Earth Matters the Newsletter of the Geology Section of the Woolhope Naturalists’Field Club the Geology Section Is an Affiliate Member of the Geologists’ Association
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Earth Matters The Newsletter of the Geology Section of the Woolhope Naturalists’Field Club The Geology Section is an Affiliate Member of the Geologists’ Association. No. 8 December 2011 The Woolhope Naturalists’ Field Club is a Registered Charity, No. 521000 MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN CONTENTS AST YEAR I painted a rather gloomy picture, Lalthough I'm pleased to report that things have not Message from the Chairman ........................... 1 turned out so badly after all. Whereas this remark Geology Section Programme .......................... 2 applies to Herefordshire and to several of our neigh- bouring contacts and associates, unfortunately, the Editor’s Note ................................................... 2 overall picture is still patchy. Subscriptions ................................................... 2 EHT funding has almost dried up and it's a very seri- ous predicament since virtually every major project Annual General Meeting .................................. 2 we undertake depends almost entirely on external Old Publications on the Web ........................... 2 funding bodies. A mitigating factor is that some of the work can be done by volunteers, but there are obvious The Search for Volcanic Rocks in the limitations with this! I'm told that, looking further Northern Sector of the Malvern Hills ahead, and when the Olympics are out of the way, then by Richard Edwards ............................... 3 things should start to improve. AWeekend in Sidmouth, October 2011 Associated with the Earth Heritage Trust, is the by Chris Fletcher .................................. 4 Abberley and Malvern Hills Geopark, which we're pleased to note has enjoyed a good year. Here again, The Geologists’Anthem this is a body that relies heavily upon volunteers to by Albert Ludford ................................ 6 achieve its goals. Quite a number of the 'Geofest 2011' The Magallanes Foreland Basin of Patagonia guided walks used leaders drawn from our own ranks, by Bill Fitches ......................................... 7 including Rosamund, Moira, John Payne, Dave Owen and myself. Field Trip to Gore Quarry and Stanner Rocks Some of my own walks were in association with bod- by Geoff Steel ...................................... 10 ies other than just the EHT. The Woolhope Club spon- GA Excursion to France - 2011 sored a Severn Valley Railway Ramble; The Friends by Gerry Calderbank and Moira Jenkins of the Leominster Canal (FOLC) contributed a walk from Newnham Bridge to Mamble; and the EHT ............... 12 backed a similar engineering geology walk from White Leaved Oak Quarry Woofferton to Stockton Cross. Two of these ensued by John Payne ...................................... 14 because I'd recently affiliated the WGS and the FOLC as Geopark Partners. Latest News from Martley In conclusion, we must applaud the extraordinary suc- by Paul Olver ....................................... 15 cess achieved by the Geology group of the Malvern Meeting Reports 2010-11 U3A- largely due to the redoubtable Richard Edwards by Geoff Steel ...................................... 16 - which attracts incredible numbers of participants. Thanks largely to Paul, there is also cause to celebrate Geology Section Committee .......................... 20 the recently established Teme Valley Geological So- Heritage Services News .................................. 20 ciety, which appears to have sprung, GeoPhoenix-like, from the Martley Pit! Earth Heritage Trust News .......................... 20 Gerry Calderbank, Chairman Page 2 Earth Matters No. 8 December 2011 GEOLOGY SECTION PROGRAMME tion of previously unrecorded intrusive rocks there. Other new work is reported by Richard Edwards and myself but, FOR EARLY 2012 alas, none of the sites are within Herefordshire although ECTURES and the Annual General Meeting are held all are only just outside it. Readers will also note the Lin the Woolhope Room, Hereford Library, Broad inclusion of a small amount of verse. Street commencing at 6:00pm unless otherwise stated. I must express my appreciation of the work put in by the Friday 20th January. ‘Catastrophe’. contributors and the continuing support of the WGS com- Talk given by Richard Edwards. mittee. Partly concerned with early 19th century views of geo- John Payne, Editor logical history which often entailed an element of cat- SUBSCRIPTIONS astrophe to explain features such as mountains build- S ing. Lyell put a stop to all that! However, in recent HE ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION to the Geology st years the issue of Mass Extinction has re-introduced TSection is currently £7.00. This is due on 1 January the role of catastrophe in explaining the sudden (as for all other WNFC subscriptions). Please pay this decline of a wide range of genera and species. directly, and on time, to the Section Treasurer, Beryl Harding, 'Bramley', Lugwardine, Hereford HR1 4AE. Do Friday February 24th. Section AGM followed by the not send it to the WNFC Secretary with your WNFC sub- Section Dinner. Booking forms for the dinner will be scription. Cheques should be made payable to ‘Geology sent out electronically in January. Section / WNFC’. Members are encouraged alternatively Friday 16th March. ‘Archaean Nickel Sulphide to pay by Standing Order; forms are available from Beryl. Deposits in Australia’. Talk given by Dr Chris Fletcher. ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Chris spent several years working as a geologist in EMBERS are asked to accept this as notification of Australian nickel mines. Mthe Geology Section AGM to be held on Friday Sunday 22nd April. ‘Geology Ancient and (nearly) 24th February 2012 starting at 6:00pm in the Woolhope Modern: the geology of the Llangorse Basin and Room. After the AGM we will retire for dinner to a local middle Usk Valley’. restaurant. Booking forms for the dinner will be e-mailed Field trip led by Duncan Hawley. to members in January. The excursion follows the geology and landscape from The officials and committee for the coming year will be the Wye to the Usk up the Llynfi valley on the western elected. All of the present committee members (see the rim of the Black Mountains, at locations with some big back page of this issue) will stand for re-election. There is views. It explores the ancient environments of the Old a vacancy on the committee for an additional, ordinary Red Sandstone underlying the area and the more member. Section members are invited to submit recent invasion of ice into the Llangorse basin, exam- nominations for election to the committee. Nominations, ining where it came from and how long it stayed. with the names of the proposer and a seconder, must be Meet at 10:30am in the car park at Talgarth (SO 335151). received by the Section Secretary in writing (letter or e- The car park is accessed from the roundabout on the mail) before 24th January 2012. A479 at the SW end of the village. Take first exit into High St.; the car park entrance is on the left. Bring a OLD PUBLICATIONS ON THE WEB drink and packed lunch. NTERNET-USING MEMBERS are probably aware of Further information for all events, unless otherwise stat- Ithe efforts of Google to digitise most of the world’s ed, from: Sue Hay, 01432-357138 or e-mail svh.gab- books. This is already of some benefit to our own local [email protected]. geological interests. A number of old geology books describing our area have been dealt with and are freely EDITOR’S NOTE available from Google (books.google.com). They form a useful, although far from totally satisfactory, source of ELCOME to the eighth issue of Earth Matters. This information to those without access to the original books. issue is 25% larger than in the past. This came W The deficiencies include misinterpretation by the charac- about because some authors provided me with far more ter recognition software of the imperfect printing of the text than I had requested, leaving me with the undesirable older documents. (Google encourages interested parties to editing job of cutting a great deal of excellent material. correct such errors and to submit the improved version Fortunately, our treasurer was able to approve the small back to Google.) In addition, the OCR software does not additional printing cost of the extra pages so the larger render tabulated information in a useful form. Commonly, than planned articles are included here more or less intact. pictures are excluded. Nevertheless, the existence of these The contents this year are, as usual, mostly reports of books in computer-searchable form is certainly helpful. WGS events during the past year. Geoff Steel has written Items obtained so far are John Phillips’s memoir on the his summaries of many of the meetings but some are Abberley and Malvern Hills, William Symonds’s book included as more complete separate articles. Geoff’s ‘Records of the Rocks’and research papers from the jour- account of the visit to Gore Quarry includes the observa- nal ‘Annals of Philosophy’for the early 1800s. Page 3 Earth Matters No. 8 December 2011 TTHEHE SEARCHSEARCH FORFOR VOLCANICVOLCANIC ROCKSROCKS ININ THETHE NORNORTHERNTHERN SECTSECTOROR OFOF THETHE MMALALVERNVERN HHILLSILLS by Richard Edwards Introduction some brecciation of the lower part of the flow. The lam- HE MALVERN HILLS are mainly composed of a inated unit may be a bedded tuff. TPrecambrian plutonic suite of calc-alkaline igneous rocks termed the Malverns Complex, with later intrusions of microdiorite and dolerite. In the vicinity of the Herefordshire Beacon a sequence of extrusive volcanics termed the Warren House Formation has been thrust