Phil Murphy in Dowkybottom Cave |
Are the caves in Yorkshire, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of years old ?
Phil Murphy attempts to answer this and is caught underground and not diving! In fact he was collecting sediments in Dowkybottom Cave in nearby Littondale. Dowkybottom is a truncated 'phreatic' cave. (A phreatic cave was formed underwater). It was once the main drain for a very large body of water. To be in the position it is on the hillside, means that it was formed before the present valleys and hills, because the formation of those valleys caused the water to drain out of the cave. Which means of course that it is very, very old! Just how old is the subject of debate. Phil hopes to shed some light on this by looking at the sediments left in the cave by the old 'river' - where they came from and what forces shaped them. |
