Newsletter No.8 April 2011 Welcome to GeoSuffolk Times , with geodiversity Have you visited Westleton? news, achievements and activities in Suffolk. ‘Westleton Gravel’, part of the Norwich Crag Please pass it on to anyone who may be Formation, underlies the tracts of heath land in interested. Caroline Markham 17.04.11 this area, its grey flint cobbles forming an www.geosuffolk.co.uk attractive backdrop to the heather and gorse. It is a marine deposit, formed in tidal channels Nucula cobboldiae about 2 million years ago. A new display was opened in the Reg Driver Westleton Heath Centre in Ipswich’s Christchurch Park this The alternating beds of pebbles and sand are month. Provided by the Cobbold Family History best seen at Westleton Heath pit (TM 457693), a Trust it tells the story of Margaret Catchpole and disused gravel quarry on RSPB land. Park in the Cobbold family in Ipswich. An additional one of the two designated places on the north story may be told of Mrs Elizabeth Cobbold, who side of the Westleton to Dunwich Road and had a fossil bivalve shell, Nucula cobboldiae, follow the footpath which leaves the road at TM named after her by James Sowerby in 1817 in 457696. The pit is on open access land about his Mineral Conchology . Elizabeth, of whom 400m to the south of the road. Look for “science and friendship were nearest to (her) ‘chattermarks’ (lots of small curved fractures) on heart”, found this shell, characterised by its zig- the pebbles indicating a marine depositional zag pattern, in the Red Crag of her Ipswich environment. Notice the shallow ‘podsol’ (acid estate at Holywells. Her son Richard later wrote: soil) leached of its nutrients on the highly Hail Lady! Sacred to the Poet’s eye permeable pebble beds, and the reason for the This Nucula Cobboldiae; but why? species-poor flora of the heaths. Because it speaks what never spake another, Westleton Common The praise and honor of a tender Mother! Also a disused gravel quarry, this is an excellent This fossil is now called Acila cobboldiae. example of a well run community site. Owned by Bob Markham (RM) the Parish Council and managed by the The GeoSuffolk 10th Anniversary Volume Westleton Common Group, it is best Work is progressing very well with contributions approached along Mill Street to the south of the village. Near to the green container at TM from the 40 authors (some already starting to come in to the editor) promising an innovative 444686 is an immediately accessible exposure mix of research, review and interpretive articles of the pebble bed, also seen in the sides of the celebrating Suffolk geology. new easy access path up to ‘the Noddle’. Walk The task ahead is to continue the search for south for the best gravel exposures on the funding. Sponsorship from individuals is, common, south east of the building at TM 444685. See if you can find anything other than naturally, very welcome. But are there any companies out there who would like to support flint – on a recent GeoSuffolk visit with a this imaginative, impressive project, which is Westleton/Dunwich WEA class, some 50+ unique for a county in England? All corporate people only came up with two brown quartzite cobbles and two small white quartz pebbles sponsors, with their logos, will of course be gratefully acknowledged in the volume. Further between them! CM information about the volume can be obtained from the Editor, Dr Roger Dixon ([email protected] ). June 23rd An Evening Cruise on the River Orwell Earth Heritage Suffolk Earth Heritage Suffolk has been so popular it with Ipswich Park Rangers went out of print in March. 100 new copies have (includes RM demonstrating been printed by Tuddenham Press. They cost geology from the boat). £5 (£6 including p&p) and are available from Phone 01473 433994 to Ipswich Museum or from [email protected] book. Promoting Suffolk’s Earth Heritage 1 April 2011 News : Geodiversity Providers and Owners Chalk in the East This leaflet produced in 2008 for Geo-East by Are you a member of the Suffolk Naturalists’ GeoSuffolk’s RM and CM has won a Highly Society? Don’t miss the SNS field trip to Sutton Commended in the ENI Challenge in Down To on 16th June 14.00hrs. This will be of interest to Earth February 2011 . Blakenham Woodland both geologists and botanists. Sutton Knoll Garden and Newmarket’s Devil’s