The Mysterious Geography Of Britain And Europe

I have a mystery for Britain to ponder and it has nothing to do with how Stonehenge was built. An even greater mystery is how the entire country came to have the geographic configuration that it does.

The tectonic collision of the plate containing Greece and Italy being pushed northward into the Eurasian Plate by the African Plate explains the Alps Mountains and the plateau across the central part of northern Europe. This small plate collided with Europe in a way congruent to India colliding with Asia. This arrangement of plates is why earthquakes are rare in north Africa and northern Europe, they happen in Italy or Greece instead, since the collision is actually still ongoing. I have concluded that this impact can explain the puzzling geography of Britain also.

(Note-by the way, there is no finer example of how layers of rock are forced upward by tectonic collision than the Rock of Gibraltar.)

The drift of tectonic plates over millions of years was generally in a northward direction. But the forcing of the small plate containing Italy and Greece into the Eurasian Plate by the African Plate added a westward element to the thrust also. It is easy to see that the Iberian Peninsula, containing Spain and Portugal, was also pushed into Europe by the African Plate. The result of the collision is the Pyrenees Mountains along the border of France and Spain, as well as the Rock of Gibraltar. But these mountains are nearly directly aligned east-west, indicating that the force of the collision was virtually entirely northward.

Now let's take a look at the puzzling geography of England and Wales. Here is a map link http://www.maps.google.com/ but a physical world altas would probably be better.

How on earth did this geographical configuration come to be? It is not necessary to be an expert in geology to ponder this, only to have a sense of simple physics.

The Pennine Mountains are a range that run north-south through northern England and terminating at Nottingham-Derby-Stoke-on-Trent. Meanwhile, the mountains of Wales run parallel to the Pennines some distance to the west but extend about 30 km north of the latitude at which the Pennines terminate at their southern end. Both of these mountain ranges are very old, considerably older than the Alps.

The conclusion that I have come to and would like to introduce is that the Pennines and the Welsh mountains were once a single range that were split apart by the great tectonic collision in southern Europe. We can see that the peninsula in northern France on which Cherbourg is located, and which is high ground, is at the same longitude as the Pennines. I claim that the northwestward thrust of the tectonic collision dislodged the Welsh Mountians northward and westward. The Pennines remain approximately in the original location.

If we look at the main axis of the Alps Mountains, which resulted from the tectonic collision, and see how it is from southwest to northeast, it is easy to see that this dislodgement of the Welsh Mountains westward and northward from the Pennines makes perfect sense. Furthermore, the Cotswold and Chiltern Hills have the ideal southwest-northeast axis that they would have if they were formed as a result of this tectonic push. The Cotswold Hills are across the eastern part of Gloucestershire and the Chiltern Hills are northwest of London.

If this is not enough evidence of this collision scenario that fits perfectly together, let's move on to the Mendip Hills just west of Bristol. These hills are lower than the Cotswold Hills and are at a right angle to them by axis, from northwest to southeast. What could create two ranges of hills, not far from each other and at right angles to one another? These ranges of hills are very difficult to conceive as being glacial in origin.

The Mendip Hills are the result of tectonic friction as one piece of land rubbed against another while this tectonic collision was taking place. This is why they are lower in scale than the Cotswold Hills, which were formed by direct collision and are at right angles to them. How else is there to explain this configuration?

I cannot find any reference to this collision scenario but anyone can see that all of the lines and angles fit so perfectly. The article "Geology of Britain" on http://www.wikipedia.org/ gives a good explanation of the island's geology but makes no mention of anything like this.

About half of England, southeast of the line from The Wash on the east coast to the Bristol Channel in the west, is the "new land". There is some differences in geological character between this and the other half as can easily be seen in the colour (color)-coded map in the wikipedia article. Somerset, Devon and, Cornwall, in the southwest of England, were part of the "original land" and this is why the Mendip Hills were formed by tectonic friction as the "new land" moved in parallel to this area.

We can see by the inlet to the east of London that Britain is composed of several pieces of land that were jammed together and that the fit is not quite perfect. But this collision scenario resulted in Britain gaining more land than it would have otherwise. With glaciers converging on the island from both northwest and northeast during the ice ages, had this rectonic collision not occurred, Britain today would likely be as narrow as northern England adjacent to the Pennines is.

I have further proof that this is what took place and how it explains the mysterious geography of Britain. This further proof revolves around parallel and coaxial lines that can be seen today in the ranges of hills in northern Europe.

