Whitsuntide excursion to Nottingham. May 9th to 14th, 1913 - Geologists' Association excursion

Link to Album and Photograph index

To view photograph album:

Geologists' Association Carreck Archive. T W Reader geological photographs, long excursions 1913.

To view detailed index of photographs taken on this excursion:

T W Reader geological photographs, long excursions 1913 - index, GA 'Carreck Archive'

Geologists' Association Circular No. 155. Session 1912–1913. p. 6–9

• 
• 
• 
• 

Whitsuntide excursion to Nottingham. May 9th to 14th, 1913 (Transcription from: GA Circular No. 155. Session 1912–1913. p. 6–9)

DIRECTORS: PROFESSOR J. W. CARR, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S.; PROFESSOR H. H. SWINNERTON, D.Sc., F.G.S., F.G.S.; G. W. LAMPLUGH, F.R.S., F.G.S.; and Rev. E. H. MULLINS.

EXCURSION SECRETARY: H. KIDNER, 73, Ross Road, Wallington, Surrey.

RAILWAY ARRANGEMENTS:—The official party will travel via Great Central Railway on Friday, May 9th, by the train leaving Marylebone Station at 4.45 p.m., due Victoria Station, Nottingham. 7.37. Restaurant car on train. Special cheap return ticket 13s. 8d., available until Friday, May 16th, will he sent beforehand on application to the Excursion Secretary. The amount and a stamped addressed envelop must he enclosed.

HOTEL ARRANGEMENTS:—HEADQUARTERS: The "Black Boy" Hotel, Nottingham, Telephone No. 3030. Tariff 10/- a day, including bed, breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, dinner and attendance. The Hotel is 5 minutes walk from G.C. Station. Members should apply direct for rooms, stating that they belong to the "G. A." party. Official luggage labels should be used; these .may be had from the Excursion Secretary on application, enclosing a stamped addressed envelope. Members who may not be staying at the official Headquarters, are particularly requested to inform the Excursion Secretary, if they wish to be included in arrangements for drives and teas.

Dinner on arrival, at 8 p.m.

Advance copies of Mr. Bernard Smith's paper on "The Geology of the Nottingham District," read on April 4th, will be on sale at the meeting on May 2nd, price 1/- each. An earlier paper or. "The Geology of the Nottingham District," by Rev. A. Irving, appears in the Proceedings, vol. iv. Copies can be obtained from Mr. A. L. Leach at the reduced price of 5d. post free. (Salvage stock).

Saturday, May 10th. The Vale of Belvoir

DIRECTORS: PROFESSOR H. H. SWINNERTON and G. W. LAMPLUGH.

Breakfast at 7.30. Obtain sandwiches for lunch. Leave the Hotel at 8.20, and walk to Midland Railway Station. Ordinary single ticket (1s.) for Old Dalby, to be had from the Excursion Secretary at the hotel. Train dep. 8.46; arr. Old Dalby 9.18.

Walk to the spoil heaps above the tunnel, where fossils of the Oxynotus, Armatus, and Jamesoni Zones can be collected.

Walk to the Ironstone quarries at Stonepit Houses near Wartnaby. Here Boulder Clay rests on the striated surface of the Ironstone of the Middle Lias. Hollows in this surface contain remnants of Upper Lias clay.

Walk to Holwell: On the way notice the method of working the Ironstone, and look at a deep mineral line, cutting through the Ironstone and Sandstones, down to the underlying clays. At Holwell the layer of Ironstone is broken by a step fault, and overlain by the lowest beds of the Upper Lias.

At Holwell the party will be met by conveyances. Drive through Harby to Barnstone. On the way visit the Lion brickworks near Scalford to see the clay below the Marlstone. Before reaching Harby notice the minor features due to various layers in the Semicostatus-Zone.

During this part of the journey fine views of the Marlstone escarpment bounding the vale on the south, and of the Boulder-Clay hills bounding it on the west, may be seen.

At Barnstone visit the pits of the Hydraulic Cement works. These are situated in the lowest beds of the Lias, viz., the hydraulic limestone series.

Drive through Langar to Cropwell Bishop. Visit the Gypsum Mine by the side of the canal. Then walk alongside the canal for several hundred yards; to a small pit in the Template:Anchor Rhӕtics.

Tea at the "Wheat Sheaf," Cropwell Bishop, 1s. each.

Drive to Nottingham. Shortly after leaving Cropwell, examine a section at the side of the Fosseway, showing the tea-green marls, Rhӕtics, and the bottom of the Lias.

Cost of Drive 3s. Dinner at 7.30.

Monday, May 12th. The Trent Valley and Newark

DIRECTORS: PROFESSORS J. W. CARR AND H. H. SWINNERTON.

Breakfast at 8. Take sandwiches for lunch. Embark on motor launch at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, and leave at 9.30. Proceed down the river, passing under the gypsum-bearing Keuper cliff at Radcliffe. Land at Stoke Ferry, and walk to Shelford (1 mile). The village is built upon an elevated patch of older river gravel, standing above the general level of the alluvium. Stop at Hazieford for lunch, and ascend cliff on right bank of river to see general view of Trent Valley, excavated along the strike of the Keuper Marls. Embark again and proceed by river to Newark. Cost of launch, 3s. each. At Newark visit Messrs Cafferata's pits, showing good sections in gypsum-bearing Keuper Marls. Total walk 3 miles. Tea at Ram Hotel, Newark, 1s.

Return from Newark by 6.9 train (Midland), arriving at Nottingham 6.55. Obtain ordinary ticket, 1s. 5d. Dinner at 7.30.

