Hull Geological Society
Mike Horne FGS
This is unfinished work that has not been edited or peer reviewed by the Society.
The Geochemistry of the Holderness Tills and some others
Conclusions –
By shuffling the
Excel files I could only find two significantly different Till samples both high
in calcium. There were the Calcithorpe Till (sample WLW3) and one from
Sherringham (sample SHER609). The Calcithorpe Till is thought to be locally
derived from the Lincolnshire Wolds and the Sherringham sample was pale and was
collected about a metre above a Chalk exposure.
It could be simply
that the Tills (Boulder Clays or Diamicts) are simply a heterogeneous mixture
rocks, sand, clay and silt and thus cannot be expected to have geochemical
signatures.
The data is published
here so that it is available for you to use and interpret. Do feel free to send
me your suggestions!
There would need to
be more research to test this out.
Suggestions -
Rather than crudely
use “whole rock” the silt and clay fractions could be separated out for
geochemical analyses and compared with the whole rock.
To test if the tills
are too heterogeneous five (or so) samples could be collected about a metre
apart at the same exposure and analysed.
Samples of the Tills
could be collected less randomly from the Withernsea, Skipsea and Basement
Tills, plus the clays on top of the Basement Till. The Bisat Research Group of
the Hull Geological Society hopes to identify more detailed stratigraphy within
the Withernsea and Skipsea Tills.
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