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The Black Country Geological Society

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The Black Country Geological Society NEWSLETTER No. 75. June, 1989 : Meetings are held at The Saracen's Head, Stone Street, V Dudley 7.30 for 8 o'clock. The Society does not provide personal accident: cover for members or visitors on field trips. You are strongly ad- vised to take out your own personal insurance to the level The which you feel appropriate. Schools and other bodies Black. arrange their own insurance as a matter of course. Country Forthcoming meetings : geological Monday : 19th June s Even 1ng field trip to Uffmoor Wood, near Halesowen. Woodland, wildlife and geology. Meet 7 p.m. in the car park, Uffmoor Lane, off the A456 road near Halesowen - Socie grid reference 950 815. Leader Alan Cutler. Uffmoor wood is an ancient woodland now owned and managed by the Woodland Trust. The wood is crossed by two streams which expose interesting geological strata. Monday : 3rd July: Barbecue at Oldewinford Hospital# Stourbridge. Details and booking form are again attached to this newsletter. Please send your money to Judith Shilston as soon as possible and before the closing date of Friday 16th June . Places are selling fast. We shall have a wide variety of live music to cater for all musical tastes and good food to taste from all the caterers! The event takes place in the grounds of Hanbury House at Oldswinford Hospital School. Directions: leave Stourbridge ring road left along Worcester Street and after 50 yards take the first left along Chapel Street and immediate first right up Hanbury Hill. Take the second left and the house m. Frog Road = New Road. tr AIL F.r M A. C.1T_ Sunday: 17th : Sepae e^r: Field Meeting gold. "Very precious metals in the British Warwickshire..; _ Southard Quarry and Isles" by R. her of Birmingham University. Burton Dassett`'Hills. Leader :-' John Crossling, Keeper of Geology at January, 1990 : Lecture by Spencer Mather Warwickshire Museum. Meet 10 a.m. at "Minerals and their environment in Southern the Market Place, Warwick at the rear Norway". of the Warwickshire Museum. The meet- Spencer comes from the West Midlands, but has ing will start with a short tour of the spent over 20 years as a mining engi.neer/ museum and an introduction to Warwick- geologist in Norway. He has an extensive shire geology. Southam quarry is a mineral collection, and has also written a few miles east of Warwick and is in the textbook (for the Norwegians) on Norway's - Blue Lias (Lower Lias). Its inter- mineralogy. bedded limestones and clays are worked for cement. Feb 1990: A.G.M. followed by an Burton Dassett Mills are Middle Lias illustrated talk "Geology in Kenya" by Sheila and include the Marlstone Rook bed, a Pitts. This will describe her recent visit to ferruginous limestone which forms a Kenya. distinctive outcrop due to its relevant hardness. It was quarried in the area March, 1990 : Lecture "Geology and Mineralogy for iron making. of the Caldbeck Fells in Cumbria" by Dr. R.J. John Crossling promises that both sites King, Curator of the John Moore Museum, are VERY GOOD for COLLECTING FOSSILS. Tewkesbury, formerly of the National-Museum of Wales. Monday: 2nd October: Lecture by Dr. Ken Addison "The Age and Nature of Glaciation in North Wales: a modern Interpretation." Editorial : North Wales and. its glaciation has always interested geologists and it is We hear and see so much about the forthcoming a classic area where the ideas of National Curriculum. What of geology in glaciation were first worked out by schools? Still existing as a minority op- geologists in the last century. Dr. tional subject but also making its appearance Addison has studied the area in' delail amongst the broad range of topics included in and his lecture will describe the the "balanced science" curriculum. For the latest thinking on the subject. first time the "pure sciences" have been Dr. Addison is senior lecturer at St. directed to include not only earth science Peter's College, Oxford and at but environmental sciences in their lower and. Wolverhampton Polytechnic. He has upper secondary school curricula. Topics worked extensively . in the glaciers and include rock structures, rock formation, icefields of Alaska, Norway and land forms, volcanism, plate tectonics, Switzerland, and has made a special fossils and geological time. study of glaciation in North Wales, The benefits to geology could be substantial as every student will encounter some aspect Sunday: 29th October : Field Meeting of geological science in his or her school to the Wrekin. Leader: Dr. Alan career as opposed to the present small Wright of Birmingham University. Meet minority and geology will have an established 10.30 a.m. at the entrance to the old slot amongst the other sciences, thereby quarries at Buckatree Glen opposite