I described above that the directional alignment of the Mendip Hills, just south of Bristol, from northwest to southeast indicated that they were the result of friction caused by movement during the collision which separated the Welsh Mountains from the Pennines. To support this, I would like to point out that there is another range of hills which are longer than the Mendip Hills and which form a straight line with them. This range is to be found in northern France, east of Rouen and north of Paris. I have looked all over, but have been unable to find out the name of these French hills.

These two hill ranges, formed by friction in the collision, must have been a continuous range at one time before the same glaciation route which carved the English Channel mostly erased it. The land to the north and east of the line formed by these two hill ranges moved to the northwest due to the collision, resulting in friction with the land to the south and west of the line. The range of hills in France is nearly perfectly parallel to the Seine River.

In central Germany, I notice that there are also two ranges of hills which form a straight line with one another and a parallel line with the line across France and England formed by those hills.

The Thuringer Wald runs southeast to northwest from the Sudeten Mountains, which form the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. This range of hills continues for a considerable distance to the area of the town of Eisenach. After a long distance, the midpoint of which is the City of Kassel, the hills continue again in a straight line as the Teutoburger Wald. These hills are much lower than the Thuringer Wald and are more like the hills in France and England.

Now, notice the angle of the Italian peninsula relative to the cardinal directions. The angles formed by the two parallel lines described above are virtually identical to it. The directional line that the Welsh Mountains would have followed if they had once been the southward extension of the Pennines, but had been tectonically displaced, can be seen to be an extension of these lines.

In natural history, straight lines such as these require special explanation and parallel straight lines require even more special explanation. What can this be but proof of my theory that the Welsh Mountains and the Pennines were once a single range, but were split by the tectonic impact on Europe, which also formed the Alps? Notice that the main directional axis of the Alps, from southwest to northeast, is perpendicular to these other lines.

I showed that the Welsh Mountains and the Pennines must had once been one chain. The chain was split in two by the movement of the Welsh Mountains westward during the shift in the terrain caused by the tectonic collision of Italy with Europe, which also produced the Alps.

The shift in the land of Europe to the northwest produced two lines of friction hills parallel to the northwestward direction of the land shift. As I pointed out, the Mendip Hills southwest of Bristol continue in a line with the long line of hills north of Paris and east of Rouen. Also, the parallel line of hills through Germany in a line from the westernmost point of the Czech-German border through Eisenach and Kassel.

Now, let's take this much further and see some amazing things about the physical geography of western Europe that I cannot see have ever been pointed out.

There are two great valleys in western Europe, both are long and broad and host major rivers. The Rhone Valley runs north-south in southeastern France along the line of Dijon-Lyon-Marseilles. The Rhone Valley is basically the gap between this section of the Alps and the Massif Central, the vast plateau region in southeastern France.

The Rhine Valley is to the north, and somewhat to the east of the Rhone Valley. It runs along the French-German border and along to the industrial heartland of Germany, the Ruhr. The Rhine Valley is along the line of Strasbourg in France, Karlsruhe in Germany and then on to Mannheim and Frankfurt-Am-Main.

Here is what I notice that I find so amazing: Look at the map of Britain, at how the Welsh Mountains appear to have once been a part of the Pennines. The two mountain chains would form a straight line, except that the Welsh Mountains have been shifted westward.

Now, look at the map of south-central Europe. Notice that the relative positions of the Rhine and Rhone Valleys is identical to that of the Pennines and the Welsh Mountains in Britain. The Rhone Valley was shifted westward by the tectonic impact of Italy with the continent, in the same way that the Welsh Mountains were.

Is this amazing, or what? It proves my scenario to be correct.

Next, on a physical geography map showing both Germany and Britain, follow the line of friction hills that I described from the westernmost point of the Czech-German border through Eisenach and Kassel, and continue northwestward. You will find that the line ends up at the southern end of the Pennine Mountains, where the Welsh Mountains were split and shifted westward.

Then, in the same way, follow the line formed by the Mendip Hills and the hills north of Paris and east of Rouen, and continue across France to the southeast. This line ends up at the northern end of the Rhone Valley.

Thus, there are three shift zones in western Europe that were produced by the tectonic collision of Italy with the continent. 1) North and east of the line of friction hills from the westernmost point of the Czech-German border to the southernmost point of the Pennines. 2) Between that line and the line of friction hills from the Mendip Hills to the northernmost point of the Rhone Valley. 3) South of that line to the Pyrenees Mountains, which are not only the result of the collision of the Iberian Peninsula with Europe, but are also friction hills as a result of this shift. Notice that the outer hills on the northeast side of the Pyrenees form a straight line that may be the result of this shifting.

