Teaching Earth Sciences - Earth Science Teachers' Association

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level, reducing the visual impact and scale of the block. This means that from outside the college’s perimeter fence it gives the impression of a 2- storey building. There are only windows on one side of the building on all floors. Infrequently-used storage rooms are located on the ‘dark’ side, below ground level, reducing electricity costs for lighting. • The building is predominantly UVPC-free. • MDF (medium density fibreboard) is not used for the construction of the building. • No carcinogenic construction materials were used in the building of the Centre. • The building has a siphonic drainage system that incorporated one full-bore pipe, which is more efficient than the traditional 6 or 7 rainwater pipes that could have been used on a building of this size. Consequently this drainage system avoids wasting building resources because it significantly cuts down the amount of plastic pipe work required. Environmental impact with respect to the materials and equipment used in the building. The following items were included in the scheme with a view to try to be compatible with environmental sustainability: • The project included installation of energy efficient PCs, scanners & printers i.e. machines that shut down automatically when not in use. • MDF (medium density fibreboard) was not used in the Centre’s furniture. • Energy efficient hand dryers were installed in the toilet facilities and the toilet rolls are largely made of recycled material. • The Centre’s printers and photocopiers use paper made with a high percentage of recycled material or paper manufactured from sustainable forests. • Notice boards in the Centre are made of board that contained a high proportion of recycled material. • Permanent display boards in the Learning Centre are used to raise environmental awareness (amongst staff and students) by having information about environmental issues on display. • Collection facilities were installed in the building to collect batteries, plastic bottles, aluminium cans, printer cartridges and paper for recycling. Conclusion This project showed that an environmentally sustainable building could: 1. Reduce energy use, pollution and water use. 2. Recycle materials and hence reduce waste during the building’s lifetime. 3. Use low environmental impact materials produced from renewable sources. 4. Be managed to ensure the buildings’ sustainable design features are used effectively. From my (limited) experience I would therefore suggest that the design and construction of new school or college buildings can be compatible with environmental sustainability. At the start of this project in 2000/1, the key idea of integrating environmental sustainability into the design process from its beginning was a novel idea, but since this project was completed it is encouraging to note that there has been considerable progress towards developing a code for sustainable buildings. (See: www.towards-sustainability.co.uk/issues/built/ and www.ukgbc.org/site/). Moreover a better buildings initiative, recognising success through the annual Better Public Building Award (www.betterpublicbuildings. org.uk), has since been established. I hope that this brief article will highlight a number of useful points that could be helpful either to initiate debate with students about environmental sustainability issues in the news or to increase their awareness of how such issues can be related to their own ‘work environments’. The study of geology engages students in a range of issues that include sustainable development. By suggesting to students how, even on a local or small scale, the buildings they use can encourage living and working patterns that reduce consumption of natural resources and increase biodiversity could be useful in helping our students develop positive attitudes regarding “protection and responsible stewardship of their environment” (part of the “wider curriculum” referred to in the new AS/A Geology specifications). Other useful links www.greenflagaward.org.uk www.buildingforlife.org Maggie Williams hiatus@liv.ac.uk 42 Teaching Earth Sciences Vol 35 No 1 2010 www.esta-uk.net
Peneplains and plate tectonics Mark Hayward Abstract Regional-scale erosion surfaces known as peneplains preoccupied geomorphologists for about sixty years of the twentieth century. By the time the theory of plate tectonics had become embedded in the Earth sciences, the peneplain concept had virtually disappeared from view. Recent research, however, indicates that the concept, albeit in a revised form, could have an important role to play in understanding landforms on a large scale in the context of plate tectonics. Introduction It is surprising that two recent physical geography texts (Holden, 2008 and McKnight & Hess, 2008) devote no space to landforms at the regional scale. The latter, an American text, includes a map of world landform regions, but states that the pattern is random and will not be considered any further! The other text, a widely used British one