The Malvern Line or Malvern Lineament is the name applied to a north-south aligned

lineament ''See also Line (geometry)'' A lineament is a linear feature in a landscape which is an expression of an underlying geological structure such as a fault. Typically a lineament will appear as a fault-aligned valley, a series of fault or fold-ali ...

which runs through the

Malvern Hills The Malvern Hills are in the English counties of Worcestershire, Herefordshire and a small area of northern Gloucestershire, dominating the surrounding countryside and the towns and villages of the district of Malvern. The highest summit aff ...

of western

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and extends southwards towards

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

and northwards past Stourport. It consists of a series of faults and folds which have the effect of bringing old Malvernian rocks to the surface. Being largely hard

igneous Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...

rocks, the Malverns Complex rocks have resisted

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is dis ...

better than those of the surrounding countryside and result in a striking line of hills of which the Malvern Hills are the most impressive. The

Abberley Hills Abberley is a village and civil parish in north west Worcestershire, England. It is situated on the northern slopes of Abberley Hill, which is tall, between the River Severn and River Teme. The village had a population of 830 in 2001. Locati ...

to their north also form a part of this lineament. This line is considered to mark the edge of two

terrane In geology, a terrane (; in full, a tectonostratigraphic terrane) is a crust (geology), crust fragment formed on a tectonic plate (or broken off from it) and Accretion (geology), accreted or "Suture (geology), sutured" to crust lying on another pla ...

s - two once separate fragments of the Earth's crust now joined as one - the Wrekin Terrane to the west and the Charnwood Terrane to the east.British Geological Survey 1:50K map sheets 182 'Droitwich', 199 'Worcester', 216 'Tewkesbury', 234 'Gloucester'

References

{{reflist Plate tectonics Structural geology Geology of England