The more to the south the shift zone, the greater was the shift. The northernmost zone may not have shifted at all. The Welsh Mountains are in the middle shift zone and the Rhone Valley is in the southernmost shift zone.

I was really pleased to recently notice something about the geography of south Wales that fit with, and confirmed, this hypothesis. There is a puzzling mystery in this area that is neatly explained hereby. It concerns the scenic Brecon Beacons, which is the series of mountain peaks in an east-west line.

The mystery is that, if the mountains of Wales are aligned mainly north-south, why would Brecon Beacons be aligned east-west?

There is a good article about Brecon Beacons on www.wikipedia.org . This is the official web site of Brecon Beacons: www.breconbeacons.org and it has a map showing the position within Britain so that it can be seen how the peaks form an east-west line. This is a scenic holiday area as shown on www.breconcottages.com .

Do not be concerned if you cannot pronounce the Welsh names, relatively few people can. I am mostly English by ethnicity, but I was born within a few km of Wales and have some Welsh ancestry and I cannot properly pronounce the names either. The letter "w" is a vowel in Welsh so that the city of Cwmbran is pronounced "Coom-bran". Double letters are used for certain sounds in Welsh, such as ff, ll and, dd. I have seen the language only on signs in Wales and have never heard it actually spoken, although it is in the remote areas of north Wales that are considered as the "real" Wales.

I introduced the idea that the Welsh Mountains and the Pennines, in the northern half of England, were once one range. Both are aligned in the same north-south direction, but the Welsh Mountains are shifted some distance to the west. This was really puzzling, but then I noticed that exactly the same pattern is found in the Rhine and Rhone Valleys of western Europe. The two valleys are aligned in the same north-south direction but the Rhone Valley, like the Welsh Mountains, is shifted some distance to the west.

Futhermore, there is a pair of geological lines across western Europe that border the zone where the shift of the Welsh Mountains must have taken place. As I pointed out, the line to the southern end of the Welsh Mountains is seen as a line of hills across northern France that are north of Paris and east of Rouen. The line continues on the south coast of England as the Southampton Water, the natural waterway that runs between Southampton and the Isle of Wight. The line then continues as the Mendip Hills to the southwest of Bristol. Remember that the English Channel, which separates England from France, is not geological but is a shallow glacial raceway that was carved during the last ice age.

Here is a map link, although a physical geography atlas may be better: www.maps.google.com .

This entire shift is easily explained, of course, by the tectonic collision of Italy with Europe which also formed the Alps Mountains.

By the way, the correct names of the Welsh Mountains is the Cambrian Mountains. I have always referred to them as the Welsh Mountains and this is not entirely incorrect since Cambria is the old name for Wales, just as Albion is the old name for England and Caledonia is the old name for Scotland.

It was this tectonic collision that displaced the six peaks of Brecon Beacons so that they are aligned east-west, even though the Welsh Mountains as a whole are aligned north-south. Wales is more mountainous in the south, in the general area of Brecon Beacons. This is partially explained as the pressure from the tectonic collision being unequal, and greater in the south than in the north.

Furthermore, I have noticed that the famed Rhondda Valley of south Wales is actually an extension of the geological line described above. It is aligned perfectly as a continuation of the Mendip Hills, across the Bristol Channel. There is an article about this valley on www.wikipedia.org . The Rhondda Valley actually aligns with, and "points" to the western extent of Brecon Beacons. There is a map in the article that shows the directional alignment of the valley.

Here is a physical geography map of Wales. Brecon Beacons can be easily seen as the east-west alignment of mountains in southeastern Wales. The Rhondda Valley is the line of low area to the south of it: www.freeworldmaps.net/europe/united-kingdom/wales/map.html .

In "Coal Made Really Simple", on this blog, I explained that these are very old mountains which have been eroded over time. Coal originates with luxuriant plant life, which becomes buried before it can decay, and plants thrive on water. The reason for the vast amount of coal that there is in south Wales is probably because these mountains were once high enough to block the weather so that the rain fell there.

The origin of the Welsh Mountains and the Pennines, forming a straight north-south line, is explained in "The Story Of Planet Earth" on this blog. This line is an old section of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. If we follow the north-south line of this ridge in the south Atlantic Ocean, and continue northward, we arrive at Britain in the alignment of the Pennines. This line can be seen to continue to the north of Britain with Denmark's Faroe Islands.

