At the last meeting Prof Burek gave a fascinating talk about forensics used in the untangling of the case regarding Ötzi the Iceman a 5,300-year-old glacier mummy recovered at the Tisenjoch (South Tyrol Italy) in 1991.
The talk commenced by prof. Burek describing the history of the development of forensic science in general and that of geoforensics in particular.
One of the fundamental principles in forensic geology was devised by Dr Edmund Locard (1877-1966) when he became interested in dust being transferred during a crime. It was Locard who suggested that whenever two objects come into contact, there is always a transfer of material and it was this idea that led to the fundamental idea that every contact leaves a trace. He also set up his own police lab in his attic in Lyon in 1910. The science developed over time as methods and technology has improved and now forensic geologists are routinely used on cases.
Geoforensics (forensic geology/forensic geoscience) may be described as follows:
The application of geoscience information and methods to investigations which may come before a court of law.
It’s boundaries are not clearly defined
Mainly concerned with rocks, sediments, minerals, soils and dusts and also man-made materials where natural materials are an essential part eg. cement or bricks.
Can cover air and water
Geoscience is often used in environmental forensic cases.
Its main uses being in identifying material for a match and to indicate timing of an event. The purpose of a forensic geologist at a crime scene is to collect geological samples which may include samples of, for example, minerals, soils, sediments, rocks, or natural building materials (e.g. sand, gravel, building stone and slate) or material that is derived from geological raw material (e.g. glass, bricks, concrete, plaster board or tiles).
The body of Ötzi was found by two German hikers in 1991, whilst walking in the Ötztal Alps near the Austrian and Italian borders. His removal from the ice was difficult which led to some damage of the corpse. His remains were delivered to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria. He was moved to Italy where he was kept in a freezer at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
Not much research was done on the remains for about 25 years, after which forensic experts were brought in to unravel the mystery. Unlike mummies from dry climates, the organs, tissues, bones, and skin of this “wet mummy” were intact, right down to the contents of his stomach, which allowed a very detailed study to be undertaken.
The findings showed that he was about 45 years old, 5’3’’-5’5” tall, weighed 50kg, and suffered from arthritis: gallstones and whipworms. He had old wounds consisting of a frost-bitten little left toe and broken ribs. He also had very fresh wounds of a badly cut right palm inflicted less than 48 hours previously. He had 61 tattoos from head to foot which were the oldest tattoos ever found by about 2000 years. These were located in areas of joints and spine and may have been at acupuncture treatment points. Pollen analysis discovered 30 different types of pollen in his gut. These findings suggested that he died in spring or early summer. That in the 2 days before he died, he had traveled from an elevation of 6,500 ft down to the valley floor at about 5,000 ft, and then back up into the mountains at 10,500 ft. He had consumed ibex meat, einkorn wheat, fatty bacon or cheese, and flowering plants in one meal, and red deer meat and grass or cereal in another. His last meal was eaten about 30 minutes before he died. In 2001, a CT scan revealed a flint arrowhead in his left shoulder, and a puncture at the same spot was found when his coat was examined. This led to his death. Thus he was murdered.
Recent DNA analysis has revealed that Ötzi had dark skin and dark eyes. They also found that 92% of his ancestry comes from early Anatolian farmers who migrated out of modern-day Turkey about 8000 years ago. This is the highest percentage of Anatolian heritage yet recorded in an ancient European from Ötzi’s time. DNA also shows that he is most closely related to the inhabitants of Sardinia. He had a copper-bladed axe which was new technology that required special skills to extract and process the metal. This discovery drove our understanding of the Copper Age back by 1000 years.
The use of multi-disciplinary forensic techniques shows just how even the most coldest of cases can sometimes be unravelled.
Saturday 15th March 2025
Dinosaurs and Deserts in Wales by Cindy Howells palaeontology curator National Museum of Wales.
If you are hoping to find fossils of dinosaurs or perhaps fossil trackways in Wales then in you have to travel to the SE of Wales to the Mesozoic rock outcrops that possibly contain them. The area is a narrow wedge situated between Cardiff and Porthcawl.
The first evidence of dinosaurs in the area was found in the form of footprints. A block consisting of a footprint trackway was found by TH Thompson in 1879 in a local churchyard Newton, near Porthcawl. He was a naturalist and recognised the similarity of these footprints to some recently described ones from America. He then worked in conjunction with prof.Sollas (1849 - 1936) from Bristol, to undertake further investigations of the footprints.
They not only concluded that these were dinosaur footprints but observed the similarity between these footprints and those made by flightless birds. In one experiment they persuaded an Emu to walk across wet cement to show the similarity. That was ingenious as it is the earliest idea of linking dinosaurs to birds. The prints were tridactyl, bipedal with a long central toe suggesting a Theropod dinosaur. The trace fossil itself is known as Anchisauripus.
