Dr Olver wished to see some of the sites in Martley he had heard about but not visited, so it was on the very best day of early spring that eight of us set out.  February 19th dawned misty and cold but with the sun coming through.  Up on the Berrow it was ethereal and wonderful, we have not in recent memory had days like this so it was truly appreciated. Kindly note that all of these sites are on private land; we hope through arrangement to be able to take parties to them once or twice a year.

Permian Pit

With kind permission from John Walker of Lower Tedney we climbed the southern end of Berrow to a pit dug into rocks of Permian age, a time (250-300Ma) when the land was dry but subject to flash floods that tumbled the ruins of ancient mountains from all directions, leaving them, over subsequent eras, to solidify into a breccia.

Exposures are often known by the name of the place they were first properly documented, and in this case it was Haffield House near Ledbury.  The small pit on The Berrow shows an excellent example of Haffield Breccia.  A breccia is a sedimentary rock made of many different sizes of fragments (clasts), mainly angular with some rounding to show they have been washed down wadis for only a short distance.  The same process can be seen in deserts today.

The other thing that fascinates me is that the breccia is made up of different types of rock fragments, because the mountains that were eroded could themselves have been of varied rock types from different ages. A useful exercise at the Berrow would be a clast analysis to find just what is represented there.

Coal
On up the steep hill above the pit, and into rough forested ground beyond the fence, into a different period–the Carboniferous.  It has been reported previously in these posts that we found coal on Berrow, just as locals had many, many years ago.

This time, armed with more stalwart assistants and a shovel or two we found a likely spot under the trees, trying to maintain balance on the steep hillside.  There was the grey fire clay, under the loamy topsoil, just a few inches down, and in it, lumps of solid black-yes, coal!  You wouldn’t buy it from your local friendly coal merchant, but nevertheless, coal it was.  I think John is going for planning to open a new pit, Parish Council be warned.  There are three old coal pits on the hillside,

reminiscent of small volcanic craters, LIDAR surveys show them up well.  One is just beyond the fence and we spotted a second, further on up the track towards the top of the hill.  No. 3 remains for us, as yet undiscovered.

Collins Green
Thanks to William Rucker we ventured into Collins Green quarry.  Should you be driving over Ankerdine hill from the south (Talbot side) you might be unaware that just past the lay-by on the left there is very little indeed between you and a vertical drop of 30 feet or more–so don’t swerve!

The overgrown quarry, source of Much Wenlock limestone, is important for two reasons really, one is the unconformity between the Silurian limestone overlain in the more southerly end by Permian (Haffield Breccia).  In addition and not always easily visible, is a bentonite (volcanic ash) layer, to be seen in the Wenlock through much of Martley.  This whole site is overgrown and untidy with rubbish (suitcases,

large gas bottles) thrown over from the road above, but it is a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). I understand clearance work is to be undertaken to remove scrub and allow rare flowers to come back into their own; once re-fenced, sheep will be introduced to graze and maintain the system.

Petrifying Stream
Streams laden with lime trickle out of these hillsides at the spring lines.

There is a good example that we inspected, on the west of the Ankerdine road.  In the stream, tufa formations everywhere, on twigs, snail shells, roots; the stream bed has a very distinct ‘tufa colour’ look about it and water oozes out of numerous underground drips and springs just a few yards up the hill.

All of this took much more time than planned; an excellent lunch at the Talbot didn’t help so we did not see all of the sites we wished. Our final visit in the afternoon was to check out conglomerate boulders found along the base of the (east) side of Berrow, exposed in garden works and through ploughing.  Paul’s conclusion was that these boulders, made of, we believe Miss Phillips Conglomerate, had been brought here from their source in Malvern, by glacial or other processes.  Evidence of this derives from one side of the rounded boulders being flat, indicative of their being held in ice and ground along the land surface below, using it as a giant belt sander.

The young persons’ course starting at Chantry 14th Feb for four weeks under Bob Allison is now fully booked with 20 school pupils aged 9-13 about to set out on a rocky journey.  We are very excited about this as we hope to develop a network of primary schools in the valley to create and maintain interest in the landscape and why it looks as it does.  We will be announcing a second course for similar age group for May time, if you missed this one.  Hope to meet some of the parents too and involve them so beware!

Dr Olver’s course for older people (lol)-A Journey Through Time-was booked out in 48 hours but don’t despair–if you are still interested please let me know–. Maybe we can persuade him to perform an encore.

Once again those with nothing to do ventured into the wilds, this time north Penny Hill to The Canyon.  Our mission?  To clear a path to access this little gem and collect all the rubbish that has blown from Penny Hill when used as a domestic rubbish tip.  We cut down miles of old man’s beard, several large fallen trees and bags of rubbish–now in the boot of my car.  Quite pleased with our efforts, now await further instructions from those who know something about geology if further maintenance is needed.  This exposure will locate one of the four new interpretation boards, as part of Martley Geology Project Phase 2.
Thanks Mike, Alan and Andy for all the work (more where that came from).

