Humberside Geologist no 11
published 1994
The 1993 programme of field meetings got off to an unusual, but very successful start. It was unusual because there was no one leading the trip and it was successful because 26 members attended and enjoyed the day out. The plan was simple, the Committee had decided to get to Whitby early in the year and find all the fossils before the holiday-makers did! It worked, members found plenty of bivalves and ammonites, although we did have to wait longer than expected for the tide to let us get around the pier. There was also a large fossilised tree trunk, filled with low quality jet, to be examined. Some new rockfalls allowed members to collect fossil plants from the Whitby Plant Bed.
The second March meeting was a joint meeting with the North Eastern Geological Society, at Nent Head. But most Hull Geol. Soc. members were put off by the long journey and severe warnings about the dangers involved, so David Hill has written a separate report of this event.
In April, Felix Whitham and Mike Horne led a Chalk meeting. This was a memorable day out, in fact we nearly abandoned the trip. The rain was pouring down when we met at Cottingham and the forecast was not good. If we had not agreed to meet some members travelling from Liverpool, we might not have left Cottingham. The road at Flamborough village was flooded. At the car park at South Landing the rain was still pouring down, so we sheltered in the information centre. It was decided that as we had got this far we might as well walk down to the beach and hit a bit of chalk with a hammer, just to prove we had been there and then head for the nearest warm pub! So nine Hull G. S. members gritted their teeth and put on their waterproofs and set off down the track. That was when the rain stopped and the sun came out.
Heading west, we looked at the chalk of the "Hagenowia rostrata" zone and searched for the first arrival of Uintacrinus, the next zonal fossil. Some nice specimens of the sea urchin Echinocorys and the belemnite Gonioteuthis were found in blocks of chalk on the beach. But we had to be careful because the rain had set off several rockfalls and large blocks of chalk came tumbling off the cliff face, as well as lots of muddy water. It was all very interesting, so we did not get as far along the shore as we had hoped, as we turned back when we got to the rockfall at Beacon Hill. We did not get a chance to inspect Hartendale Gutter, where the evil smelling stream has now been piped out to sea so geologists can now study the rocks down-wind as well as up-wind of the Gutter!
The afternoon was spent at Nafferton Grange chalk pit, high in the Discoscaphites binodosus subzone. It is unusual to be able to write that fossils were abundant in a Yorkshire chalk pit, but on that day people were having to pick out the best ones. Sponges were plentiful, Inoceramus lingua was common and three nice zonal ammonites were fund. Also, it was interesting to notice how different types of weathering affects the types of fossils you can find: at Nafferton frost shattering splits the chalk to reveal the larger fossils, on the coast weathering picks out all the small fragments of crinoids, starfish and echinoids, as well as small Porosphaera sponges.
On 15th May, 15 members attended the meeting led by Barry Constantine and Richard Myerscough, to study the ancient lake beds of Holderness. We started at Gransmoor in a gravel pit. Above the gravel is a peat bed filling an old kettle hole. Recently bones of perch and pike have been found here, along with a bone harpoon point. The wood at the base of the peat has been dated at ll,000 BC. Fish scales were easy to find in the peat. After examining the peat, members went to look at the gravels beneath, and only one member got stuck in the mud at the bottom of the pit. A wide range of erratic pebbles was found in the gravels.
At lunchtime a business meeting was held in the Board Inn at Skipsea, to discuss the grant from the Curry Fund of the Geologists' Association towards the cost of the conservation work at Rifle Butts SSSI. The money was put into a special account, so that the Society could ensure that the work was carried out in accordance with the conditions set by the Curry Fund.
The afternoon was spent on the Holderness coast looking at the post-glacial deposits. At Skipsea Withow another of the ancient mere deposits was exposed, this one being rapidly eroded away by the sea, leaving large tree trunks sticking out of the peat in the low cliff. There was also an ancient wooden trackway being exposed. Barry Constantine was the local organiser for an archaeological excavation, funded by English Heritage, of the site in July, which aimed to record the history of the Withow before it is lost to the erosion. We also visited Barmston Drain, where a post-glacial spill-way, now filled with gravels and varved clays, was examined.
Our mini-bus trip for the year was to the National Stone Centre in Derbyshire, led by Mick Stanley. The Centre is in the middle of a group of disused quarries, which used to extract Carboniferous Limestone. Different reef facies can be seen in these quarries. We were shown a traditional lime kiln, which the Centre hopes to restore to working order. Then we visited Steeple House Quarry, in the lagoonal facies, behind the reef, where crinoid fragments and the dermal denticles of sharks can be found.
We then left the Centre to visit the Pig of Lead pub, for lunch, and we also examined the basaltic pillow lava flow in the pub car park. We then returned to the National Stone Centre and looked at the "sea lily field", reef core and reef edge facies of the limestone. There is also a volcanic ash band exposed in the lowest South East Quarry. We just had time to visit the Centre itself, and browse round the well stocked and reasonably priced shop.
