Anyone Want an Indoor Geology Course?

The following has appeared on the Teme Valley Geological Society's mailing list. Some of you may be tempted to reply to John Nicklin at martleypfo@gmail.com

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GEOLOGY COURSES

We have previously raised the question of geology courses. Nick Chidlaw has offered a wealth of these, both in and outdoors.  For now perhaps focus on the indoor ones (although the formations are much more visible in the winter months of course). 

 Here is one--£30/person min 10 enrollees:--

PERMIAN STRATA IN NORTH EAST ENGLAND: continental dune fields, marine reefs and karstic collapse 

Indoor day 10.00 am – 5.00 pm  Martley Hall

During the Permian period (299 – 252 million years ago), the crust that became the British Isles was located just north of the equator, under a hot, dry climate. Here, continental environments characterised the period, except in parts of north, where in Mid and Late Permian times episodic marine incursions laid down mostly carbonate sediments with interbedded evaporites. In the north east of England, Permian strata of both continental and marine origin are well represented and exposed, particularly along the attractive coastline. They are impressive, reflecting a variety of environments: continental dune fields, succeeded by both deep and shallow water shelf deposits, including an extensive bryozoan reef belt 20 miles long and up to 100m high. In some of the marine strata, fish, land plants and land reptile remains are preserved. Localised as well as extensive wholesale landsliding of the marine shelf  is evident. In what are now the onshore areas, the evaporites (chiefly halite and anhydrite) were subsequently mostly dissolved, forming impressive collapse features. Bizarre concretionary structures, which may have developed in much more recent geological times, characterize some of the carbonates. 

Nick also runs a course on our local Martley geology but he felt that you would all know this too well (hands up, I don't, so maybe he assumes too much)

I know email circulations are not usually productive in assembling groups of participants, but let me know if you will. When? If numbers materialise we'll sort it out as Nick is pretty busy.

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What If the Asteroid had Missed? 

The asteroid hit at the end of the Cretaceous, killed off the dinosaurs (birds are the only survivors) and gave mammals the space to thrive. THIS ARTICLE by a Bath academic speculates on what would have happened if the asteroid strike had not happened.

Was the arrival of intelligent tool-users inevitable? And would they be dinosaur descendants. 

Probably not. Sauropod dinosaurs had a long history of being huge in body, small in brain. From the Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous this held true.

Carnivorous dinosaurs had a similar history - big bodies, small brains.

This recipe may not have been a precursor of intelligent tool-users but it would have been enough to stop mammals (especially us) from becoming such.

Brain size versus body mass for dinosaurs, mammals, and birds. Nick Longrich

The development of mammals was not inevitable. Monkeys in South America remained as monkeys. Primates in South America never (even after at least three starts) develop large brains - they went extinct. 

Only in Africa did we emerge.

This is inevitably a very speculative article, but well worth reading.

GeoNews Autumn/Winter 2022 Edition 

The latest edition of GeoNews - the Geo Conservation Newsletter - has been published. You can get it HERE or read it below.

Down to Earth Extra December 2022

The December edition of Down to Earth Extra has been published. You can dowload it from HERE or you can read it below.

Why are There 8 Billion of Us? 

You can find one set of answers to this intriguing question HERE. And among the answers is friendliness! Compared to Neanderthals, Homo sapiens (thats us) lived in larger groups and interactions with other groups were more likely. Thus finding a mate from outside your family was more possible. Genetic deformities are less common in Homo sapiens than in Neanderthals.

(As an aside, I have been told that the invention of the bycycle was the cause of vastly improved genetic health in the nineteenth century.)

Homo sapiens may have had a slightly higher rate of reproduction; their friendliness encouraged the creation of networks which allowed the spread of technologies which got us through changes in the worlds climate. Other humanoid species were less resilient.

This is an interesting article, even if much speculation is involved. And it has the following graph which is frightening!

Based on estimates by the History Database of the Global Environment and the UN. Max Roser, CC BY-SA

Dragonflies in the Carboniferous 

A correspondent has sent me the Newsletter of the British Dragonflies Society which contains an interesting aricle about Griffinflies. You can sign up for their Newsletter near the bottom of THIS PAGE.

To save you going through the rather long newsletter I have reformatted the Griffinfly section and you can get it HERE. Or read it below.

For me the greatest interest was the discussion on the gigantism of the beast and it relationship to the higher oxygen levels of the Carboniferous. Gigantism may have more to do with the lack of predators than with oxygen levels. - Very interesting!