Image:Annotated Scafell range.jpg, 300px, 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 Scafells, also known as the Scafell Massif, 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, par ...

in the western

English Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

, 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 volcano eruption. When large volumes of magma are erupted over a short time, structural support for the rock above the magma chamber is ...

volcano A volcano is a rupture 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 often found where tectonic plates are ...

. Fells in the range include Scafell, England's tallest mountain

Scafell Pike Scafell Pike () is the highest and the most prominent mountain in England, at an elevation of above sea level. It is located in the Lake District National Park, in Cumbria, and is part of the Southern Fells and the Scafell massif. Scafell Pi ...

Broad Crag Broad Crag is a fell in the English Lake District. It is the fifth-highest peak in England at a height of . The mountain was gifted to the National Trust in 1923 by the Fell and Rock Climbing Club. The peak forms part of the Scafell chain, an ...

and

Ill Crag Ill Crag is a fell in the English Lake District. At , it is the fourth-highest Hewitt and Nutalls anGoogle Search "Highest Mountains In England" peak in England, after Scafell Pike, Sca Fell, and Helvellyn. Ill Crag overlooks Eskdale and has sp ...

Great End Great End is the most northerly mountain in the 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 north face r ...

Lingmell Lingmell is a fell in the English Lake District, standing above the village of Wasdale Head. It is an outlier on the north-west flank of Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain. Topography Although standing in the shadow of its taller paren ...

and

Slight Side Slight Side is a fell in the English Lake District it stands 25 kilometres east southeast of the town of Whitehaven and reaches a height of 762 m (2,499 ft). Slight Side lies at the south western edge of the Scafells, Scafell Massif, a ...

are also usually included within the definition. These hills form part of the

Southern Fells Image:Annotated Scafell range.jpg, 300px, The Scafells rect 23 372 252 419 Slight Side, Slight Side (762 m) rect 173 794 560 834 Sca Fell, Scafell East Buttress rect 707 787 893 861 Esk Pike, Esk Pike or Crag (885 m) rect 245 303 409 358 Sca Fe ...

Geology

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

, the Scafells 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. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start ...

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Era, a length or span of time * Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...

over 400 million years ago. This volcano as well as all other volcanoes of the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

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. 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 on ...

formed during the last stages of volcanic activity at Scafells.

Gallery

File:Scafells from Bow Fell.JPG, Scafells from

Bowfell Bowfell (named ''Bow Fell'' on Ordnance Survey maps) is a pyramid-shaped mountain lying at the heart of the English Lake District, in the Southern Fells area. It is the sixth-highest mountain in the Lake District and one of the most popular ...

References

{{reflist Calderas of England Fells of the Lake District Ordovician volcanoes VEI-7 volcanoes