The Pendleton Fault, sometimes called the Irwell Valley Fault, stretches for about from

Bolton Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...

in Greater Manchester along the Irwell Valley through Pendleton to Poynton in Cheshire, running northwest–southeast. The fault throws the beds of the Middle Coal Measures of the Manchester Coalfield by on its western side. The fault is active, and movement has caused

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

s. An earthquake of intensity 6 on the

Richter scale The Richter scale (), also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale, is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, and pr ...

that occurred on 10 February 1889 was felt over an area of . Lesser shocks were recorded in the early 20th century, in 1931 and 1944.

Coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

in the Irwell Valley between Bolton and Pendleton may account for small movements, although all mines in the area closed in 1929 and no coal has been mined since. In 2007 a swarm of six earthquakes felt across the region was attributed to the fault.

References

Notes Bibliography * * {{refend Geology of England Geology of Cheshire Seismic faults of the United Kingdom