Album Rocks, minerals and fossils from Earthwatcher

Caldera Taburiente 2, La Palma

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:04:27 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Caldera Taburiente, La Palma, Canary Islands.

La Palma dyke

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:04:27 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Dyke with small-scale columnar jointing,
Caldera Taburiente, La Palma, Canary Islands

Lower Greensand

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:04:27 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Textures in the Lower Greensand, exposed in the cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk, UK.

Hunstanton Red Cliffs

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 23:04:27 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk, UK, illuminated by the late afternoon sun shining through shower clouds offshore. This is probably the best exposure of the Red Chalk in the UK.

The top-to-bottom sequence is:

Cenomanian (White) Chalk
-- disconformity -- (~ 2 million year time gap)
Hunstanton Formation ('Red Chalk')
Carstone Formation ('Lower Greensand' - brown!)

Valkyrie Pinnacle - a tor on Froggatt Edge

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Fri, 12 May 2006 07:05:13 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

'Valkyrie Pinnacle' - a tor of cross-bedded Chatsworth Grit on Froggatt Edge, overlooking the Derwent Valley. Derbyshire, England.

Ringing Roger

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 14:42:12 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Ringing Roger is an out-thrusting ridge of gritstone tors overlooking Edale on the south margin of the Kinder plateau.
There is a good path up the ridge with an easy scramble to finish which I think is a much better and quieter route up to the plateau than the slog up Grindsbrook.

Another bit of Burbage Edge

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:11:26 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Cross-bedded Chatsworth Grit.

A bit of Burbage Edge

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:11:43 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Cross-bedded Chatsworth Grit.

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Woodhouse Rock

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 07:29:22 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Sheffield Guesswhere Group.
This is the excavation for what is now the A57 dual carriageway Beighton bypass, south-east Sheffield. The rock face in the picture is made of well-jointed Woodhouse Rock, a sandstone unit in the Coal Measures (upper Carboniferous).

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Nearly sunset

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:41:22 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Silhouetted tors on Higger Tor in the late afternoon sun

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Tor on Higger Tor

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:41:35 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Does what it says on the tin...

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Higger Tor evening sun

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:41:59 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

The late afternoon sun illuminating Higger Tor and Over Owler Tor in the distance.

This landscape is within the Sheffield city limits. Aren't we lucky!

See where this picture was taken. [?]

Copt Howe rock carvings, Great Langdale, Lake District

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 11:13:02 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Guesswhere UK group.

This is the boulder at Copt Howe in Great Langdale, just west of Chapel Stile. At its base are what are thought to be Neolithic rock carvings, possibly depicting the location of the Langdale Axe 'factory' on Pike o' Stickle.

Gwna Mélange on the Lleyn Peninsula, NW Wales

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:31:15 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Originally posted for the Guesswhere UK group.

This distinctive piece of coastline is at Trwyn Maen Melyn, near Aberdaron at the western end the Lleyn Peninsula, NW Wales.

In geological circles, these blobby rocks are famous here. They are part of the Gwna Mélange, a chaotic mass of diverse rock fragments, boulders and rafts, some of them 100s of metres across, all set in a fine-grained schist matrix. The age is now thought to be Cambrian and the mélange is an example of an olistostrome, a rock assemblage thought to represent a huge submarine debris flow (or several debris flows) into a deep ocean trench which existed here at that time.

The Gwna Mélange crops out on much of NW Lleyn, Bardsey Island and over considerable parts of N and W Anglesey.

Dactylioceras

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 01:21:23 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

My avatar picture.
This was taken using a scanner in the days before I had a decent digital camera. I just put the fossil directly on the scanner glass. Works quite well, I think.

Cliff erosion 1

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:51:46 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Pleistocene river gravels of the proto-Thames form low cliffs on the south coast of Mersea Island, Essex.

This is a site of regional geological importance and is a SSSI.

Active erosion is taking place, with the cliffs receding northwards. Rising sea-levels associated with global warming will exascerbate this effect.

Pleistocene river gravels of the proto-Thames

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 15:52:25 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Bullet holes!

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 08:38:44 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Some of the rocks and tors in the Burbage valley bear the scars of bullets and mortar bombs when they were used for target practice by ANZAC troops training in preparation for the WW2 D-Day invasion.

Upper Burbage Bridge plant straps

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 08:39:49 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

Some of the slabs of Chatworth/Rivelin Grit near the road at Upper Burbage Bridge are covered with plant fossils - stems, straps, small trunks, all roughly aligned at right-angles to the current flow direction. A sort of upper Carboniferous log jam, I suppose.

Millstone Quarry and 'Cioch Block' 2 HDR

nobody@ipernity.com (Earthwatcher) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 08:41:40 +0000

Earthwatcher has posted:

The southern end of Burbage Edge has been extensively quarried for millstone manufacture, probably mostly in the 19th century. This particular quarry has an amazing prow-like pillar of rock left standing ("The Cioch Block"). Higger Tor is visble in the far distance.

This photo is an HDR attempt in order to cope with the huge range of light intensity on this sunny day.