giving it improved status. Maybe we shall see Buckatree Hotel on the west side of some pure science teachers at our lectures and the Ercall. To get there, leave the field meetings. I hope so! M54 at its end ( exit 7), turn left, Until now geology in schools has been very then sharp left at the Forest Glen much an addition to geography departments but cafe. the future may see a blurring of the The Wrekin-Ercall area is one of the boundaries between geography, geology and the international sections for the boundary pure sciences. between the Precambrian and Cambrian. Dr. Wright has been working on this boundary and is publishing a paper on his results. He will be able to up- Monday 13th February: Yellowstone and date members on his findings. Yosemite - Two Great National Parka - by Paul Shilston : Monday: 4th December : Lecture on The USA has many National Parks with a -3-- geological. bs.ckground, and the ones The talk showed and describe4 4bese described in this talk are two of-the features - then .ended with an,;^cent of most interesting. Half-Dome, the most spectacular sight in a YELLOWSTONE is sited on one of the spectacular area. Earth's "hot-spots" and has a great range of geothermal features, geysers, hot springs, fumaroles and mad pots. When early explorers brought back Quaternary Research Association visit to stories of these amazing sights people Dudley, Thursday 6th April, 1989 : scarcely believed them, but eventually One memorable week this Springsaw not only a US survey party under the geologist the Murchison Symposium's historical outing Ferdinand Hayden confirmed their ex- to Dudley, but also a visit to the borough istence and in 1872 Yellowstone was by the Quaternary Research Association durin declared a National Park - the first in its 25th anniversary field meeting. The the USA, in fact the first in the world. party, comprising some sixty Quaternary All the geothermal features have their specialists from all over Britain, was led origin in the active source of heat by Professor Coops of Birmingham University relatively near the earth's surface, and Dr. Horton of the BGS. but they take several forms, such as:- Two stops were made in the borough, the firs *hot springs, where hot or boiling on top of Mucklow Hill, Quinton, on the water flows continuously. Halesowen side of the M5 (50992 847), the '-Fraud pots, where there is not enough second at the site of the old sand pit near water for a hot spring, the River Stour at Amblecote (50895 855). *geysers, which are quiet and then The Quinton site, previously unknown to explode with steam and boiling water members of BCGS, is one of the most im- at regular intervals. portant Pleistocene sites in the West *fumaroles, which emit only gas or Midlands. There are no visible exposures, vapour. but deposits were proved during site The talk showed examples of all these, investigation for the M5 motorway 01970, and though of course the geysers were the further excavations and mapping were carried most spectacular. Best of all was out by the BGS soon afterwards. Two con- Grand Geyser (aptly named) which erupts tinuously sampled boreholes were also sunk 200 feet into the air, and lasts for to eruwne the sequence. over 15 minutes. The results of this research have only been Other spectacular features of Yellowstcne published this April - in the West Midlands include the Mammoth Terraces which are Field Guide produced for the QBA meeting. a series of travertine pools and ter- The importance of the Quinton site is that races formed by hot lime-rich water three Pleistocene deposits are recorded, springs reaching the surface and two glacial, with an intervesingi inter- evaporating. glacial one. The latter comprises silts and YOSEMITE is quite different - it consists clays with abundant-plant debris and has bee- almost entirely of masses of granite in dated Hoxnian in age. This Hoxnian material the form of plutons, which were formed was deposited by a river whose incised 'V'- deep underground about 80 million years shaped channel cut down into the older ago. There are some 100 separate underlying glacial deposits and the Halesowe- plutons, and with the average pluton Beds of the Carboniferous beneath. size around 10 square miles, they The Quinton sequence apparently contradicts virtually fill the area. the interpretation of sequences found else- As the country rock above the granite where*by the QBA at its April meetings was eroded, the reduction of pressure although it was conceded that at least three caused the granite to separate into cored boreholes, each 120' deep, are needed layers, rather like onion-skin weather- to help to elucidate the sequence. It was ing, and this finally led to the dome- suggested in the field that Dudley should shaped mountains now so characteristic co-operate in this venture, but it is of Yosemite.
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