The Scafells, or Scafell Massif, are a range of

fells A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of Man, parts ...

in the Cumbrian Mountains of England, made up of the remains of a

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

. Fells in the range include Broad Crag,

Ill Crag Ill Crag is a fell in the England, English Lake District. At , it is the fourth-highestLists of mountains and hills in the British Isles, Hewitt and Nutalls anGoogle Search "Highest Mountains In England" peak in England, after Scafell Pike, Sca ...

, Scafell, and

Scafell Pike Scafell Pike () is a mountain in the Lake District region of Cumbria, England. It has an elevation of above sea level, making it the highest and the most prominent mountain in England. The mountain is part of the Scafell massif, an extinct v ...

, England's tallest mountain.

Great End Great End is the most northerly mountain in the Sca Fell, Scafell chain, in the English Lake District. From the south it is simply a lump continuing this chain. From the north, however, it appears as an immense mountain, with an imposing nor ...

, Lingmell and

Slight Side Slight Side is a fell in the English Lake District it stands east southeast of the town of Whitehaven and reaches a height of . Slight Side lies at the south western edge of the Scafells, Scafell Massif, a crescent of high ground which include ...

are also usually included within the definition. These hills form part of the Southern Fells. Image:Annotated Scafell range.jpg, left, 400px, The Scafell range as seen looking west from Crinkle Crags. (Interactive labels.) rect 23 372 252 419 Slight Side (762m) rect 173 794 560 834 Scafell East Buttress rect 707 787 893 861 Esk Crag or Buttress (c. 750m) rect 245 303 409 358 Sca Fell (964m) rect 408 238 637 280 Mickledore (c.840m) rect 544 174 826 213 South Summit (c. 950m) rect 706 310 928 355 Scafell Pike (978m) rect 870 238 1108 286 Broad Crag (934m) rect 1043 308 1198 360 Ill Crag (935m) rect 1238 311 1446 351 Great End (910m) rect 0 0 1444 1085 Click hyperlink or button to expand desc none

Geology

Geologically Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth s ...

, parts of the Scafell massif are the remnants of a

that erupted in the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

period over 400 million years ago. This volcano, geologically described as a

and an "inverse

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with ...

", as well as all other volcanoes of the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

, are long since extinct.Geology of England and Wales, pp118ff
/ref> The volcano is an example of a piecemeal

whose collapse, in contrast with a wholesale piston-like subsidence, occurred in a piece-by-piece fashion along faults and whose measurements suggest formation from an eruption of a VEI-7 magnitude, comparable to the

Minoan eruption The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini) circa 1600 BCE. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on near ...

Santorini Santorini (, ), officially Thira (, ) or Thera, is a Greek island in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from the mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago formed by the Santorini caldera. It is the southern ...

in the Greek Aegean in c. 1600 BCE. The Scafell

dacite Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. ...

, between Little Narrowcove and Aaron Crags, is a

lava dome In volcanology, a lava dome is a circular, mound-shaped protrusion resulting from the slow extrusion of viscous lava from a volcano. Dome-building eruptions are common, particularly in convergent plate boundary settings. Around 6% of eruptions ...

formed during the last stages of volcanic activity at Scafell massif.

English Munros

An English Munro (or ''Furth'') is a mountain summit that exceeds and has a

prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...

of more than . In England there are six peaks that meet that criteria and four of those are part of the Scafell Massif. (‡) Have the prominence of over to qualify as a "Real Munro".

Protected area

The Scafells are situated within a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

(SSSI) designated in 1988 called ''Scafell Pikes''. This protected area includes

Seathwaite Fell Seathwaite Fell is an area of the Lake District in Cumbria, England. It stands above the hamlet of the same name at the head of Borrowdale. Position of the summit The fell is very rugged with several small tops along the summit of the r ...

, Great Slack,

, Long Pike, III Crag, Symonds Knott, Slight Side and

and the area of this SSSI is 1102 hectares. This area is protected because of the

lichens A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

found in the summit boulder field.

Details of Scafell Pikes SSSI

The summit boulder field is the highest in England and is covered in shattered rock debris.

Lichens A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

on these rocks include species from '' Rhizocarpon'', '' Umbilicaria'', ''

Sphaerophorus ''Sphaerophorus'' a genus of lichenized fungi in the order (biology), order Lecanorales. Members of ''Sphaerophorus'' are List of common names of lichen genera, commonly called ball lichens, coral lichens,Field Guide to California Lichens, Steph ...

'', ''

Lecidea ''Lecidea'' is a genus of crustose lichen, crustose lichens with a carbon-black ring or outer margin (exciple) around the fruiting body disc (apothecium), usually (or always) found growing on (Saxicolous lichen, saxicolous) or in (Endolithic lich ...

'' and '' Cladonia'' (species of interest include ''

Rhizocarpon geographicum ''Rhizocarpon geographicum'' (the map lichen) is a species of lichen, which grows on rocks in mountainous areas of low air pollution. Each lichen is a flat patch bordered by a black line of fungal hyphae. These patches grow adjacent to each other ...

'', '' Umbilicaria cylindrica and'' ''

Sphaerophorus fragilis ''Sphaerophorus'' a genus of lichenized fungi in the order (biology), order Lecanorales. Members of ''Sphaerophorus'' are List of common names of lichen genera, commonly called ball lichens, coral lichens,Field Guide to California Lichens, Steph ...

''). The moss species '' Rhacomitrium lanuginosum'' and the

beetle Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

'' Nebria nivalis'' have also been recorded here. The crags of

have alpine herbs such as roseroot, alpine cinquefoil, alpine saw-wort and bearberry, as well as

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...

. To the north of

herbs on rock ledges include

mountain sorrel ''Oxyria digyna'' (mountain sorrel, wood sorrel, Alpine sorrel or Alpine mountain-sorrel) is a species of flowering plant in the buckwheat family (Polygonaceae).Sierra Nevada Wildflowers, Karen Wiese, 2nd ed., 2013, p. 108 It is native to arctic ...

, alpine lady's mantle, alpine meadow-rue, starry saxifrage, purple saxifrage, mossy saxifrage and mountain saxifrage. The ferns lemon-scented fern ('' Oreopteris''), beech fern, oak fern, scaly male-fern and broad buckler fern have also been recorded here. North of

is Sprinkling Tarn and Styhead Tarn that have aquatic plants including intermediate water-starwort, quillwort, shoreweed, floating bur-reed and awlwort. Water lobellia is found in Styhead Tarn. The wet habitats of

support populations of a

butterfly Butterflies are winged insects from the lepidopteran superfamily Papilionoidea, characterized by large, often brightly coloured wings that often fold together when at rest, and a conspicuous, fluttering flight. The oldest butterfly fossi ...

called the small mountain ringlet.

Land ownership in Scafell Pikes SSSI

All of the land within Scafell Pikes SSSI is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

Accident black spots

The traverse between England's two highest summit's via Mickledore col requires considerable care and caution. The route via Broad Stand is best avoided because it is dangerous. There is a safer but longer route available via Foxes Tarn.

Gallery

File:Scafells from Bow Fell.JPG, Scafell massif from Bowfell

References

Notes

{{notelist Calderas of England Fells of the Lake District Ordovician volcanoes Ordovician calderas Stratovolcanoes VEI-7 volcanoes Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Cumbria Protected areas of Cumbria