the karst of northern England.

The glaciokarst of the Yorkshire Dales National Park, situated in the English Pennine hills, provides an under realised opportunity for paleo climate studies in mid latitudes. It was marginal to the Last Glacial Maximum British and Irish Ice Sheet which has been reappraised over recent decades as being a dynamic and unstable body. The caves were extensively excavated by Victorian (1837-1901) and Edwardian (1901-1910) antiquarians/archaeologists but was then largely ignored until the development of radiometric dating in the late 1970 and early 1980s. Since then scientific and archaeological attention has been sporadic and piecemeal with studies often being driven by the findings of the very active cave exploration community which have been responsible for the discovery of the approximately 90 km long Three Counties System in the west of the area.

The hills and valleys to the east of the area are less visited by both cavers and cave scientists though there is great potential for discovering new caves. A detailed study was undertaken on the complex Stump Cross cave system beneath one of the wide interfluves in the 1980s which has been subject to a recent reappraisal but otherwise scientific attention has been limited and sporadic. In this study a dendritic cave system dissected by the glaciated trough valley of Littondale has been subjected to study by an ad-hoc group of scientists, both citizen and academic, along with a team of cavers and cave divers. The now perched valley side caves reveal a complex record of drainage and flooding presumably related to the reoccupation of the valley by successive ice sheets and the resulting episodic down cutting. Speleothem damage provides the first evidence for the existence of ice bodies within the regions caves. Archaeological findings have shown Roman use of caves in the region is geographically more extensive than previously thought and have provided constraining evidence for the ongoing investigation of an early medieval murder mystery. This study highlights the potential of the area for future detailed paleo climate studies.

 

The work was supported by funding from the British Cave Research Association Cave Science and Technology Research Initiative.