Tuesday, May 13th. Creswell and Langwith

DIRECTOR: REV. E. H. MULLINS.

Breakfast at 8. Obtain sandwiches for lunch. Train leaves Midland Railway Station at 9.38; arrive Creswell 10.44. Special cheap ticket 2s. 4d., allowing break of return journey at Langwith.

On the way note Magnesian Limestone in quarry at Mansfield Woodhouse, and in railway cuttings; and observe Pleasley Vale soon after leaving Mansfield Woodhouse. At Creswell, visit the crags, and explore three or four ossiferous caves. Examine Magnesian Limestone in the quarry over Church Hole Cave, with its fine specimen of a swallow-hole, now open to view. Visit the Markland Grips, a beautiful ravine, where lunch will be taken, and the remains of an ancient camp inspected. Total walking distance at Creswell foul miles.

Take train leaving Creswell 1.31; arrive Langwith 1.37. The special object of the visit is to examine the Langwith Cave, which has recently yielded a human skull, many worked flints, and a great variety of fossil bones of extinct and living forms.

Visit the cave and afterwards inspect specimens of the finds at the Rectory. Fossil remains from the Creswell Caves also will probably be shown. Magnesian Limestone . sections will be examined in the deep railway cuttings near at hand, and in a large quarry near the railway junction. Total walking distance at Langwith 2 miles. Tea at 4.30, Is. Leave by train at 3.45; arrive Nottingham 6.45. Dinner 7.30.

Wednesday, May 14th. Nottingham district and Kimberley

DIRECTORS: PROFESSOR H. H. SWINNERTON AND J. W. CARR.

Breakfast at 8. Drive from the Hotel. leaving at 9.30. Luggage must he put ready and labelled before starting. Take sandwiches for lunch.

Examine the section described and figured in the Survey memoir for sheet 126. The beds are divided into upper and lower portions by a thin conglomerate (Bed 6) usually called the "Keuper Conglomerate." In an unpublished note Mr. Edward Wilson speaks of the upper beds as Normal Keuper and the lower as Abnormal Keuper, and lays stress on the peculiar bluish or greenish tinge of the latter as opposed to the yellow sandstones of the upper. He regards all the lower as Keuper. Mr. Shipman drew the line between Keuper and Bunter below certain portions of the sands in bed 5, which dry to a pure white. The Survey class the whole as Bunter. Numerous excavations in the north of the City during the last two years have thrown much light on this question. Though most of these are now closed, it is hoped that such fragmentary exposures as remain will suffice to enable visitors to piece together a sound opinion of their own as to which is the correct interpretation.

Visit the pits of the Nottingham Brick Co. on Carlton Road. These are situated in typical Lower Keuper Marls. At the top there is a thick skerry. Salt pseudomorphs and fibrous gypsum are common.

Drive up Carlton Road and Thorneywood Lane to the Mapperley brick pits. On the way note the steep-sided valley in Waterstones; also the plateau-like character of the higher ground. This is duc to a thick skerry band which is well seen, capping the clay in the pits. In these pits, gypsum is absent, and pseudomorphs are rare. Much of the skerry waste shows the peculiar contorted laminar structure described by Mr. B. Smith (1910).

Walk through the pits, and on to Woodthorpe, where some shallow, road cuttings show the same beds as those seen at Sneinton. Unfortunately neither place shows the junction with undoubted Bunter.

Drive from Scout Lane to Sherwood, and thence, via Hucknall Road, to Bulwell. At Sherwood there are several shallow exposures showing the actual junction of Keuper with undoubted Bunter. There is also a fine road section of typical Water. stones, from which footprints and ,fossil fishes have been obtained. At one point, Hucknall Road runs through a deep cutting in Bunter.

Near Bulwell church is a pit in gravel, which contains a few dreikanters, and rests on deep red Lower Bunter.

The quarries at Bulwell are in Magnesian Limestone, and the brick and pottery pits are in Permian Marl. The Marl is overlain by soft red sandstone, usually taken to be Bunter; but though the Marl is the Middle Permian Marl, there is no sign of a break between it and the sandstone. A few minutes' walk away is a fine exposure of Lower Mottled Sandstone close to the G.N.R.

Walk to Anderhill, and drive thence to Kimberley. Tea at the Great Northern Hotel, 1s. each.

In the Great Northern Railway cutting and goods yard the Marl Slates and Permian Breccia are well exposed, but the underlying Coal Measures are now masked.

Drive back to Nottingham; Cost of drive, 2s. 6d. Return train to London 7.14, due Marylebone 9.55. Restaurant car on train.

References

Geological Survey Maps, Sheets 125, 126 and 142.

Geological Survey Index Map, Sheet

1908. "Geology of the Southern Part of the Derbyshire and Notts Coalfield." Mem. Geol. Surv,

1908. "Geology of the Country between Newark and Nottingham." Mem. Geol. Surv.

1909. "The Geology of the Melton Mowbray District and South East Nottinghamshire." Mem. Geol. Surv.

1910. CARR. J..W.—"Nottinghamshire." Geology in the Field.

1910. SMITH, B.—"The Upper Keuper Sandstones of East Notts." Geol. Mag.

1910. SWINNERTON, H. H.—"Nottinghamshire." Cambridge County Geographies.

1911. SHERLOCK, R. L.—"The Relationship of the Permian to Trias in Notts." Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1911, p. 75.

1911. KEITH, A.—"Ancient Types of Man," p. 20.

1913. MULLINS, F. H.—"The Ossiferous Cave at Langwith." Journ. Derbyshire Archæolog. and Nat. Hist. Soc. (Price 1s., from the Author, Langwith Bassett Rectory, Mansfield, Notts.)