at undergraduate level, covers plate tectonics briefly. The explanation of regional-scale surface features is an important aspect of geomorphology that has been quite neglected. The theory of plate tectonics provides a framework to explain the distribution of landform regions. The peneplain concept provided geomorphologists with a phenomenon that can be mapped and correlated from place to place at a regional scale (morphostratigraphy). The quantitative revolution in geography from the 1960s onwards led to an emphasis on smaller-scale process studies. This was a paradigm shift away from the dominance of Davisian denudation chronology, which underpinned the peneplain concept. Meanwhile, a better understanding of tectonics undermined the eustatic view of world-wide changes in base level that many geomorphologists believed in. It is not intended to argue for a return to W M Davis’s cycle of youth-maturity-old age that dominated geomorphology for half a century towards the end of the last millennium. This article will focus on one of his important concepts, the peneplain, and summarise some recent research by Earth scientists, while setting it alongside arguably its stratigraphic counterpart, the unconformity. Google Scholar was used to search for relevant recent research, using the keywords peneplain, planation surface and unconformity. Most ‘hits’ were in the form of abstracts, but several were pdf files. Unless otherwise stated, the term peneplain will be used in a broad sense, following Fairbridge & Finkl (1980): ‘a polygenetic surface of low relief’: in other words, an extensive lowland formed by weathering and erosion. Do peneplains exist? Peneplains were once fundamental to geomorphological analysis (Figure 1). Phillips (2002) however, states that ‘despite more than a century of effort, no convincing example of a contemporary peneplain has been identified, and the identification of relict peneplains is uncertain and controversial’. He sets out to demonstrate mathematically that the relationship between erosion and deposition rates and uplift or erosion are ‘dynamically unstable’. Therefore, tectonic stability alone is insufficient to account for the lack of peneplains, and must be considered together with, for example, changes in sea level, climate and isostatic changes. Nevertheless, whether considering large-scale surface features of the Earth, or extensive unconformities in the geological record, evidence of widespread erosion surfaces, or planation surfaces (therefore peneplains in Fairbridge’s sense) is incontrovertible. Examples of peneplains in recent research Coltori et al (2007) write that ‘Planation surfaces are an old-fashioned topic in geomorphology, but they are nevertheless important where they make up much of the landscape’. Furthermore, ‘These surfaces indicate that eastern Africa underwent long episodes of tectonic quiescence during which erosion processes were able to planate the surface at altitudes not too far from sea level’; in other words they are peneplains in the Davisian sense. Successive planation leads to stepped topography. Peulvast & Claudino Sales (2004) have re-evaluated stepped planation surfaces in North East Brazil, relating them to continental rifting and Atlantic opening in the Cretaceous. Campbell et al (2006) document the Neogene www.esta-uk.net Vol 35 No 1 2010 Teaching Earth Sciences 43
Page 1 and 2: Teaching ISSN 0957-8005 Earth Scien
Page 3 and 4: Contents From the Editor Hazel Clar
Page 5 and 6: From the Chair Niki Whitburn Welcom
Page 7 and 8: Fred Broadhurst remembered 5 Februa
Page 9 and 10: Geology and Society - ESTA Annual C
Page 11 and 12: ESTA Conference, Southampton 2009 P
Page 13 and 14: Teaching Ideas from the ‘Bring an
Page 15 and 16: Idea Title: Presenter: Brief descri
Page 21 and 22: Sub-surf Rocks! ESTA at Southampton
Page 23 and 24: Potential exists to use Google Eart
Page 25 and 26: Conclusion Since the development of
Page 27 and 28: Figure 1 A simple diagram showing t
Page 29 and 30: Figure 3 Predicted annual surface t
Page 31 and 32: emissions in ocean surface waters,
Page 33 and 34: Greenhouse to icehouse: Arctic clim
Page 35 and 36: the results are extremely striking.
Page 37 and 38: experienced by this region have bee
Page 39 and 40: Climate Change . . . Save the Plane
Page 41 and 42: 14-18) from King Edward VI Five Way
Page 43: Figure 2 The living roof planted wi
Page 47 and 48: Figure 2 Planation surfaces (penepl
Page 49 and 50: Lidmar-Bergström, K. (1999) Uplift
Page 51 and 52: The formation of Gondwana (and Laur
Page 53 and 54: The fracturing of Gondwana was a pr
Page 55 and 56: Figure 5 Plunge refers to the dip o
Page 57 and 58: The foregoing is a summary of terms
Page 59 and 60: Reviews The Control of Nature John
Page 61 and 62: The starting point of the Deep Time
Page 63 and 64: With an introductory textbook of th
Page 65 and 66: Earth’s Climate provides a multid
Page 67 and 68: Excursion Guide to the Geology of E
Page 69 and 70: Diary March 2010 1st March until 11
Page 71: 9th June Lecture: The Chemistry of

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