Not only are Theropod tracks found in south Wales but bones from theropods have also been found. For example, in 1898 a fossil jaw was found by stonemasons in Bridgend and in 2012 a finger bone was discovered at Lavernock Penarth. Both of which were found in deposits of Rhaetian age (208.5-201.3 mya)
In 1879 another block of stone revealed fossil Anchisauripus but also two completely different sorts of prints. These latter prints are known as Eosauropus and will have been made perhaps by a Sauropodomorph dinosaur.
As footprints differ depending on the thickness, grain size and moisture content of the mud when they are made it is difficult to always get a really good impression of the foot that made it. But one was found by a four year old girl whilst out walking with her father during Covid lockdown, from which one could see the shape of the muscle pads, the joints and the claws. This was recovered and is now in the museum. On studying the fossil it was found that there was in fact two prints which showed that it was moving so that now the stride-length can be determined from which other measures can be deduced.
Another series of prints found by the public in 2023 occur at Penarth in redbeds similar to that which occurs at Bendricks bay. These have a very consistent stride-length but these prints are eroding very quickly.
If you go inland to the Carboniferous limestone quarries near Bridgend you will find Triassic material filtered down in fissures in the Carboniferous limestones. Here can be found bones of various creatures eg. The mammal Morganucodon oehleri. But also other finds.For example, In 1952 dinosaur bones were also found within these cave sytems eg. Pantydraco caducus a herbivore.But in 1921 they re-examined a few bones and found that they were in fact the bones of a theropod dinosaur known as Pendraig
In 2014 at Lavernock bone material was found after a rock fall which has been identified as a theropod dinosaur and has been named Dracoraptor. Therefor south Wales has a diverse fauna of dinosaurs and other reptiles covering 20 million years
A summary can be seen in the table below:
If you would like to see fossil footprints then the SSSI site of Bendricks Bay Barry is a good site to visit. Here there have been found at least four different types of footprints.The National Museum of Wales in Cardiff also has footprints on display.
An interesting talk by Cindy Howells on the fossils that can be found in Wales.
Tuesday 19th November 2024
The October talk was by member Roy McGurn.
Summary by Roy
The talk was inspired by a field trip led by Tony Crimes, a leading trilobite expert in 1970 to the Nant Ffrancon valley. In particular Tony was a leading specialist in trilobite tracks, commonly attributed the ichno-genus Cruziana, amongst others.
Cruziana,Vale do Pônsul, Penha Garcia, Portugal by Correia PM Wiki Commons
Until this time trace fossils had been more of a curiosity, as mainstream fossils were more useful for dating, still very much an objective in geological research. Trace fossils are usually found quite separate to body fossils, so correlating the two is difficult, as different modes of preservation are at play.
A trace fossil may have more than one causal animal, Cruziana has been identified in the Triassic, long after trilobites became extinct. One animal may also be responsible for several trace fossils, depending on it's behaviour.
What trace fossils tell us is how the animal behaved, culminating in the stunning walking with dinosaurs films. In this instance Tony was able to say what a trilobite was doing - resting, starting or finishing swimming or feeding and burrowing. How they moved and the prevalence of juveniles etc in the population. It is assumed, for example, that juveniles were pelagic.
That year Tony had chaired an international conference on trace fossils with a Prof Seilacher of Tubingen under the auspices of the Liverpool Geological Society. Together with Richard Fortey possibly the modern triumvirate of trilobite men.
The main sites are 2000 ft up the sides of Cwm Cuenant, a daunting field trip today probably classifying as a rock climbers "scramble" or worse. However a "debris" field behind a cottage, Ty Newydd, can be quite productive of actual fossils.
Friday 20th September 2024
The talk covered two field trips run by Chris Darmon at Geo Supplies in Sheffield. (Text and photos by Chris Simpson)
The first trip was to the Mull of Kintyre and the adjacent islands of Islay and Jura, which all lies between the Great Glen fault and the Highland Boundary fault. The second trip was to the Ayrshire coast, which is part of the Midlands Valley (Central Lowlands) terrain. These trips covered adjacent terrains, and enabled contrasts and comparisons to be made.
The Highland Boundary fault runs just south of the Mull of Kintyre. The basement for the whole of the Grampian terrain is the Rhinns complex – but it is only seen on the surface on Islay.
Typical “pink” gneiss of the Rhinns complex seen at Portnahavan.
(The scale is an A6 field notebook)
The commonest rocks on the surface are Dalradian schists which are seen from Islay in the west to Fraserborough on the east coast of Scotland. The degree of metamorphism is variable, but often low. This means that residual sedimentary features can be seen.
