Limestone pavement

Formation of a limestone pavement

Conditions for limestone pavements are created when an advancing glacier scrapes away overburden and exposes horizontally bedded limestone, with subsequent glacial retreat leaving behind a flat, bare surface. Limestone is slightly soluble in water and especially in acid rain, so corrosive drainage along joints and cracks in the limestone can produce slabs called clints isolated by deep fissures called grikes or grykes (terms derived from a northern English dialect). If the grykes are fairly straight and the clints are uniform in size, the resemblance to man-made paving stones is striking, but they are not necessarily so regular. Limestone pavements that develop beneath a mantle of topsoil usually exhibit more rounded forms.