The London–Brabant Massif or London–Brabant Platform is, in the tectonic structure of Europe, a structural high or massif that stretches from the Rhineland in western Germany across northern Belgium (in the province of Brabant ) and the North Sea to the sites of East Anglia and the middle Thames in southern England.
32-561: The massif also occurs in the Belgian subsurface, where it is bounded to the northeast by the Roer Valley Graben that runs diagonally through Dutch Limburg . The Midlands Microcraton (southeastern Wales and part of western England) is often considered part of the massif and to reflect this the names Wales–Brabant Massif , Wales–London–Brabant Massif and Wales–Brabant High are sometimes used. The London–Brabant Massif
64-766: A hot and arid palaeo-environment, such as a desert or sabkha . The New Red Sandstone was originally identified in Scotland , at quarries in Elgin . It covers large parts of the Moray Firth Basin. In this area it overlies the Old Red Sandstone unconformably (missing the intervening rocks), and both sandstones were used extensively in architecture in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It also covers much of central England , where it generally forms
96-484: A long mountain ridge. To the north, economically important things were happening. Western Britain was pushed up as part of the Variscan Orogeny while the east of Britain, including the island began to subside leaving a broad basin, north of the island and south of Scandinavia. This formed a shallow sea in a very dry climate. Desert sands and salt basins were a result but there are also mudstones. This provided
128-643: A low-lying plain except for the Mid Severn Sandstone Plateau . Thick layers (up to 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) thick) are present in the faulted Cheshire Basin which also extends beneath north Shropshire . There are numerous escarpments forming small prominent hills within this area. The sandstone also underlies parts of Lancashire and Cumbria , and east of the Pennines it extends through Nottinghamshire and central Yorkshire . Smaller outcrops occur in other parts of Britain such as
160-615: A small size range (0.5 to 2 millimetres (0.020 to 0.079 in)). The NRS is a texturally mature rock. Certain units of the New Red Sandstone (e.g. Hopeman Sandstone Formation and Helsby Sandstone Formation ) feature commonly as building stone due to their abundance and mechanical strength. The New Red Sandstone has yielded many fossils, including the world-famous Elgin Reptiles . These are late Permian to Late Triassic in age, and include mammal-like reptiles and some of
192-795: Is a right (eastern) tributary to the Meuse (Dutch: Maas ). About 90 percent of the river's course is in Germany. It is not to be confused with the rivers Ruhr and Röhr , which are tributaries of the Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia. During the Middle Ages the valley of the Roer lay mostly within the Duchy of Jülich . In 1795, until 1814, during which time the area was part of
224-582: Is at about 2 km depth. These Carboniferous beds are part of a system linking with those of Westphalia, around the north side of the island. On the north Norfolk coast, the line of the Carboniferous shore roughly coincides with the modern one. As the continent drifted northwards, away from the Equator, through the latitudes represented today by the Sahara desert , the erosion was renewed. This time,
256-428: Is evidence for a terrestrial environment of deposition such as a desert , and gives the rocks the red colour which they are named after. The common effect of rusting produces exactly the same deposit, but as a result of a different process. The sandstone units generally lack fossils (as do most terrestrial rocks). The grains in the member have a high degree of sphericity , are very well sorted and typically have
288-857: Is part of the former microcontinent Avalonia . To the south it borders the Rhenohercynian Zone of the Hercynian orogeny . To the northeast it is flanked by the Anglo-Dutch Basin in the subsurface of the North Sea. At times in geologic history the London–Brabant Massif formed an island, which is called the London–Brabant Island . The massif is composed of crystalline basement ( metamorphic and igneous rocks ) with Proterozoic to early Paleozoic ages. It
320-562: Is the venue for the yearly International White Water Race which was held on 17 March 2013 for the 58th time. New Red Sandstone The New Red Sandstone , chiefly in British geology , is composed of beds of red sandstone and associated rocks laid down throughout the Permian (300 million years ago) to the end of the Triassic (about 200 million years ago), that underlie
