Structural geology of Little Haven and The Settlands

The cliffs from Little Haven to Broad Haven (and northward) display a spectacular range of geological structures, folding, faulting and thrusting, mainly in the Lower Coal Measures. The relatively weak mudstone and shale-dominated sequences show much incompetent deformation: tight, thrusted and overturned folds, in contrast to the thicker, stronger, sandstones which have formed relatively open and concentric folds.

The northern limb of the Fox Hole anticline forms the southern headland of The Settlands bay. The style of folding is open and concentric, largely due to the thick (approx 70 m in total) and competent (strong) nature of the sandstone of which it is comprised. At the western end of the headland (nearest in view) the bedding dips at about 30° to the north, but this steepens along its length to become near-vertical at the far end of the headland, where the anticline is abruptly terminated by a fault.

The small anticline visible at the far left may possibly be comprised of the uppermost beds of the Fox Hole sandstone, but the correlation is very uncertain.

Folding, faulting and thrusting make determination of the exact stratigraphic correlation of the Fox Hole sandstone difficult, but it is reasonably clear that this is the lowest stratigraphic unit in the Little Haven area and is well down in the Lower Coal Measures sequence.