News

River Greta Field Trip

Led by Alan Wise on 17th August

On the evening of 17th August 16 members and friends met in Keswick. Our leader, Alan Wise, kindly ferried us all to Low Briary where there is a spectacular landslip caused by Storm Desmond on 5th December 2015. The steep face in the hillside exposes chaotic rocks largely covered in soil. The few exposures indicated it is in the Skiddaw Group. Alan explained that most of Latrigg Fell is composed of a chaotic assemblage of Skiddaw Group rocks and there are arcuate faces on the hillside indicating that more landslips will occur in the future.

The Group then moved upstream to a fresh face, cut by the storm, into glacial deposits clearly overlying Skiddaw Group bedrock. This was a clean face with clear structure and it was suggested it may expose evidence of two periods of glacial deposition. The flat topped boulder bank, built by the storm, is composed of a very wide variety of cobbles, which provided an interesting time in identification and suggested provenance.

Finally the group moved on to where the girder railway bridge, which had provided a footpath over the river Greta, had been completely removed by the storm. The bridge currently lies in a tangled mass of ironwork across the river. Here Alan was thanked for guiding us to these impressive sites and the party returned to Keswick.

Susan Beale

Chris Wilson is offering a car share from Keswick to Crinkle Crags. The event starts at Three Shire Stone, Wrynose Pass summit. NY277027. Starting 10:00

If you would like more details or save a seat please contact us.

Old Mines and Carboniferous limestone at Hodbarrow, Near Millom

Led by David Kelly on 13th August 2016

David led 20 of us past the remains of the Hodbarrow Mine on a dry breezy day. Its main ore body, the largest in Cumbria, measured 600m x 600m x 30m and was close to sea level. At first we walked along the flexible Outer Barrier with its watertight puddled clay core skirting the smaller Moorbanks ore body. The rigid Inner Barrier had failed so the main orebody area had flooded when the mine was abandoned. Our lunch stop was in the Red Hills Quarry in the eponymous highly dolomitised limestone. The beach at Haverigg Point had a very varied mixture of interesting erratics and highly coloured furnace slag and clinker. Our final stop was a fossiliferous locality in the Red Hill Limestone exposed in the faulted anticline. It had thumb length crinoid columnals and tennis ball cross sections of gastropods.

Mervyn Dodd

As the trip to Crinkle Crags is much more physically demanding than usual, those thinking about coming along should be given a good idea of what is planned. Your leader Clive Boulter has created a preview presentation of what can be expected.

The Crinkle Crags event will have a fine weather and poor weather alternative. Below you can find the two presentations.

Crinkle Crags Fair Weather Route

[jupdf-viewer file=https://www.cumberland-geol-soc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2016_September_Crinkle_Crags_Excursion.pdf width=800px height=600px]

Crinkle Crags Poor Weather Alternative

[jupdf-viewer file=https://www.cumberland-geol-soc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/2016_September_Crinkle_Crags_Low_Altitude_Alternative.pdf width=800px height=600px]