Ebbor Gorge

Ebbor Gorge is a limestone gorge in Somerset, England, designated and notified in 1952 as a 63. 5ha biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Mendip Hills. It was donated to the National Trust in 1967 and is now managed by Natural England as a National Nature Reserve. The gorge was cut mostly into the Clifton Down Limestone, part of the Lower Carboniferous Pembroke GroupClifton Down Limestone] , by water. The site was occupied by humans in the Neolithic Era and their tools and flint arrow heads have been discovered, along with pottery from the Bronze Age. There are also fossils of small mammals from the Late Devensian. The nature reserve provides a habitat for a variety of flora and fauna, including flowers, butterflies and bats. GeologyEbbor Gorge lies on the southwest-facing slope of the Mendip Hills and consists of a steep-sided ravine cut into 350-million-year-old Carboniferous Limestone of the Dinantian. The gorge was cut into Clifton Down Limestone by meltwater in the Pleistocene Epoch. The lowest part of the gorge is formed in the Namurian Quartzitic Sandstone Group and the South Wales Lower Coal Measures, over which younger limestones have been thrust to the north-east, as demonstrated by the BGS maps (1: 50, 000 sheet 280, Wells). An example of the rare mineral mendipite was found at the head of the gorge.

Ebbor Gorge is a limestone gorge in Somerset, England, designated and notified in 1952 as a 63. 5ha biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in the Mendip Hills. It was donated to the National Trust in 1967 and is now managed by Natural England as a National Nature Reserve. The gorge was cut mostly into the Clifton Down Limestone, part of the Lower Carboniferous Pembroke GroupClifton Down Limestone] , by water. The site was occupied by humans in the Neolithic Era and their tools and flint arrow heads have been discovered, along with pottery from the Bronze Age. There are also fossils of small mammals from the Late Devensian. The nature reserve provides a habitat for a variety of flora and fauna, including flowers, butterflies and bats. GeologyEbbor Gorge lies on the southwest-facing slope of the Mendip Hills and consists of a steep-sided ravine cut into 350-million-year-old Carboniferous Limestone of the Dinantian. The gorge was cut into Clifton Down Limestone by meltwater in the Pleistocene Epoch. The lowest part of the gorge is formed in the Namurian Quartzitic Sandstone Group and the South Wales Lower Coal Measures, over which younger limestones have been thrust to the north-east, as demonstrated by the BGS maps (1: 50, 000 sheet 280, Wells). An example of the rare mineral mendipite was found at the head of the gorge.