The Summer Programme for 2018
In the warmer months, from April to September, we hold a number of field excursions, usually monthly, involving visits to working quarries, or natural exposures, that may be of restricted access to individuals, where Members can add to their collections, absorb new knowledge of our diverse science, or maybe just enjoy the great outdoors. The excursion Leaders are geologists with specialised knowledge of each particular locality.
This year, our season will start on the weekend that immediately follows on from the AGM in March.
On Saturday 24th March (postponed due to flooding)
Colleyweston Slate Mine, Lincolnshire
On Saturday 21st April
Gt Tew Quarry, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire OX7 4BT
The ironstone that is quarried at Gt Tew is from the Marlstone Rock Bed of the Jurassic Middle Lias.
The condensed bed has been very fossiliferous for us in previous years.
On Saturday 19th May
Must Farm Quarry, Kings Dyke, Whittlesey, Cambs
The Section will be hosted by Andrew Mortlock in the Forterra quarry by Must Farm.
We shall hunt for fossils in the Oxford Clay of the Jurassic Anholme Group
On Saturday 2nd June
Dr Trevor Ford Memorial Meeting
The Yorkshire Geological Society will be hosting, at the Devonshire Dome, in Buxton, Derbyshire, presentations on the works of our previous Life President, Dr Trevor Ford
On Sunday 3rd June
Derbyshire limestones and mineralisation
The Yorkshire Geological Society will be running one, or more, expeditions in the Peak District in illustration of the interests of Dr Trevor Ford
On Saturday 7th July
Bantycock Quarry, Balderton, by Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire
.This quarry is an opencast mine supplying gypsum to Formula of the St Gobain group. The site is the best UK section of the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, here the Barnstone Member at the base of the Scunthorpe Mudstone Formation (Rhaetian-Hettangian). Other strata to play with are the Branscombe Mudstone (holding the gypsum seams) and the Blue Anchor Formation of the Mercia Mudstone Group; overlain by the Westbury and Lilstock Formations of the Penarth Group.
On Saturday 18th August (postponed)
Colleyweston Slate Mine
The Section will be hosted by Nigel Smith, who is the co-Owner and Manager of the recently rejuvenated exploitation of the eponymous Slates.
The Colleyweston Slate is a sandy limestone horizon, above the Lower Estuarine Series, at the bottom of the Jurassic Lower Lincolnshire limestone.
On Saturday 27th October
Mineral mines at Alderley, Cheshire
A guide of Derbyshire Caving will take us into a couple of the mines at Alderley. Dr Geoffrey Warrington will be our Leader, and will encourage us to visualise the influence of structure and host rock facies on intrastratal fluid migration. We will study the epigenetic ore bodies of polymetallic mineralisation that are mainly in the Helsby Sandstone of the Triassic.