THE FORMER CAMBRIA ISLAND

The scenario presented in "The Mysterious Geography Of Britain And Europe" is that the Welsh (Cambrian) Mountains were once one range with the Pennines of northern England. The tectonic collision of Italy, pushed by Africa to the south, with Europe is known to be the tectonic collision which formed the Alps. It also displaced some of the land of Europe to the northwest. I find it amazing that the displacement of the Welsh Mountains from the Pennines to the west, and somewhat to the north, is a mirror image of the displacement of the Rhone Valley, relative to the Rhine Valley, on continental Europe.

I would like to add more to this scenario today. Notice that, on the northwestern corner of Wales, there are two peninsulas which are at right angles to one another. In fact, it appears on the map as a man wearing a hat pointing to the southwest. The northernmost of the two peninsulas is actually an island because it is separated from the mainland by a narrow strait, and is known as Anglesey. The long peninsula aligned from southwest to northeast is the Llyn Peninsula. Llyn is a Welsh name and is not pronounced in Welsh as it appears in English.

(In the Welsh language there are three letters that are written as double letters, "dd", "ff" and, "ll". "W" is a vowel in Welsh so that the city of Cwmbran is pronounced as "Coom-bran").

Here is the map link that I usually use, with the satellite imagery and Google Street View, or you can use a physical geography world atlas. You can drag the map with the mouse and zoom in and out: www.maps.google.com .

Anglesey has a mountainous north coast, with lower land in the south. The Llyn Peninsula also has low mountains in the north but lower land to the south. Both are well-covered by Google Street View, if you want to have a look around. There are articles about both on www.wikipedia.org .

On my travel photos blog of Europe, www.markmeekphotos.blogspot.com , in the posting "Leaving Holyhead Port, Wales" is a photo that I took from a departing ferry with the mountainous northern part of Anglesey in the background. Remember that the photo blogs were completed before Blogspot updated the system. The list of posts on the right side does not show all of the postings. You must click on the one at the bottom, and more will appear. The final posting on the photos of Europe blog should be "Notre Dame Cathedral Door and Arc de Triomphe, Paris. On the blog of North America, the final posting is "Tijuana, Mexico".

The conclusion to which I have arrived is that these two peninsulas were once an island, similar to the Isle of Man which lies directly to the north. Both islands consisted of mountainous spines with lower land on each side. A logical name for this former island would be Cambria Island. Cambria is the old name for Wales, just as Albion is for England and Caledonia for Scotland. When a section of the Pennine Mountains was broken away, by the tectonic impact going on in Europe, and driven to the west and somewhat to the north to form the Welsh (Cambrian) Mountains of today, it collided with Cambria Island and split it in two. One piece is seen today as Anglesey, and the other as the Llyn Peninsula.

Both the former Cambria Island and the present Isle of Man are almost certainly fragments of the Original Impact Line that was described in "The Story Of Planet Earth", on the this blog.

If this were not the case, then why would Anglesey be separated from the mainland of Wales by a narrow strait, which appears no wider than a river? It is known as the Menai Strait. This is not a river which formed by drainage, so why would this strait be there if not for this scenario? The thing that is so striking is how the Menai Strait, between Anglesey and the mainland, forms a line that is perfectly parallel to the long axis of the Llyn Peninsula.

Lines of magma emergence are also a factor here. We know that the parallel peninsulas in southwest Ireland are the result of a line of emergence, and in the satellite imagery there can be seen to be a wide trench in the shallow area of the seafloor to the southwest of these parallel peninsulas in southwest Ireland. Notice that the Llyn Peninsula and the Strait of Menai, between Anglesey and the mainland, are directly in line with these parallel peninsulas in southwest Ireland.

The Wikipedia article on the Llyn Peninsula tells us that it has a mix of rock structure, both of volcanic and also non-volcanic origin but not primarily sedimentary raised seafloor. This is what we would expect if it was a piece of the Original Impact Line, the non-volcanic, in contact with a line of magma emergence.

This makes it more clear how the present configuration came to be. The former Cambria Island was resting against a southwest-northeast line of magma emergence in a line with the parallel peninsulas in southwest Ireland. Wales, driven to the west and somewhat to the north, collided with the island tectonically. The southwestern part of the island remained where it is, resting against the line of emergence and with the resulting pressure drawing some magma emergence. It is the Llyn Peninsula of today.