A new geology course, organised by your society will be held at the PRU in Martley April 17th, 24th May 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd with field trip–date to be agreed.  Time 7.30–9.30pm, cost £40 payable in advance, cheques made out to Teme Valley Geological Society.  Please book through myself–John Nicklin, 01886 888318 The Chandlery, Martley WR6 6QA.  Maximum number of places is 20.  In this course Paul will a look at the rich variety of local rocks and the importance of their fossil faunas and we are very happy and grateful to Paul for giving us his time to run another of his very popular courses.

Having somewhat crazy friends we went off on a nearly Martley Circular last Friday afternoon, after the snow, well it was still drizzling down slowly–along the ridge, falling into snowdrifts, flicking snow around, making our way through the gloom.  The gloom was not even fast approaching-it was there when we set out; by the time we arrived at one of the several liquor stores in downtown Martley, it was pitch black and jolly cold.  Lower House Quarry looked different in the snow, here are some pics:

 

 

 

Thanks to the kind agreement of Mr Eddie Williams, farmer, four of us donned boots, yellow jackets and gloves–multi-repelling apparel against cold and thorns–and set off to Lower House Quarry (on Martley right of way 537 at Grid Ref 375247 262064) on clearance duties.  Fine and bright, with snow lying in the shadowed high fields against the ridge of Rodge Hill, the vales of Ludlow Shales between the higher Aymestry and the Wenlock were etched against the blue sky, in itself a rarity this year.   Lower House has been chosen as the site of one of our four new Interpretation Boards on account of the abundance of crinoid fossils and the wonderful views north towards Woodbury Hill.  Natalie is developing the artwork and explanation for the boards and needed the site cleared so that she could see all of the exposure.   Alan Micklethwaite, Andy Palmer, Ian Pennell and myself using kit borrowed from the Path-or-Nones, spent two hours hacking, cutting and piling brambles, trees and grass.  See the before and after pictures.  Thanks team–really great effort and well worthwhile, hope Nat is pleased!

Kindly note that the venue and date changed from that first announced.  It is now Jan 29th 7.30pm at Chantry School.  Chris will give us a real insight into the way the geology of Iceland works–in real time as he says.  This will be a most interesting evening from a well known expert–please join us! Chantry is on B4204 see Map.

14th January saw the delivery of a poster, 6 fliers and a letter of introduction to 11 of the 12 primary schools in the valley, missing only Broadheath which will be visited later. The other schools are Suckley, Lindridge, Hallow, Grimley and Holt, Astley, Broadheath, Broadwas, Whitbourne, Great Witley, Abberley and Martley. Pupils aged 9-13 are invited to come along to the 4 week, 5 session courses to study fossils, volcanoes and minerals under the tutelage of Bob Allison at Chantry School.

Also, marked up maps with a total of 14 walks (including 4 geology walks and 10 plain old walks) were delivered to County Hall for Belinda Thorne, mapping officer, to mark up on two separate maps, one for geology, one for, you’ve guessed it, plain old walks.  Belinda will deliver the finished product as a print, as a pdf or whatever and if we have the money it would be very good to print them on to a fiberglass or aluminium substrate similar to our interpretation boards.  We plan to position these inside the old weighbridge building, in downtown Martley.  This work is offered to Martley by the County Council at no charge, in recognition of our good relationship with County Rights of Way due to the work of the Path-or-Nones over these last 28 years.

Date planned, changed, date planned, changed, date planned–maintained.  Lucky us, 3rd January 2013, third time lucky, was dry, unlike the other dates scheduled for temporary trenching at Martley Rock.  A whole day with a digger to dig wherever we wanted.  Good old (not really old) Tom, delving deeply into the stubbled field, building hills of multi-coloured earths, a rainbow of deposits, ranging over hundreds of millions of years. At times there were twelve of us on site, at others none were on view, were we all really on our haunches down in the trenches close quartering this treasure?  Certainly Nat disappeared

Well exactly WHAT was discovered today?  The geologists will report in due course (which may be quite a long time), but eavesdropping round the edges I heard of and saw much Cambrian Quartzite in unexpected places, a large reef of Carboniferous Sandstone–first time we have confirmed it on site-in one trench cutting in two the cambrian deposits, black powder oh so nearly coal and a wonderful view of the divide between Etruria Formation (Carboniferous) and Triassic–site of the East Malvern Fault, marked by a band of leached (beige rather than red) sandstone in the fault zone.

Thank you so much to Rob and Helen of Cob House Fisheries, landowner, and Richard Bray, most accommodating and long suffering land user, for a memorable day in good weather.