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| Our destination, Mam Tor |
The journey up went well despite being introduced to the way of life by being stuck behind a tractor for almost 20mins! We arrived at the base of Mam Tor to find some lovely weather - dry though quite breezy. Our first stop was at Odin Mine to get 'our eye in' - working out rock types, fossil types and measuring dips and strikes of faults.
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| Students at Odin Mine |
Carrying on up the old A road we started to see the evidence of the huge Mam Tor landslide - measuring orientations of tension cracks along the lower road (which is still drivable). We split into two groups with one going with Dr Hitch to explore another area whilst Miss Fryer's group carried on collecting some more data for the tension cracks.
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| Measuring tension cracks on the Mam Tor road |
Meeting up on the now closed old road we found the worst of the damage - with the road having slumped by about 10m in places. Lots more measurements followed along with investigation of some new rock types...the Edale Black Shales.
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| Measuring more cracks on the old road |
Carrying on up the hillside we had lunch under (though at a safe distance!) the Mam Tor turbidites and discussed their appearance before climbing closer and gathering information to create a sedimentary log this evening.
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| Logging the Mam Tor turbidites |
Onwards and upwards even more we reached Windy Knoll...which certainly lived up to it's name today! Very very windy but we could still hear Dr Hitch's helpful guidance as to what to look for...discovering that it was part of the fore reef with lots of fossils in it. There was even some Elaterite near the top....a very sticky rock (a bit like treacle) which is hydrocarbon material...something that is much more unusual.
Our final destination was Treak Cliff Cavern where we got to go underground and see the delights of the mines in which Blue John has been extracted for the last couple of hundred years. Not only was the Blue John and other minerals very interesting but the surrounding beds were literally full of fossils (esp. crinoids) and there were some excellent stalactites and stalacmites. We were also able to pick out where the old underground rivers (from swallow holes) used to run above our heads.
We're now at Hartington Hall YHA which has provided an excellent dinner of fish or sausage and chips and veg as well as pudding. So we're all fuelled up for some good work this evening. Just keeping our fingers crossed that the rain stays off for as long as possible tomorrow!