The northeastern part of the island was broken away from the southwestern part, and pushed to the northwest. This is what we see today as Anglesey. The line of magma emergence then re-emerged as the narrow Menai Strait and separated Anglesey from the mainland which had pushed it to where it is. This is why the Menai Strait forms a perfectly parallel straight line with the long axis of the Llyn Peninsula. it is against the same line of emergence that the peninsula is resting.

NORTH SEA OIL AND GAS DEPOSITS

Some time back, I pointed out how the salt deposits and patterns of sinkholes across the world supported my geological theories because both are found in terrain that was seafloor that was forced upward by tectonic movement. Today, I would like to point out how the pattern of oil and gas deposits in the North Sea supports the geological scenario in "The Mysterious Geography Of Britain And Europe" that the Welsh (Cambrian) Mountains and the Pennines, which run north-south through northern England, were once a single mountain range until the Cambrian Mountains were broken off and pushed somewhat westward and northward by the tectonic impact of Italy, driven also by the movement of Africa, into Europe, which also formed the Alps.

One amazing thing that I pointed out in that posting is that you can see an exact parallel to the westward shift of the Cambrian Mountains on the European continent in how the Rhone Valley has been displaced from the Rhine Valley, to the north and with which it would otherwise form a continuous line, and moved somewhat westward.

We saw in the posting "Oil Made Really Simple", on this blog, how oil and gas collects, over millions of years, in underground gaps between rock strata which formed by tectonic collisions. In my main geological theory "The Story Of Planet Earth", in the section "Other Lines Of Emergence", we saw how the Pennines, the main north-south mountain range through England, are what is known as a longitudinal line of magma emergence on the earth. Land moving tectonically to the northwest, collided with the Pennines and this is what forced layers of rock strata upward to create the gaps in which North Sea oil and gas are found today.

This is why there are periodic sinkholes in the south and east of England. It is because this is seafloor that was forced upward by this clash of tectonic movement. Such terrain tends to be made of chalk or limestone, which can be gradually dissolved by water to form sinkholes. The flat terrain of the East Anglia area of eastern England and that of the Netherlands, on the opposite side of the North Sea, is also the result of seafloor being forced upward by this tectonic movement.

In the following map of the North Sea oil and gas deposits, it is easy to see that there is a heavy concentration of such deposits along an axis from southeast to northwest between the Netherlands and northern England. This is because the axis represents the direction in which the tectonic movement to the northwest was taking place, and the collision with the Pennines forced rock strata upward to leave underground gaps in which the oil and gas could collect over millions of years. Remember that the North Sea, like the other seas around Britain, Ireland and, northwestern Europe are shallow glacial seas that were once dry land.

Here is the map link: http://www.offshore-mag.com/content/dam/offshore/print-articles/Volume%2073/08/NorthSeaMap2013-071713Ads.pdf  The map scrolls from north to south.

Here is the map link that I usually use, with satellite imagery and Google Street View, but it does not show the oil deposits: www.maps.google.com .

But if we move to the south from the heavy concentration of oil deposits in the North Sea, we find no oil at all. Notice that this oil-free zone is directly in a line with the axis along which Wales would have been shifted to the west during the tectonic collision described above. This is because the pressure of the collision went into to breaking off a portion of the Pennine Mountain range, and shifting it to the west where it today forms the Welsh (or Cambrian) Mountains.

This would have forced seafloor upward into dry land, but would not have created the underground gaps in which oil and gas would have collected. To the north, when the tectonic movement met the more immovable Pennines, it did create gaps in the rock strata deep underground.

Now for another question. Notice on the map of oil deposits in the North Sea that there is also another area of deposit on the opposite side of England, in the sea along the coast to the north of Wales. Why would there be deposits here? But if this scenario is correct and Wales consists of a chain of mountains that were broken off the Pennines and forced westward, and somewhat northward, this explains this oilfield as the movement of Wales forced underlying rock strata upward to create the vast underground gaps in which oil and gas would collect over millions of years.

I see this as definite proof of the validity of this theory that the mountains of Wales were broken off the Pennines, and shifted westward and somewhat northward.

That is not all that there is to the fields of oil and gas deposits in the North Sea. Notice on the map how there is also a major deposit to the east of Scotland. It is aligned along approximately the same southeast to northwest axis as the major deposit to the south. but it extends right up to the coast of the northwestern part of Scotland.

