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teaching 

EARTH 

SCIENCES 

Journal of the EARTH SCIENCE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION 

Volume 27 ● Number 3, 2002 ● ISSN 0957-8005 

www.esta-uk.org

th Science 

ache 

Earth Science 

Activities and 

Earthquakes 

Response to the 

Science and 

inquiry into the 

Kingston 2001 

Book Reviews 

Websearch 

Browne 

Teaching Earth Sciences: Guide for Authors 

The Editor welcomes articles of any length and nature and on any topic related to 

Earth science education from cradle to grave. Please inspect back copies of TES, 

from Issue 26(3) onwards, to become familiar with the journal house-style. 

Three paper copies of major articles are requested. Please use double line spacing 

and A4 paper and please use SI units throughout, except where this is inappropriate 

(in which case please include a conversion table). The first paragraph of each 

major article should not have a subheading but should either introduce the reader 

to the context of the article or should provide an overview to stimulate interest. This 

is not an abstract in the formal sense. Subsequent paragraphs should be grouped 

under sub-headings. 

Text 

Please also supply the full text on disk or as an email attachment: Microsoft Word 

is the most convenient, but any widely-used wordprocessor is acceptable. 

References 

Please use the following examples as models 

(1) Articles 

Mayer, V. (1995) Using the Earth system for integrating the science curriculum. 

Science Education, 79(4), pp. 375-391. 

(2) Books 

McPhee, J. (1986 ) Rising from the Plains. New York: Fraux, Giroux & Strauss. 

(3) Chapters in books 

Duschl, R.A. & Smith, M.J. (2001) Earth Science. In Jere Brophy (ed), Subject- 

Specific Instructional Methods and Activities, Advances in Research on Teaching. Volume 8, 

pp. 269-290. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science. 

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Your President 

Introduced 

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Thinking Geology: 

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Thinking Ski ls in 

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Recovering the 

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Science Cu riculum for 

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Se ting up a local 

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News and Resources 

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Creationism and 

Evolution: 

Questions in the 

Classroom 

Institute of Biology 

Chemistry on the 

High Street 

Peter Kenne t 




Fossils and Time 

Mike Tuke 

Beyond Petroleum: 

Business and 

The Environment in 

the 21st Century John 

Using Foam Rubber in 

an Aquarium To 

Simulate Plate- 

Tectonic And Glacial 

Phenomena 

John Wheeler 

Dorset and East 

Devon Coast: 

World Heritage Site 


Update 

New ESTA Members 

Websearch 


(including ESTA AGM) 

Figures 

Prepared artwork must be of high quality and submitted on paper and disk. Handdrawn 

and hand-labelled diagrams are not normally acceptable, although in some 

circumstances this is appropriate. Each figure must be submitted as a separate file. 

Photographs 

Please submit colour or black-and-white photographs as originals. They are also 

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Please use one file for each photograph. 

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Sciences if it is required for use in the classroom or lecture room. Copyright material 

reproduced in TES by permission of other publications rests with the original 

publisher. Permission must be sought from the Editor to reproduce original material 

from Teaching Earth Sciences in other publications and appropriate acknowledgement 

must be given. 

All articles submitted should be original unless indicted otherwise and should 

contain the author’s full name, title and address (and email address where relevant). 

They should be sent to the Editor, 

Dr Roger Trend 

School of Education 

University of Exeter 

Exeter EX1 2LU 

UK 

Tel 01392 264768 

Email R.D.Trend@exeter.ac.uk 

Editor 

WHERE IS PEST 

PEST is printed as the 

centre 4 pages in 

Teaching Earth Sciences.




TEACHING EARTH SCIENCES ● Volume 27 ● Number 3, 2002 


EARTH 

SCIENCES 

Teaching Earth Sciences is published quarterly by 

the Earth Science Teachers’ Association. ESTA 

aims to encourage and support the teaching of 

Earth Sciences, whether as a single subject or as 

part of science or geography courses. 

Full membership is £25.00; student and retired 

membership £12.50. 

Registered Charity No. 1005331 

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Contributions to future issues of Teaching Earth 

Sciences will be welcomed and should be 

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Opinions and comments in this issue are the 

personal views of the authors and do not 

necessarily represent the views of the Association. 

