Limestone Scenery 01

This KS3 Geography quiz looks at limestone scenery. Limestone was formed from the remains of organisms that lived in ancient seas. Large areas of beautiful countryside in the UK consist of limestone formed when our country was under water. It forms in shallow tropical seas and so it shows that Britain was once much further south than it is today. This is possible because of continental drift created by the movement of the Earth's tectonic plates.

There are two types of limestone in Britain, or three if you count chalk which is a softer and more powdery rock. The oldest formed in the Carboniferous period between about 363 and 325 million years ago. It is hard, greyish-white in colour and in places contains a lot of fossils. This weathers to form characteristic scenery, which is referred to by geographers as limestone scenery. The other type of limestone is younger, being formed during the Jurassic period and typically forms rounded ridges, without the spectacular caves, gorges, cliffs and other features associated with the Carboniferous limestone.