The Pendleton Fault, sometimes called the Irwell Valley Fault, stretches for about 20 miles from Bolton

Bolton

Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

 in Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...

 along the Irwell Valley

Irwell Valley

The Irwell Valley extends from the Forest of Rossendale in North West England, through to the cities of Salford and Manchester. The River Irwell runs through the valley, along with the River Croal.-Geology:...

 through Pendleton

Pendleton

-Places:United States*Pendleton, Indiana*Pendleton, Missouri*Pendleton, New York*Pendleton, Oregon*Pendleton, South Carolina*Pendleton County, Kentucky*Pendleton, Texas*Pendleton County, West Virginia*Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California...

 to Poynton

Poynton

Poynton is a town within the civil parish of Poynton-with-Worth, and the unitary authority area of Cheshire East, England. For ceremonial purposes it is part of the county of Cheshire. Poynton is located at the eastern most fringe of the Cheshire Plain, north of Macclesfield, south of Stockport...

 in Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, running northwest–southeast. The fault throws the beds of the Middle Coal Measures

Coal Measures

The Coal Measures is a lithostratigraphical term for the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. It represents the remains of fluvio-deltaic sediment, and consists mainly of clastic rocks interstratified with the beds of coal...

 of the Manchester Coalfield

Manchester Coalfield

The Manchester Coalfield is part of the South East Lancashire Coalfield. Its coal seams were laid down in the Carboniferous period and some easily accessible seams were worked on a small scale from the Middle Ages and extensively from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th...

 by 1000 feet (304.8 m) on its western side. The fault is active, and movement has caused earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

s. An earthquake of intensity 6 on the Richter scale

Richter magnitude scale

The expression Richter magnitude scale refers to a number of ways to assign a single number to quantify the energy contained in an earthquake....

 that occurred on 10 February 1889 was felt over an area of 2500 square miles (6,475 km²). Lesser shocks were recorded in the early 20th century, in 1931 and 1944. Coal mining

Coal mining

The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...

in the Irwell Valley between Bolton and Pendleton may account for small movements.