Designed by Character Design 

Highridge, Wrigglebrook Lane, Kingsthorne 

Hereford HR2 8AW 

CONTENTS 

66 Editorial 

Roger Trend 

68 Hydrogeology, Pollution and Cemeteries 

Mike Lelliott 

74 Mass Extinctions: 

The Alternatives to “Deep Impact” 

Rosalind V. White 

78 Fossils Under the Microscope 

Ian Wilkinson 

85 The Stone Tapes: 

Building Stones in the History of the City of 

Nottingham 

Graham Lott 

89 Lost Worlds: 

How Exceptional Fossils Reveal the Past 

Mark Williams 

94 From Flood to Drought and Back Again 

Brian Waters 

96 ESTA Conference 2003 

97 Reviews 

98 ESTA Diary 

99 Websearch 

101 News and Resources 


EARTH 

SCIENCES 

Visit our website at www.esta-uk.org 

Front cover: 

Key Stage 2 children exploring the rock 

shelves, National Stone Centre. Note 

that hard hats are not required! 

Photo Ian Thomas. See page 101. 

Back cover: 

The snout of the Porito Moreno glacier 

and Lago Argentino in Patagonia, 

southern Argentina. 

Photo: Martin Whiteley 

65 www.esta-uk.org


Editorial 

Afew weeks ago the BBC broadcast a peak-time 

television programme called something like 

“Fifty Places You Must Visit before You Die”, 

comprising the 50 most popular holiday locations 

according to some kind of viewer survey. Of course, I 

won’t bore or insult you by going through the usual 

caveats, (unrepresentative sample, inconsistent selection 

criteria etc.), but they are probably more relevant 

here than with most other data sources! Nevertheless, 

and remaining fully cognisant of the distinguishing 

characteristics of sound academic enquiry, I have on 

your behalf analysed the research data comprehensively, 

rigorously, statistically and exhaustively (not to mention 

exhaustingly). I have come up with some amazing 

facts that should cheer the hearts of those who seek 

after truth, including those committed to Earth science 

I had to determine if Iceland was ranked at 44 

because of its diverse and spectacular geological 

phenomena or because of its unique and equally 

spectacular socio-economic and cultural attractions. 

Similarly, what attracted respondents to Hawaii: 

the volcanoes or the surfing beaches 

education. There is, however, one major weakness in 

this academic investigation which might throw into 

question the reliability of the findings. This weakness is 

the fact that I, the objective and wholly impartial 

researcher engaged in this study, have been unsuccessful 

in my quest for research funds to allow me to investigate 

at first hand each and every location. This 

difficulty has prevented me from obtaining muchneeded 

supportive data to facilitate triangulation, and is, 

of course, a reflection of the very low esteem in which 

such high-quality, esoteric, academic research of this 

kind is generally held. 

Method 

The programme was watched, with a cup of coffee to 

hand, or was it tea Pencil and paper also figured in the 

data-collection instrument. 

Results and Analysis 

Taking the fifty locations in total, the Grand Canyon is 

top, the Great Barrier Reef is second, South Island 

New Zealand is fourth and Table Mountain is fifth. If 

you really want to know the third most popular location, 

please see the bottom of the next page where it is 

printed small and inverted. Needless to say, many of 

the world’s cities are in the list, such as Sydney at 8, 

New York at 9, Venice at 18 and Paris at 27. Specific 

buildings or historical settlements also figure large, 

such as the Taj Mahal at 10, Machu Picchu at 14, 

Angkor Wat at 29 and Abu Simbel at 48. 

Each location was painstakingly analysed to determine 

its relative Earth science content. This was a 

major element in the research project because it 

involved probing respondents’ minds in a systematic 

way in order to expose their perceptions of the places. 

This was particularly demanding because I had no 

access whatsoever to the respondents... For example, I 

had to determine if Iceland was ranked at 44 because 

of its diverse and spectacular geological phenomena or 

because of its unique and equally spectacular socioeconomic 

and cultural attractions. Similarly, what 

attracted respondents to Hawaii: the volcanoes or the 

surfing beaches 

For current readers the most significant “locale 

group” (a norm-referenced multi-variate artefact developed 

by my research team specifically for this project) 

comprises those places which are perceived as being 

attractive essentially because of their geological or geomorphological 

features: examples include Grand 

Canyon at 1, Great Barrier Reef at 2, South Island New 

Zealand at 4, Table Mountain at 5, Lake Louise at 11, 

Uluru at 12, Yosemite at 23, North Island New Zealand 

at 25, Alaska at 28, Everest at 30 and the Matterhorn at 

46. This group is labelled Downright Geological. A similar 

locale group (Diluted Geology) comprises places similar 

to these but with rather less domination by the 

geology: Galapagos at 33 (don’t forget all that biology: 

marine iguanas, finches, giant tortoises etc.) and Sri 

Lanka (think of all those non-geological elephants, trees 

and tea plantations) at 41 exemplify this category. 

