Zoom meeting. Opens 19:20, 10 minutes before the scheduled event start time.
Dr Con Gillen did a structural geology PhD at the University of Glasgow. His notable publications include the popular ‘Geology and Landscapes of Scotland’. He is Director of Lifelong Learning at the University of Edinburgh.
Village Bay, St. Kilda
This talk will take you on a geological journey across Scotland’s west coast islands, from St Kilda in the north to Ailsa Craig in the south. The route covers the ancient rocks of the Lewisian complex in the Outer Hebrides, to Moine rocks of the Northern Highlands ‘terrane’, then Dalradian of the Grampian and Argyll Highlands and Old Red Sandstone, Carboniferous and Permian-Triassic rocks of the Midland Valley. We will cross the Outer Hebrides Fault, the Moine Thrust and the Great Glen and Highland Boundary faults. Highlights include the volcanic and intrusive igneous rocks of the Hebridean province, of Paleogene age, with the famous Fingal’s Cave on Staffa and the Black Cuillin gabbro hills of Skye. The islands showcase some of Scotland’s best geology and landscapes.
Crosthwaite Parish Rooms Main Street Keswick CA12 5NN
DETAILS
Speaker: Alan Smith
Larvikite is the popular name for a group of igneous rocks from the Larvik area of S E Norway. In its polished form it is renowned throughout the world as a particularly attractive ornamental stone.
The talk will explain the geology of this unique rock and will be illustrated with material from a field visit to the area by the speaker early this year.
The second part of the talk will illustrate locations where it can be seen in the buildings and other places in Cumbria.
A table has been booked at the Casa Bella restaurant in Keswick for 6 people including the speaker before the lecture. We are now unable to book a large table together so if anyone wants to organise booking their own table there is an easy online booking system at www.casabellakeswick.co.uk The booking form has a ‘Notes’ box so it might be worth filling it in to ask for a table near the table that’s already booked for the Speaker. (Quote the Booking Reference RL7Y4M in the name of Helen James from 17.45pm) Depending on the positions of the tables we are given on the night it may hopefully work out that we can all chat together.
Crosthwaite Parish Rooms Main Street Keswick CA12 5NN
DETAILS
Speaker: Alan Smith
Larvikite is the popular name for a group of igneous rocks from the Larvik area of S E Norway. In its polished form it is renowned throughout the world as a particularly attractive ornamental stone.
The talk will explain the geology of this unique rock and will be illustrated with material from a field visit to the area by the speaker early this year.
The second part of the talk will illustrate locations where it can be seen in the buildings and other places in Cumbria.
A table has been booked at the Casa Bella restaurant in Keswick for 6 people including the speaker before the lecture. We are now unable to book a large table together so if anyone wants to organise booking their own table there is an easy online booking system at www.casabellakeswick.co.uk The booking form has a ‘Notes’ box so it might be worth filling it in to ask for a table near the table that’s already booked for the Speaker. (Quote the Booking Reference RL7Y4M in the name of Helen James from 17.45pm) Depending on the positions of the tables we are given on the night it may hopefully work out that we can all chat together.
Speaker: Mark Hatton, (Cumbria Amenity Trust Mining History Society)
Zoom meeting. Opens 19:20, 10 minutes before the scheduled event start time
In the year that William Shakespeare was born, men arrived in Keswick at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a Copper Mining & Smelting operation. These men came from Germany in 1564 bringing technology far more advanced than had been seen in England before. They were granted patents to protect their technology & a monopoly to protect their business model. But the really radical thing was how much capital they had at their disposal and how that capital had been raised. Was this combination of technology, legal protection & large scale private capital the birth of Modernity in the British Isles and the beginning of the age of Capitalism ? This richly illustrated talk looks at the evidence and leaves the audience to draw their own conclusion.
Crosthwaite Parish Rooms Main Street Keswick CA12 5NN
DETAILS
The Garvellach Islands, Scotland
Outline: This talk examines how the concept of global glaciation in Late Precambrian (Neoproterozoic) time has evolved over the past century and more, culminating in the controversial theory of “Snowball Earth”. We take a brief look at the fieldwork we undertook in Svalbard and East Greenland in the 1970s and 1980s and then again in the 2010s. However, mostly we focus on our recent field investigations, led by Tony Spencer, on the remarkably well-preserved glacial strata on the Garvellach Islands and the Isle of Islay in western Scotland, and offer some insights into what might be appropriate modern analogues of that ancient glaciation. This work is currently being worked up for a Memoir of the Geological Society.