In the main geological theory, in the posting on this blog "The Story of Planet Earth", we saw that the northern part of Scotland was a fragment of what I called the Original Impact Line. I theorized that it collided with the north-south longitudinal line of emergence, of which the Pennines are a part, and the impact caused it to break in two, along the straight line of Glen Mor that is the straight line that divides northern Scotland. This would have pushed back eastward the northwestern part of Scotland, so that it would have forced underlying rock strata upward, and this explains the oil and gas field in the North Sea to the east of Scotland and why the field extends right up to the coast of northwestern Scotland.

A while ago, I was looking in and around Liverpool Cathedral on Google Street View. I noticed that there is a low area adjacent to the cathedral, in which there is a graveyard. The sides of the low area have the unmistakable horizontal layering of the rock strata which indicates that it is former seafloor which must have been forced upward into dry land by some type of tectonic movement.

Liverpool is in England, but right at the north end of Wales. This fits perfectly with our scenario of the mountains of which Wales is composed being detached from the Pennines and being driven westward, and somewhat northward. The movement would have forced seafloor upward, to form dry land, as well as buckling the undersea rock layers so that oil could collect in the resulting gaps over millions of years.

We have seen that, when a piece of the Original Impact line ends up positioned over a magma line of emergence that it tends to spread the piece apart so that it forms a set of parallel peninsulas, in the process that I refer to as "tridentation". There are a number of places where we can see this. The Peloponessus, the peninsula which comprises the southern third of Greece, is perhaps the best example. Further north in Greece, there are a set of three parallel peninsulas at the city of Thessaloniki (St. Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians was the first book of the New Testament to be written). Another prominent example is the southwest of Ireland, where we see those familiar three extended peninsulas. The southeastern end of Baffin Island, in the Canadian Arctic, is another example.

It seems that another likely example, that I have not yet pointed out is the long and rocky peninsulas in the very southwest of Scotland. The mass of the southern portion of Scotland runs east-west and there is a bay which appears to continue on both the north side of this land mass, and also on the south side. The narrow bay on the north side is known as Loch Ryan, and hosts the ferry port of Stranraer.

I once took a ferry from here and remember wondering how such a long bay, resembling a fjord, formed in the midst of high surrounding terrain. The continuation of Loch Ryan on the southern side of the land mass of southwestern Scotland is much wider, and points directly to the gap at Liverpool between the Pennines and the Welsh (Cambrian) Mountains which formed when the mountains of Wales were broken off by the tectonic pressure, and shifted westward.

What I have concluded is that there was magma emergence activity still going on when the collision took place which shifted the Welsh Mountains westward. When the shift took place, it displaced the emergence line which then repositioned itself so that it went through this gap. This would mean that the Severn Vale, through which the river of that name flows, is the remnant of a minor line of emergence which spread the land apart to form the vale and which joins the line of the Bristol Channel in the west of Britain to the Wash in the east, as described in the supporting document of "The Story Of Planet Earth", "The Impact Theory Of Europe".

This helps to explain why the Isle of Man is located where it is. It is a piece of Original Impact Line, which likely broke off the piece comprising the northern part of Ireland and drifted gradually eastward with the momentum of the earth's rotation until it stopped when it impacted this line of emergence. This is much the same way that we can see the island of Corsica, which is also a fragment of the Original Impact Line, came to rest against the longitudinal line of emergence represented by the Rhine Valley to the north and the aligned north-south island of Sardinia to the south.

Finally, this collision scenario of shifting the mountains of Wales westward also provides a neat explanation for the Isle of Wight, on England's south coast. We saw that the straight line inlet at Southampton, adjacent to the Isle of Wight and known as the Southampton Water, forms a straight line with the Rhondda Valley of south Wales. This is because both were formed as a fracture line when the tectonic collision which forced the mountains of Wales westward took place.

In between the Southampton Water section and the Rhondda Valley, to the northwest, lies the flat area known as Salisbury Plain which hosts both Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. In a country where not many areas are flat, this tells us that the plain is seafloor that would have been forced upward by the shift. The Isle of Wight is simply a piece of land which broke off during this shift.

All of this shows that the location patterns of oilfields in the seas around Britain confirm both the theory of the mountains of Wales being detached from the Pennines by tectonic collision in Europe and shifted westward, and also gives credence to the broader theory of the Continental Asteroids and Lines of Emergence, as described in "The Story Of Planet Earth".