Another important Earth science locale group comprises 

the Waterfalls, with no fewer than 4 on the list: 

Niagara at 15, Victoria at 21, Iguacu at 26 and Angel at 

47. A final Earth science grouping comprises historical 

or cultural places which possess significant geological 

elements, such as Petra at 16, Machu Picchu at 14, the 

Great Wall of China at 20 and the Terracotta Army at 45. 

This last group is labelled Building on Geology. 

The following table summarises the data according 

to locale group. Note that the four geology-related 

groups contain 31 places, being 62% of the total. This is 

more than half: an amazing and wholly-unexpected 

finding which has clear implications for curriculum 

Locale Group 

Frequency 

Urban Delights 13 

Downright Geological 13 

Building on Geology 10 

Tropical Paradise 5 

Waterfalls 4 

Diluted Geology 4 

Other (see bottom of next page) 1 


66


planning not only across the sciences but also in business 

& finance, travel, and leisure & tourism. 

The above analysis treats each rank as of equal value, 

but clearly a position of 3 is much better than one of 46. 

The mean rank of all the Downright Geological places 

(n=13) is 19.53 whereas that for Urban Delights 

(n=13) is far higher, at 26.84. This is unequivocal evidence 

that the world’s holiday-makers prefer visiting 

geological sites than drab and boring cities such as Sydney, 

Venice and Barcelona. Only the Other category has 

a higher rank than all of the geological categories, a 

wholly inexplicable and somewhat worrying finding. 

Implications of the Findings 

The implications of the results presented above are 

clearly very significant for the Earth science education 

community, and beyond, but it is not possible 

here to examine them at the length and depth warranted: 

such an analysis belongs in a high-status academic 

journal read by 12 very clever people 

worldwide rather than in TES which is read by many 

hundreds of practitioners. Nevertheless, some tentative 

conclusions are offered in all humility and the 

following ones might be drawn from this analysis. I 

present them as options to be considered. 

1. We can learn nothing whatsoever from these data: far 

more research is needed... and soon. 

2. Earth science figures large in the perceptions of people 

who both watch television and take overseas holidays. 

We have no reliable data on such perceptions 

among people who only engage in one of these two 

activities. These subjects do not actually think of 

themselves as being keen on geology, possibly 

because of its perceived connections with anoraks, so 

most are actually unaware of this Earth science orientation 

in their perceptions. However, if they were 

to become aware of it they would probably switch 

their holidays to Paris, Venice and Rome, with obvious 

implications for those places. 

3. Earth science teachers should take over responsibility 

for all courses in travel, leisure and tourism 

and the balance of content within such courses 

should be adjusted to match the expressed interests 

of the punters. 

4. Package tour operators should insist that all their 

representatives are Earth science graduates and their 

professional training within the tour company 

should involve refresher courses every year to ensure 

they are up-to-date (for example, do all current reps 

know if birds really are descendants of dinosaurs). 

5. Package tour representatives should be provided 

with scripts prepared by true experts in the field. An 

example follows: “Good afternoon, welcome to Majerife, 

and I hope you had a good flight from Gatwick. My name 

is Shelly and our coach driver today is Juan. We now have a 

50-minute drive to your hotel complex, so just sit back and 

relax. Make sure you go to the Welcome Meeting tomorrow 

morning at 6.15 a.m. where we will be telling you all about 

the local evidence for the Carnian-Norian extinction event, 

the latest interpretation of the ultramafic xenoliths in the 

alkali basalts which underlie the resort and, of course, the 

classic overstep shown in the unconformity in the hills behind 

your hotel. The meeting will finish by 3 p.m. so there will be 

plenty of time for a swim in the pool... Quick ,if you look out 

of the left side of the coach now you can see the quarry where 

the well-exposed ophiolite sequence gives us terrific evidence 

for the little-understood Tommotian collision...” 

6. Authorities keen to attract new tourists to particular 

locations should emphasise the geological features 

and ignore cultural and historical factors. It is even 

debatable if climatological and meteorological variables 

(often referred to in popular literature as “the 

weather”) should figure in their promotional material 

since the evidence presented here suggests it is 

totally irrelevant to the average holiday-maker 

(Everest, Iceland, Alaska). 