On 26th June some members joined the Yorkshire Geological Society field meeting at Robin Hoods Bay, led by Robert Knox and Andy Howard. The meeting was to study the sedimentation and trace fossils of the Liassic rocks. The morning was spent at Boggle Hole and in the afternoon we walked north to Castle Chamber, examining the banded sedimentation, which is due to orbitally forced climatic changes.
Early in July, Lynden and Ann Emery hosted a Social Evening, which was very successful. They had just returned from a long visit to New Zealand, and there was an opportunity for members to see their video of the trip, containing beautiful scenery, some geology and some steam trains.
In mid-July there was a weekend field meeting, held jointly with the Geological Society of Norfolk. Nineteen keen geologists attended on the Saturday, which started with a visit to Middlegate Quarry at South Ferriby. A large ammonite was found in the Lower Pink Band and lots of fossils were collected from the Red Chalk. A band of Pinna bivalves was seen in the middle of the Ancholme Clay. After lunch at the Barton Clay Pits, the party travelled back across the Humber Bridge to South Cave Station Quarry, to collect from the Kellaways Beds.
Rifle Butts SSSI was then visited, but was looking in a bad way, as it had not been cleaned for over a year and parts of the Chalk were slumping badly. Alistair Cruickshanks, aged 13, of Southwold, found a nice specimen of Hemiaster marissae in the Red Chalk and very kindly agreed to donate it to Hull Museums (N.B. Rifle Butts is a no hammering site, but if specimens are found visitors are encouraged to donate them to a local museum). After driving up the Kiplingcotes spillway the Arras Hill Chalk Pit was inspected. Lynden Emery found an example of Sternotaxis placenta just above the level of the Enthorpe Oyster Bed.
The Sunday excursions were attended by 17 people, and started the day at Bessingby Chalk Pit, near Bridlington. Lower Campanian chalk of the Discoscaphites binodosus zone is exposed in the pit, and a careful search revealed the zone fossil, Inoceramus lingua, sponges and burrows. From there the party went to Danes Dyke, and found sponges, the free swimming crinoid Marsupites and Echinocorys.
The afternoon was spent at Speeton. The exposures have changed a lot at Speeton in the last year, after remaining constant for quite a long time. There have been some new mud slides and some of the old familiar features have been eroded. We walked to Red Hole quite quickly and made our way back to Reighton at a more leisurely pace. A small exposure of beds A2 and A3 was seen and a new exposure of the Middle B beds just south of Speeton Beck was examined, the fossiliferous Red Chalk slump that used to be there has been eroded. Some of the old exposures of the middle C and upper D beds have changed considerably and the E bed was no exposed. The day ended, back in Hull, with a meal in a local pizzeria.
The Monday morning saw the last outing of the weekend meeting and consisted of quick visits to exposures of the Cave Oolite at North Newbald and South Cave. The Sands Top Quarry, at Newbald, has not been worked for a few years now, and has been partially filled with waste. In the past this was the most fossiliferous quarry in the area, but there is not much to be seen. We did manage to find some pectinid bivalves, small oysters, bryozoans and a gastropod. Bulk samples of the weathered sandy oolite yield fragments of echinoid and crinoid if you pick through them carefully. Everthorpe Quarry, at South Cave has been disused even longer, but the limestone is harder. Although it contains a lot of broken shells, the fossils have never weathered out in the same way as they did at Newbald. Even so we did find examples of Lopha, Ostrea and Modiolus.
On 29th. July Terry Rockett led an evening's walk along the beach at Hornsea. In spite of heavy rain earlier in the evening twelve members attended. There were new blocks of basalt and augen gneiss to be seen, recently added to the sea defences. These were already beginning to break up, and pieces could be found further south, rounded by the sea and transported by long shore drift. There were also many glacially transported erratics to be seen, and nearer Mappleton some of the sand had been stripped off the beach exposing rafts of soft chalk and grey clay, in the boulder clay.
August was a national month of beginners' meetings called 'Geology unlimited', organised by the Nationwide Geology Club. The walk around the Old Town, led by Mike Horne for the Yorkshire Geological Society and the Hull Geol. Soc. was poorly attended.
After our August break, Jim Darmody led eleven members and friends on a walk around Spring Bank Cemetery, pointing cut the different varieties of rock used as gravestones and telling us about the history of some of them. He also demonstrated how the weathering affects the rocks differently.
In October, Ron Harrison, led a walk around the city centre in Hull, looking at the building stones and shopfronts. This year Ron had devised a completely new route for the 12 members and guests attending, going down Carr Lane to the Railway Station and then heading back to 'Macdonalds'. There was also a completely new rock to study at Festival House, an iron-rich, carbonate with fossil bivalves, crinoids and burrows. It was agreed that it is probably Jurassic in age, but there was some arguments about whether it was the Dogger or the Frodingham Ironstone.
Thus ended another season of field meetings. I would like to thank all the leaders for their hard work and all the members for attending and making the meetings so enjoyable.
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