The following intriguing article appeared in the Mail Online of Wednesday 22nd July 2009 and can be viewed on –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201388/The-Grand-Canyon-Durham-Flooding-heavy-rain-carves-vast-trench-farm-land.html
The article was headed –
The Durham Grand Canyon: Flooding after heavy rain carves vast trench in farm land.
This is part of what was reported –
‘On Friday night (17th July), it was a perfectly ordinary, perfectly flat, cornfield. By Saturday morning, it was riven in two by a vast trench up to 100ft across, 15ft deep and 200 yards long. The enormous gully – so big that locals have called it ‘the Grand Canyon of Durham’ – is believed to have been formed in a matter of minutes when millions of gallons of floodwater from surrounding farmland suddenly tore through the soil towards the River Wear. Simultaneously, the high waters of the Wear had broken the banks at exactly the same point – and in an instant, a new tributary to the river was formed. Luckily, no buildings were near enough to be affected. Now the floodwater has drained away and the river has returned to its normal level, an almost empty canyon remains, with just a trickle of water at the bottom. It is an extraordinary illustration of the power of nature – and shows that enough water, flowing with enough force, doesn’t need decades to carve a path through the earth. There was speculation that the flood had exposed the original course of the Wear, which was altered by monks in the 15th or 16th century. But Durham University geomorphologist Jeff Warburton, 47 – who lives a couple of hundred yards from the new canyon – said it was not the ancient river bed, simply a new gully formed by a vast amount of water’.
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