The presenter: Mike Hambrey is Emeritus Professor of Glaciology at Aberystwyth University, and resident of Threlkeld. He has published extensively on the topic of Neoproterozoic glaciation, particularly in the Arctic, but also has research interests in contemporary glaciology. His latest book, “Our Frozen Planet” is due to be published on 23rd October, and is a photographic journey through the world of snow and ice, with emphasis on climate change.
This excursion is based on the BGS publication “Geology in South West Scotland”
Edited P. Stone, 1996, and is an abbreviated version of Excursion 1 – Langholm and Canonbie.
iv We will be visiting locations 3, 4 and 6 from this excursion guide. There are full geology notes for the locations in this guide, available free online, which are not reproduced here.
Penton Linns
Logistics
Location 1
Meet 10.00 for 10.30 Charles Street Car Park, Langholm, Grid reference
NY 362 844, Postcode DG13 0AA
Langholm is on the A7 north of Carlisle, just over an hour’s drive from Keswick. From Keswick take the A66 east towards Penrith, join the M6 heading north at junction 40.
Exit the M6 at junction 44 and take the A7 north towards Longtown. Stay on the A7 past Longtown until you reach Langholm. Just after the narrow single lane section in
the town centre bear left and then turn left to reach the Charles Street car park.
Refreshments and toilets are available in Langholm town centre where there is also free short term disk parking. Pelosi’s Corner café is recommended for early arrivals
or those wanting a late breakfast.
We will assemble in Charles Street Car Park at 10.30 for the 2 mile loop walk to Skipper’s Bridge (there is no safe parking for a group of cars at Skipper’s Bridge, and
the riverside walk is pleasant).
At Skipper’s Bridge we will look at exposures of the Silurian greywacke basement, presumed to extend under the Northumberland-Solway Basin, the basin margin fault and early Carboniferous Birrenswark lavas from the extension-rifting phase – the birth of the basin.
We aim to return to Charles Street Car Park by 12.30 for the short drive to Penton
Bridge.
12.30 to 12.50 drive to Penton Bridge.
From Charles Street Car Park follow the one way system round to rejoin the A7 turning right to head south. At the traffic lights at Skippers Bridge turn left on the B6318 towards Penton. Follow the B6318 taking care to turn left at Claygate and then left and right at Harelaw where the road descends to the Liddel Water. There is
parking for 3-4 cars in the layby on the left before the bridge, and for several more cars on the roadside on the right past the bridge.
Location 2
Penton Bridge, Grid Reference NY 432 774, Postcode CA6 5QU. 12.50 to 15.50 we will explore this scenic geological SSSI to look at the Carboniferous Yoredale cycles, with fossiliferous limestones, mudstones, siltstones,
sandstones and coals. We will also explore the basin inversion fold and faults visible here. We will have lunch en route.We return to the cars at 15.50 for the short drive to Canonbie. 15.50 to 16.00 drive to Canonbie.
We return on the B6318 to Harelaw where we turn left on the B6357. We pass through Rowanburn, with it’s visible coal mining history. On entering Canonbie we
turn left at the signal-controlled bridge before crossing the River Esk signposted Canonbie churchyard. Follow this road towards the church, turning right at the
cemetery where there is parking for several cars. If this parking area is full there is more parking on the other side of the bridge in Canonbie at the village hall.
Location 3
Canonbie Church, Grid Reference NY 394 763, Postcode DG14
0RA. 16:00 to 17:00 we walk past ‘Dead Neuk’, scene of a tragic ferry accident in 1696 when 28 church-goers were drowned in a flood, and along the riverside. On the far
bank we can see Permian desert sandstones, the post-basin deposits.
We continue along the river bank to a small bluff where there is an exposure of late Carboniferous red-beds (the Canonbie Bridge sandstone). These are described in a
relatively recent BGS report “The stratigraphy and sedimentology of Upper Carboniferous Warwickshire Group red-bed facies in the Canonbie area of SW
Scotland” Jones and Holliday 2006.v These rocks are “probably typical of what covered most of northern England prior to late Carboniferous folding and uplift”
vi according to the British Regional Geology guide to Northern England, so represent the final deposits in the Northumberland-Solway Basin.
i https://doi.org/10.1016/0012-821X(78)90071-7
ii https://doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.1989.044.01.20
iii https://webapps.bgs.ac.uk/Memoirs/docs/B06816.html
iv https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Geology_in_south-west_Scotland:_an_excursion_guide.
v https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/7191/1/IR06043.pdf
vi https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Warwickshire_Group,_Carboniferous,_Northern_England
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