View south-west along the fault line with Talyllyn Lake in the valley bottom

The Bala Fault is a SW-NE trending geological fault in Wales that extends offshore into Cardigan Bay. In the offshore area it is a major normal fault and forms the bounding structure to the Cardigan Bay Basin, with a fill including about 2,500 metres (8,200 ft) of Lias Group.[1] Onshore it is responsible for the lineament which runs through Bala and south of Cadair Idris to the coast at Tywyn. At its northeastern end it links to the similarly orientated Llanelidan Fault.

The fault is believed to have had two separate stages of movement. The horizons between the upper Carboniferous sequence and the underlying Jurassic sequence are parallel, so little rotational movement occurred. The second stage of movement happened in the middle-to-late Jurassic period, when strong rotation happened, up to 24 degrees.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ Brenchley, P.J.; Rawson, P.F. (2006). The geology of England and Wales (2 ed.). Geological Society. p. 339. ISBN 978-1-86239-200-7. Retrieved 8 December 2010.
  2. ^ Klaus Helbig (14 July 2015). Modeling The Earth For Oil Exploration: Final Report of the CEC's Geoscience I. Elsevier. pp. 249–. ISBN 978-1-4832-8793-5.

52°35′N 4°04′W / 52.59°N 4.07°W / 52.59; -4.07


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