I apologise for the late inclusion of this article by Dr Arthur Tingley that he entitled ‘One More Map’, the story of his determination to enter the profession of geological mapping. After a successful career with i.a BGS he reached his apogee by roping in a team from TVGS to map one of the missing tiles–the Knighton sheet. Reports on this are included in the Knighton section HERE. Here is the article that first appeared in the magazine of the Geologists Association:
APPRENTICESHIP
In 1966 the Geological Museum at South Kensington recruited around 15 school leavers as a cohort of cartographic draughtsmen, we were trained in the art of making fair copy maps for publication as the 1:50 000 series of geological maps. The intention then was to complete the field mapping and publication of all the maps which are now shown on the back of each of the published BGS map sheets.
Immersed in the Geological Museum, I soon wanted to do the surveying as well, but this was an unrealistic desire in the Civil Service of the 60’s for somebody without a Geology Degree. So I joined the Geologist’s Association, Geological Society and built a network along with part time study, and so eventually became trained by an alternative route, thus achieving my objective.
MSC AND PHD
The advent of the Open University opened up an additional line of attack, which allowed me to move on; thereafter becoming an Engineering Geologist by taking my MSc and PhD at Surrey University. Thus I spent the rest of my career wallowing in Engineering and Environmental Geology. I ostensibly finished my career with the Environment Agency in 2006, whence I hung up my geological hammer, gave away my geological books and samples and moved to Herefordshire.
THE KNIGHTON PROJECT AND TVGS
But then the surveyor’s eye, which never ever stops, began to work upon my surroundings. I got hold of a copy of the Ludlow sheet 181, only to find that it is a provisional map, and thus only partially mapped. I was intrigued! On volunteering for the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust [HWEHT], I was assigned to the Ludlow Anticline and undertook RIGS assessments. It was at this time my attention was drawn towards map sheet 180, Knighton, an unpublished, nay un-surveyed, 1:50 000 sheet, one of only three that fell off the national survey program.
So, I undertook a feasibility study, and discovered that a wealth of work existed, including key work by Charles Holland and there was a Geologists Association Trip in 1958 [Allender 1960] and more recently work by Nigel Woodcock and colleagues at Cambridge, arising partly from a string of PhD’s in the 1980’s. Furthermore, BGS had mapped and published Rhayader 179, Builth Wells 196 and Montgomery 165 sheets with more modern nomenclature in the 1990’s. I sent the study to each of the [6] Geological Societies in the area, the Ludlow Resource Centre and HWEHT and BGS of course, and requested expressions of interest, assistance or general corrections to my assumptions, with a fairly open view about if we might proceed.
FUNDING AND CONTACTS
At this stage I still considered that I did not have sufficient contacts to know who’s who in the field; and I am so grateful to Professor Mike Rosenbaum for his time and advice at that point. Thereafter my key barrier to progress became a question of manpower, field maps at 1:10000 scale and some pump priming funding. Enter the Geologist’s Association, who provided an award, and advice regarding the provision of field slips. At which point I knew that we had a practical project, subject to the manpower.
ENTER TVGS
The Teme Valley Geological Society is a fairly new, enthusiastic and knowledgeable group, based in Martley Worcestershire, and centred on a remarkable rock outcrop associated with the Malvern Fault [https://geo-village.eu/]. Eight members of that group have joined with me to form a survey team, and following field survey training sessions, we are now engaged in our first survey season.
BARRIERS
There are of course some remaining barriers to progress, not least that much Geological information and data is locked up in archives and for the most part is quite viscous in its nature! It has proved very difficult for instance to get assurances about the whereabouts of some PhD’s and other archival material, without actually travelling to London, Cambridge, Cardiff, Keyworth etc to do the search in person. With the virtual demise of the Ludlow Resource Centre and the temporary closure of the Lapworth Museum a variety of sources of information are difficult to come by. It also appears that most of the surveyors who worked on the surrounding geological maps are for the most part now the dearly departed, and their material dispersed or uncatalogued.
Our greatest weakness is in the palaeontological department, partly because many of the exposures mentioned in research papers are now non-existent or badly overgrown. The sparse Upper Silurian fauna does not often yield precise date interpretation, and indeed a few areas would benefit from some micropalaeontological investigation to help things along.
If you have knowledge of the area, maybe have done some mapping, collected fossils or have an interest in Silurian Palaeontology we would be very pleased to hear from you.
This is a transitional area which exhibits sediments on the Silurian ramp of the proximal seas of Avalonia, down into the distal basin deposits which are exhibited in the west of our area. Woodcock 1990 named this sequence the Powys Super-Group, Upper Llandovery to Pridoli. The area spans both the Pontesford Disturbance and the Church Stretton fault, and with varying sea level impulses from both eustatic and tectonic movements and the resulting dynamic interplay of environments, this has given rise to an interesting patchwork of facies.
OUTPUT
The survey is being carried out at 1:10 000 scale, for eventual fair copy at 1:25 000, and thence to a BGS format 1:50 000 scale map, with explanatory booklet. There are 20 1:10 000 sheets each of which has been allocated to a lead surveyor. To date [July 2015] about 45% of the map area has been surveyed. So we are well on our way to producing the Map Sheet 180 by approximately 2017.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To date, I have had the benefit of a lot of kind support and encouragement from a large number of people and organisations, really too numerous to mention in this short article; the details will have to wait until we are finished. However special thanks must go to my survey team: Paul Bate, Mike Brookes, Sue Chester, Ingrid Darnley, Alan Hughes, John Moseley, Neil Raha and, Adrian Wyatt and associates John Nicklin, and Moira Jenkins and also the whole HWEHT team; and finally of course thanks to the Geological Society and Geologists Association without whom nothing would have been possible.
References: Allender R , Holland C H, Lawson JD , Walmsley V G, Mcd Whitaker
Summer Field Meeting At Ludlow 2-9 August 1958
Proc Geol Assoc Vol 71 (2) 1960
Woodcock N. H.1990,
Sequence stratigraphy of the Palaeozoic Welsh Basin
Journal of the Geological Society, London, Vol. 147, pp. 537-547,
Arthur Tingley