Dalradian schists at the side of Loch Caolisport. Original shale bed between two original sandstone beds.
(The scale is an A6 field notebook.)
Kiel Point at the southern tip of the Mull of Kintyre is a localised resistant rock standing out from its surroundings. It is a volcanic agglomerate within a volcanic pipe. The matrix is volcanic ash, and the clasts are pieces of the original country rock. The volcano came up through an area of Devonian sandstones.
Kiel Point standing above the coast road
A closer view of the exposed rock face.
Devonian sandstones on the beach close to the plug show mechanical disruption. A micro-fault is visible.
(Scale is an A6 field notebook)
The Midlands Valley (Central Lowlands) is a rift valley which was mainly filled by a variety of sedimentary rocks, but also shows evidence of widespread volcanic activity.
The North Ayrshire region has a base of Old Red Sandstone rocks with some volcanics: basaltic lava flows and 2 sets of dykes, Tertiary and Permo-Triassic. Further south, there is an ophiolite complex at Ballantrae.
A lava flow on the Eastern bank of the Firth of Clyde just south of Hunterstone
Columnar jointing is evident on the exposed rock faces.
At the beach south of Largs.
There is a dyke on the right which has come through conglomerates.
Pillow lavas on a beach south of Ballantrae.
The lava is vesiculated.
Ailsa Craig lies about 8 miles out from Girvan. We had a day trip there, landing and walking over the eastern side of the island, and then sailing right round. It is a Tertiary granitic inclusion, around 60Ma, formed at the time of the sudden opening of the Northern Atlantic Ocean. Similar intrusions are present on Arran and in Northern Ireland. It is an unusual intrusion because many of the cliffs show prominent pseudo-columnar jointing.These are not regular columnar joints and often only have three faces and are the result of the intersections of different joint faces.
Multiple doleritic dykes are also present.
The eastern coast of Ailsa Craig where previous quarrying took place.
The western side of the island with tall sheer cliffs
The vertical dyke in the centre is darker than the surrounding granite; and shows columnar jointing at right angles to the jointing seen in the rest of the cliff face.
Sunday 25th August 2024
The Geology of Islay and Jura
Talk by Geoff Steel, Wednesday 21st August 2024
Text and photos by Geoff Steel
There is no greater contrast between two Scottish islands than Islay and Jura. Yet they are so close that they're nearly joined. Why so different? The answer is limestone. Islay has it and Jura does not. The fertile soil of Islay has always brought prosperity: towns, villages, woodland, farms and cattle grazing in fields. Jura is almost entirely made of quartzite. Nothing grows on quartzite. It's a vast empty wilderness of bogs, boulders and remote hills. The only road is the A846 which is a single track with grass in the middle.
Islay Loch Ballgrant
The rocks are of late Precambrian age and referred to as Dalradian. Most of the Dalradian strata were intensely folded and metamorphosed during the Ordovician which makes it difficult to reconstruct their original form. But in Islay and Jura, and also on the mainland coast opposite, the deformation was less severe. Reconstruction shows a series of listric (curved) normal faults. This was crustal extension and was the opening of the Iapatus Ocean.
Islay Port Ellen
Timing of the Dalradian is poorly constrained. Neither the base nor the top are clearly defined. However there is a prominent marker horizon which potentially allows correlation with other parts of the world. It is the Port Askaig Tillite. Arriving on Islay it's the first thing you see, at the back of the ferry terminal. The tillite is a glacial deposit with dropstones from floating ice set in a muddy matrix. It is from one of the three "Snowball Earth" events: Gaskiers (580Ma), Marinoan (635Ma) or Sturtian (720Ma). But which one? Most references say Marinoan so timing of the Dalradian has been estimated accordingly. But in 2006 a paper was published in Ireland (where the tillite is also visible) which suggested Sturtian. That's almost a hundred million years earlier. It would require a drastic revision of the timing.
Jura Loch Tarbert
On the subject of ice the recent glacial maximum has shaped the topography of both islands. On Jura the ice reached a thickness of 750m which would have left the tops of the mountains just clear. The ice was forced to flow around them and rejoin on the other sides. One of the joins, on Beinn an Oir, formed a medial moraine. It is an exact straight line of boulders more than two miles long, an astonishing feature, hard to believe it's not man-made. Melting of so much ice removed a great weight from the land. The resulting isostatic uplift has formed an impressive line of raised beaches along the west coasts of Islay and Jura.
Jura seen from Port Askaig
Finally, a few days before this talk, a paper was published about work on the Garvellach Islands just north of Jura. The Port Askaig Tillite is well exposed there. And the paper gives a date: 720Ma. If correct this would confirm the Irish paper. Watch this space!
