Saturday 22nd July 2017

GEOCONSERVATION AND THE SALTSCAPE PROJECT

Professor Cynthia Burek FGS from University of Chester gave the evening lecture on Wednesday 21 June 2017. Taking the title ‘Geoconservation and the Saltscape Project’, Cynthia introduced the concept of geoconservation and illustrated it with interesting references to a £1.5 million Lottery project which is protecting many aspects of the heritage of a huge salt industry which once existed in the Weaver Valley of Cheshire. The first Lottery application in 2012 failed, perhaps due to the Olympics, but a second application in 2014 was successful.

Geodiversity is part of the natural setting, an integral part of nature, and merits conservation in the same way that living species do. Geoconservation is action taken with intent to conserve and enhance geological and geomorphological (landform) features, processes, sites and species. Professor Burek, is the only professor of geoconservation anywhere, as far as she knows, and she emphasises the operative word, ‘action’. Mostly geoconservation applies to sites. There are exposure sites where there is usually more of the same behind the exposure; and integrity sites where a deposit or landform is an irreplaceable feature; and there are finite sites which, without conservation, would have a limited lifespan. There are also different strategies for conservation. Exposure sites merely need to be maintained but integrity and finite sites need to be conserved or preserved.

Unlike conservation practice in the biological and archaeological sciences, which is underpinned by public concern and legislation, geoconservation is a newcomer. Although geodiversity in a sense underpins biodiversity, its legislation is limited to a single reference in a paragraph of Planning Policy Guidance (PPG) 16 for England & Wales, which deals with archaeology and planning, though statutory protection of a geological site can be given in exceptional circumstances by designation as an SSSI (site of special scientific interest). Otherwise there is no legislation framing geoconservation. There are however, Geoparks, a UNESCO initiative, and there is the Geological Conservation Review (GCR), forty-five volumes of public record which documents important geological sites in the UK. These are all advisory regarding protection, as is the RIGS scheme, the designation of Regionally Important Geodiversity Sites (in Wales), or LGS, locally important geological sites (in England).

Cynthia outlined the nature of the salt industry around Winsford, Northwich and Middlewich (‘wych’ means salt). It lies in the Mercian Mudstone Group of the Triassic period. Iron Age peoples knew of it and the Roman 20th Legion exploited it. It is still used across the UK today. The underground caverns are so huge it can take half an hour to drive to the present salt face. Wet salt occurs in brine springs controlled by pumping, and dry salt is mined beneath an impermeable clay layer. A geological component of the Lottery project has included the identification of nine sites now reported to the LPA as requiring RIGS designation. Auditing is underway, with four already completed. Two conferences and six geological trails with leaflets are included in the work.

Clearly the Saltscape Project is one which it would be interesting for MWGC to visit. A lively discussion ensued, especially regarding the need to make RIGS information freely available on the internet wherever practicable, especially when it had been generated using public funds, a view with which Cynthia seemed in broad agreement.

Thursday 1st June 2017

From Heaven to Hell: a tale of two valleys

John Rodgers, President of the Cumbrian Geological Society guided Mid Wales Geology Club in the Lake District on a memorable weekend in 2016, and now has visited us at Plas Dolerw, Newtown to deliver a fascinating evening lecture in May 2017. John holidayed some years ago, driving through Death Valley in eastern California. This is a newly created landscape, with modern geomorphological features, one of the hottest places on the planet – average July daytime temperature 115ºF (46ºC), devoid of vegetation, a far cry one might think from the paradise which is the Vale of Eden in his home county of Cumbria. But you would be wrong to think that, as he amply demonstrated. He showed a strong similarity between the landscape features of Death Valley and those of Eden Valley, with one major difference: Death Valley is a new landscape still in formation, but the rocks of Eden Valley were created 250 million years ago when England was a hot, dry, unvegetated desert lying within the supercontinent of Pangaea. Since then Eden Valley has been covered and finally uplifted and eroded to reveal many aspects of its ancient depositional environment; it is an ‘exhumed landscape’.

John took us through many of the similarities between the two valleys: Death Valley as it is now, and Eden Valley revealed as it was long ago. Both valleys have mountains either side, with a faulted graben between, creating an arid valley floor, dry for long periods but with flash floods producing alluvial fans spreading from the mountainsides onto the valley floors. Imbrication (stacking alignment of the stones) reveals the flow directions. And even the differences brought about at a colder time by different snowfall on opposite valley sides can be discerned. On both valley floors magnificent wind-blown, crescent-shaped barchan sand dunes appeared, so characteristic of sandy deserts. As global sea levels began to rise, high evaporation from salt water lakes (playa lakes) led to salt deposits, and then to gypsum; dessication cracks can also be seen. The famous geological principle ‘the present is the key to the past’ enables us to interpret the relict structures of the beautiful Eden Valley in the context of those processes seen in action today, and in the geologically recent past, in the hell-hole which is Death Valley.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 21st June when Prof. Cynthia Burek will give a talk entitled: Geoconservation and the Saltscape Project

Wednesday 10th May 2017

At the last meeting Sue Purcell gave a delightful talk on how, the structure, colour and form of rocks and minerals has influenced her work over the years. The works included acrylics, oils and pastels and in addition she had brought along a skirt which featured printed rocks and pebbles that she had produced many years previously.

The next meeting John Rodgers ( leader of our summer weekend 2016 in Cumbria)will give a talk entitled: “A Tale of Two Valleys” which will focus on the differing geologies of Death Valley California and the Eden Valley Cumbria.

Monday 17th April 2017

At the last meeting Prof. Paul Leonard took us through many of the projects he has been involved with in relation to his work as advisor to the government and to various industries. The work was wide ranging from the nuclear industry to dredging and the marine environment. It was a highly interesting talk and gave us insight into a world few of us know.

The next meeting will be on Wednesday 19th April when artist Sue Purcell will give us another of her popular talks linking art and geology. This year her talk is entitled: Rocks and Minerals in Art: an illustrated talk with drawings and paintings.
An example of her work can be seen below.

Friday 3rd March 2017

At the evening meeting on 18 February 2017 local historian Edward Parry gave a talk on the development of residential building style, mostly in and around Montgomeryshire. Titled ‘Building the Past’, the slide show presented numerous old buildings revealing the wide range of building materials seen in our urban and rural buildings over more than three hundred years, including a number of oddities. The talk produced a lively discussion.

The next meeting will be on March 15th when Professor Paul Leonard will give a talk entitled: Importance of Geology in Government Policy: a marine perspective.