7. Earth science courses should be re-configured to 

accommodate these findings. This may be done in 

several ways. More full degree courses (or compulsory 

modules) are needed with titles such as “With 

Rocks In Mind: choosing your holiday destination 

from an informed position” and “From Here to 

Ibiza: hydrological, palaeontological and mineralogical 

opportunities for all”. 

Roger Trend 

Answer. Walt Disney World 

67 www.esta-uk.org


Hydrogeology, Pollution and Cemeteries 

MIKE LELLIOTT 

A large step forward towards water awareness was reached in August 2002 with the UN Secretary 

General, Kofi Annan, identifying that “water is a fundamental resource for sustaining life and for 

conserving the natural environment” (World Summit on Sustainable Development). A lack of 

management in the evaluation, provision and use of water resources was identified as the basis 

to water problems seen in many countries. Water resources have to be managed to provide 

sufficient safe water for drinking, adequate sanitation facilities, food production, industry and 

many other purposes; but not removing excessive water to effect the ecological functions of 

wetlands and other ecosystems. Good management stems from a clear understanding of water 

and the issues facing water. This article aims to increase understanding of water, and more 

specifically “groundwater”, on two fronts; firstly, the origins and movement of water, and 

secondly the pollution of water. 

The Hydrological Cycle 

Every year about 110 million million cubic metres of 

water falls as precipitation on the land area of the 

Earth (Price, 1996). If all the water in the atmosphere 

were to fall as rain in one event it would produce an 

average of about 25 mm of rainfall over the total surface 

of the Earth. In an average year it is estimated that 

1000 mm of rain falls over the entire surface of the 

Earth, which means about 40 cycles of condensation 

and rainfall over a period of a year. This equates to 1 

cycle approximately every 10 days, which in the UK 

climate is all too believable. If all this water is falling, 

and there is no apparent loss of water from the 

oceans, then it must be being recycled. This recycling 

of water is explained by the water cycle, which is simply 

a system of water transferral between stores, wellknown 

to readers. The ocean is the largest store of 

water, but water molecules may also spend periods of 

time stored in ice caps, or in the pore spaces of rocks. 

The exception to this is for very small water losses in 

the upper atmosphere to hydrogen and oxygen, and 

broken down by plants during photosynthesis to help 

form carbohydrates. 

A large amount of precipitation occurs over the 

ocean, and consequently short circuits the water cycle. 

Water precipitated over land may take several routes 

through the remainder of the cycle. Some will be intercepted 

by foliage, and held on the leaves of trees and 

plants until it evaporates. Some will fall on impermeable 

surfaces such as certain rocks or man made constructions 

and can either collects in puddles and 

evaporates, or run off into natural or artificial drainage 

channels. The remainder of water falls directly on soil, 

with movement largely controlled by the soil type and 

condition, of which movement can be divided into 

three broad groups (Price, 1996): 

● Water evaporated directly or by transpiration from 

vegetation (Evapotranspiration) 

● Run over soil surface (overland flow) or in the near 

surface soil (interflow) until it reaches a ditch or 

stream 

● Or may soak into deeper layers of soil and perhaps 

into the underlying rock 

If the soil is dry and rainfall is light, all water reaching 

the ground will infiltrate into the soil and be held there 

as films of moisture which surround individual soil 

particles. This water is held in the soil until it is either 

evaporated directly or taken up by plants. As each successive 

layer of soil absorbs water, infiltration moves on 

downward, through the unsaturated zone until the 

infiltration reaches the water table and joins groundwater 

in the saturated zone. The precipitation that 

reaches the water table is termed recharge. 

The maximum rate at which water can enter the soil 

is called the infiltration capacity of the soil (Price, 

1996). If the rain is exceptionally heavy, if the soil has a 

low infiltration capacity, or if the ground is already saturated 

then a situation can arise where the infiltration 

capacity is exceeded. This results in overland flow. 

Overland flow is relatively rare and can often flow over 

short distances before sinking into soil elsewhere. 

If rocks beneath the soil are impermeable, or if there 

is contrasting permeability within the soil there will be 

a tendency for interflow, where water moves laterally 

through the unsaturated zone until arriving at streams 

or drains. 

Water that reaches the water table becomes groundwater. 