Dyke and (Rockhall Wood SSSI) shows fine exposures of Rowley Mile Racecourse star for Suffolk. Copies Coralline Crag, a geological deposit unique to of the leaflet (free) from Ipswich Museum or Suffolk and of Pliocene age, about 4 million download from Geo-East’s web site www.geo- years old. Its myriad fossil shells include some east.org.uk/publications.htm of the direct ancestors of our living fauna. Many times smaller than the smallest shells are Art and Coastal Change in East Anglia examples of fossil pollen, and what a tale they This publication from the Crown Estate is a tell, of Sciadopytes (Japanese Umbrella Pine), result of research by Dr Robin McInnes and Sequoia (Redwood) and many more living here Hope Stubbings into art as a tool in support of before they were decimated by the Ice Age. We the understanding of coastal change in East can’t show you the pollen, but we will show you Anglia. It contains fine reproductions of many of GeoSuffolk’s ‘Pliocene Forest’ - an interpretation our coastal landscape paintings, drawings and project using living relatives of our extinct flora. prints with excellent analytical text. Available on Please book your place with RM. the Crown Estate web site. CM Pathfinder County Geosites The East Anglian Daily Times 19.03.11 reported GeoSuffolk has given maps for 13 public CGS to this government-funded scheme whereby the Suffolk Biological Record Centre to be Waveney District Council can permit home- included in their GIS database. These sites are: owners on the coast at Easton Bavents and Nacton Cliff, Nacton Bridge Wood, Newbourne Corton whose property is at high risk from cliff Springs, Newbourne Great Pit, Spa Gardens erosion in the next 20 years to relocate further Felixstowe, Butley Forest Pit, Thorpeness Cliff, inland (transfer residential rights) and build Westleton Heath, Westleton Common, Sutton similar properties under the same planning Church, Wantisden Church, Chillesford Church permission. RM and CM’s representation to and Knettishall Heath. They are all important Defra in November 2007 included, “We….. feel sites with public access, (details in Earth that alternative ways of helping them (i.e. Heritage Suffolk) and well worth a visit. Where landowners) should be seriously considered”. appropriate, the landowners have received a For background information, see ‘Conflict at letter from RM with the map enclosed. The CGS Easton Bavents’ in Earth Heritage Suffolk . RM have been mapped as a separate layer from the 8 RIGS already on the SBRC database. CM Brickmakers and Potters Our Ancestors Were Brickmakers and Potters by Ipswich Museum Adrian Corder-Birch is an excellent history of the The Rockwatch event, Fun with Rocks and Corder family and their brickworks at Fossils on January 22nd was a great success Geslingthorpe and Southey Green, Essex. I got with 75+ visitors enjoying CM’s story-telling - my copy via the Sible-Hedingham Parish The Dragon Bones of Old Beijing to celebrate Council office in Swan Street, for £17.95. the approaching Chinese New Year, and Lake Braintree Museum and Sudbury bookshops may Ipswich, which inspired ice age dioramas have copies. RM created in the Lecture Room along with the ever Earthquakes popular fossil plaster casts. GeoSuffolk’s ‘bring Ipswich Wolsey Theatre’s online ticketing your own specimen’ table was well-used, with a system, provided by PatronBase, a New beautiful polished flint axe-head from Walton-on- Zealand company based in Christchurch, went the-Naze and a rare pliosaur tooth from offline for a while when February’s earthquake Kessingland amongst the items identified. knocked the New Zealand servers down. Science Day on March 19th included, at the Art (Ipswich Evening Star 28.2.11). School, displays of Victorian science illustrations An earlier EADT, 23.04.1884, reported on the from the Museum collection. GeoSuffolk previous day’s ‘Colchester’ earthquake ‘at East members were in the activity room with a table Mersea (Essex) the sea was said to have of minerals showing a variety of reflection and rushed with resistless force over the marshes, refraction effects and delightfully messy finger receding some time afterwards, leaving thick painting inspired by ancient cave art. CM deposits of sand behind’, i.e. a m ini tsunami. RM Promoting Suffolk’s Earth Heritage 2 .