Cave passages formed by a newly recognised type of mass movement: a gull tear (UBSS Proceedings v.24(2))

Abstract: Sally's Rift is the most extensive landslip cave in the Great Oolite limestone of the Cotswolds. The cave was originally thought to be a simple rectilinear network, but new calculations show that it cannot have formed by mass movement in any single direction. A sequence of gulls leads almost directly into the hillside along an axis of mass movement spreading, whereby the rock masses on either side have moved in divergent directions – a gull tear.