Thanks very much to Alan Bates who has stepped in to document our evening talks, clearly recognising that things in the blog department were slipping a bit–thanks so much Alan and if your future postings from the geological front are as well written and clear as this, you have a job for life!  BlueSkyMap.com IS indeed a fascinating resource to explore, Dave Green uses it and Alan provides a paragraph at the end of his article.

The East Malvern Fault to Church Stretton

When I (i.e. Alan) started writing this I had just got home from perhaps the most challenging and fascinating talk I have heard for a very long time.  The delay has been the need to digest all the information presented to us with great enthusiasm!

The speaker was Dave Green who “came across geology after getting a degree in another subject”.  Since then he has been a teacher of geology for over 40 years.  He was definitely in teaching mode that evening.

The talk was about how the landscape of the Welsh Marches has been profoundly affected by the behaviour of two fault systems: the Welsh Boundary Fault Zone (WBFZ) and the Malvern Fault Complex (MFC).  Dave started by identifying the two systems on a map. The former is a cluster of faults running South West-North East which includes the Church Stretton fault system and probably the Neath Disturbance.  The MFC runs North-South, centred on the Malvern Hills and extending from near Bristol to Kidderminster.  Just a glimpse at the maps revealed that the faults were adjacent to more than their fair share of major hills……  Read the rest HERE