352-695: The Cretaceous the island had sunk much further in relation to the sea level. Before the end of the period, the British end was buried in Upper Cretaceous chalk. This happened because the Pacific Ocean bed swelled up causing the world's seas to rise but also, the process released much carbon dioxide. It is now best viewed as a block of dense crust floating deeply sunk into the mantle and overlain with less dense superficial rocks. It depresses
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#1732780236945384-530: The Dover Straits earthquake of 1580 and the 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake , the latter marked by an orange star, fell. Rur The Roer ( Dutch: [ruːr] , Limburgish: [ʀuːʀ˦] ) or Rur ( German: [ʁuːɐ̯] ; French: Rour [ʁuʁ] ) is a major river that flows through portions of Belgium , Germany and the Netherlands . It
416-697: The High Fens , near the 696-metre (2,283 ft) high Signal de Botrange in Belgium at an elevation of 660 metres (2,170 ft) above sea level. South of Monschau it flows into Germany, through North Rhine-Westphalia . It flows first through the northern part of the Eifel mountains. After 39 kilometres (24 mi) it reaches the Roer Reservoir , the second-largest artificial lake in Germany. After approximately 160 kilometres (99 mi) it flows into
448-491: The Jurassic - Triassic age Penarth Group . The name distinguishes it from the Old Red Sandstone which is largely Devonian in age, and with which it was originally confused due to their similar composition. Its upper layers consist of mudstones , but most of the formation consists of reddish to yellowish sandstones, interbedded with rare evaporite minerals such as halite and gypsum . These indicate deposition within
480-922: The Lower Estuarine Series prevailed for a while before the sea rose so as to deposit the Lincolnshire limestones before falling again so that the Upper Estuarine Series was left. Again the sea rose to deposit the Blisworth Limestone , the Blisworth Clay and the Upper Jurassic clays. The same general pattern occurred in France leaving the Paris Basin flooded from Anjou to Luxembourg. By
512-460: The "Roer Triangle". Between 16 December 1944 and 23 February 1945, the U.S. Ninth Army was unable to advance across the Roer during Operation Queen , because German forces controlled dams close to the river's source in the densely forested region of the Hohes Venn. This meant Axis forces could potentially blow the dams, releasing enough water to wash out an Allied assault. At the same time,
544-844: The French Republic and Empire , it gave its name to the French département of the Roer . The Roer represented an important front in the Allied push towards Germany at the end of the Second World War . A fortified area known as the Roer Triangle , formed by the towns of Roermond and Sittard , in the Netherlands , and Heinsberg in Germany , was the scene of heavy fighting at the beginning of 1945. Operation Blackcock
576-566: The German Ardennes Offensive meant any further westward push would leave Allied forces stretched and supply lines exposed. Eventually the counteroffensive was overwhelmed and German engineers, under pressure of aerial and artillery bombardment, released the dams. As the flood waters began to subside, Allied forces crossed the Rur in rafts in the early hours of February 23, 1945, as part of Operation Grenade . The Roer rises in
608-622: The Netherlands, and at its 170-kilometre (110 mi) mark it flows into the river Meuse in the city of Roermond . Major tributaries of the Roer include the Inde and the Wurm . The towns along the Roer are Monschau, Heimbach , Nideggen , Düren , Jülich , Linnich , Hückelhoven , Heinsberg (all in Germany) and Roermond (Netherlands). In the 1960s and 1970s, the northern part of the Roer
640-479: The Red Cliffs of Dawlish and East Devon . In terms of its lithology , the New Red Sandstone comprises true sandstones, mudrocks and evaporite strata . The sandstone units are monomineralic, consisting only of quartz grains (negligible amounts of other minerals may be present), and they are cemented together with the ferric iron oxide haematite (Fe 2 O 3 ). The presence of this particular iron oxide
672-587: The alternating porous and impervious rocks which have trapped the gas escaping when the coal measures, below were subjected to geothermal heat . This has left a group of gas fields off the Norfolk coast. That is to say, off the coast of the island. In the early Jurassic , the Rhaetic sea flooded much of the Permian plain. On the margin of the London–Brabant Island, the estuarine conditions which left
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#1732780236945704-410: The boundary of the crust and the mantle ( Mohorovičić discontinuity , commonly Moho) to depths greater than 40 kilometres as against a figure at the top of the continental shelf of about thirty and less than fifteen below oceanic depths . The map shows that there is some tendency for such seismic activity as there is in the region to occur around the margin of the massif. It was into this pattern that
736-460: The downs and Weald of southern England which overlies the edge of the island. The axis of this anticline is normally called the northern Variscan front. However, the chalk of the downs is Upper Cretaceous, so the process continued well after the Permian. The point in the present context is that the stability of the island contrasts with the relatively unstable crust to its south, which was forced into
768-616: The earliest predecessors of dinosaurs. An earliest Permian ( Asselian ) fauna is known from the Kenilworth Sandstone Formation of the English Midlands, including primitive synapsids and temnospondyl amphibians. Many ancient buildings of Devon Red Sandstone can be found in Exeter the ancient capital of Devon , notably the castle, Roman / medieval city walls, several churches and many buildings of
800-631: The island has exercised most economic influence on modern Europe was the Carboniferous . As the continent was drifting past the Equator , on the island's shores, there grew a rich tropical forest swamp . On the island's southern shore, it left the Dinantian , Namurian and Westphalian coal fields of France, Belgium and western Germany . See Aachener Revier (in German). To its northwest,
832-535: The large southern continent Gondwana , but then began drifting independently to lower latitudes . As it passed through the dry latitudes represented today by the Namib Desert , it was eroded and the soils became laterite . The strata , particularly of the Precambrian are complex. Their continuity is also poorly understood because they are beyond the reach of most boreholes . The period from which
864-771: The lateritic soils are represented by the New Red Sandstone and the red soils of Leicestershire and Rutland . The early Permian was the time of the height of the Variscan earth movements as the crust to the south was crushed against the island. The great disturbances seen at the surface in Brittany , the Ardennes and the Rhineland also lie below the Paris Basin. They fade out in the gentler anticline of
896-406: The river is so clean that trout and more than 30 species of fish are back. After an absence of 125 years, salmon returned to the Roer in 2004. The Roer is the only real white water river in North Rhine-Westphalia. The upper section above the Roer reservoir (German: Rurtalsperre Schwammenauel) offers 20 kilometres (12 mi) of white water ranging from class III(+) to I. The town of Monschau
928-571: The thinner crust between it and the Market Weighton Axis was crumpled between the blocks leaving low ridges of wet land between strips of water such as the Widmerpool Gulf . On the wet land, the coal fields of Leicestershire , Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire were deposited. These extend further east but are now at ever greater depth. At the modern east Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire coast for example, their upper surface
960-594: Was deformed and metamorphosed during the Cadomian orogeny ( Ediacaran , about 600 million years ago ) and Caledonian orogeny ( Silurian , about 420 million years ago ). This basement is almost everywhere overlain by younger sedimentary rocks , except for some places in the southwest of England and in Wales. The continent Avalonia was until the Ordovician ( 465 million years ago ) part of
992-413: Was heavily polluted by the tailings of many German coal mines. Neither fish nor other organisms could be found, and it was dangerous to swim in the river. Foam flakes regularly flooded parts of the city of Roermond. After the closure of the mines, the waste water treatment in Germany and the Netherlands greatly improved. Only the lower part of the river is still contaminated. The water in the upper part of
London–Brabant Massif - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-713: Was the code name for the clearing of the Roer Triangle. It was conducted by the 2nd British Army between 14 and 26 January 1945. The objective was to drive the German 15th Army back across the Rivers Roer and Wurm and move the frontline further into Germany. The operation was carried out under command of the XII Corps by three divisions. The operation is relatively unknown despite the sometimes fierce battles that were fought for each and every village and hamlet within
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