So what is groundwater The simplest definition 

is that groundwater is water contained in saturated soil 

and rock material below the surface of the earth. This 

groundwater then percolates slowly though the aquifer 

at rates varying from metres per day to millimetres per 

year (see Figure 1). The groundwater moves towards an 

outlet, which is usually a point where the water table 

intersects the ground surface, such as a river or spring 


68


or induced by abstraction. These are collectively known 

as discharge areas. 

Groundwater moves from areas of high hydraulic 

head to areas of low hydraulic head. Hydraulic head 

comprises of two parameters – elevation and pressure. 

At the water table pressure is zero, so elevation defines 

hydraulic head, and consequently groundwater moves 

from high to low elevation. 

So we understand that groundwater moves from 

recharge to discharge areas, or from high head to low 

head. But how does the water move through the rock 

The movement of groundwater through aquifers is due 

to either permeability or fractures. The permeability of 

a rock is simply how well the pore spaces, or porosity, 

are connected. If a rock has a high permeability then 

groundwater will flow. The movement of groundwater 

through the gaps between grains of a rock is termed 

intergranular flow and is the predominant flow 

mechanism for sands and sandstone. 

The second mechanism for groundwater movement 

is via fractures. The chalk of the UK has a high 

porosity of about 40%, but a low permeability, due to 

the fine-grained nature of the matrix resulting in pore 

throats of approximately 1µm. However, the chalk is 

heavily fractured and these fractures can allow rapid 

transport of groundwater. The fractures contribute to 

approximately 1% of total porosity, but almost all the 

groundwater yield. 

Figure 1: 

Groundwater residence time and discharge 

(IPR/35-35c British Geological Survey © NERC. All rights reserved.) 

Figure 2: 

Groundwater usage distribution in the UK 

(UK Groundwater Forum) 

UK Groundwater Resources 

In the UK 28% of our water supply is sourced from 

groundwater. However, this usage depends on geographical 

position (see Figure 2). In the south of 

England up to 72% of water supply is from groundwater, 

whereas in Scotland this is as low as 3%. This 

high usage, unsurprisingly, coincides with the main 

aquifers. The usage is also high in the south and east 

due to a high population density reducing the potential 

for reservoirs, and a lower rainfall than the northwest. 

Approximately 55% of groundwater is 

abstracted from the chalk (see Figure 2), and 26% 

from the Permo – Triassic sandstones. The remaining 

19% is sourced from Devonian sandstone, Carboniferous 

and Permian limestone and Cretaceous 

sandstone. The use of groundwater is likely to 

increase further as population and usage increases 

and therefore any contamination of the resource is of 

major concern for the supply of high quality drinking 

water. 

Pollution 

The majority of people have seen a polluted stream or 

lake. Surface waters are readily vulnerable to pollution 

and a contaminated river is visibly obvious. The awareness 

of the ease of polluting surface waters, and its high 

visibility and consequently priority to the general public, 

has resulted in actions to protect them, and for the 

water to be treated. 

69 www.esta-uk.org


Figure 3: 

Potentially 

polluting activities 

(UK Groundwater 

Forum) 

Groundwater may not be pure, but it is less vulnerable 

to simple pollution as seen in rivers and lakes. 

However, this leads to a misconception that groundwater 

is invulnerable to pollution. Two factors, perhaps 

above all others, have led to a false sense of security over 

groundwater pollution. The first is the slow speeds of 

typical groundwater movement. From the time a molecule 

of water enters the ground as recharge to the time 

it leaves the aquifer is rarely less than years, and may be 

centuries or millennia (Price, 1996). The second factor 

is the enormous capacity of most aquifers to adsorb and 

dilute pollutants. This arises from the size and volumes 

of water held in storage and from the efforts of dispersion 

and adsorption as groundwater flows through the 

aquifer by advection. This delays the contaminant 

emergence from the ground and often dilutes sufficiently 

for no detection. The contamination can then 

continue until by the time it is discovered the total 

quantity of pollutant in and moving through the aquifer 

may be very large. Also the factor of “out of site out of 

mind” applies, where any contamination that is not visible 

is not seen as a major problem and results in a lower 

public awareness of such issues. A consequence of the 

groundwater being out of site is that any contamination 

is hard to detect and monitor, and the task of cleaning 

up a polluted aquifer is enormous. 

With increasingly stricter standards required for 

water quality and increasingly sensitive detection 

equipment the release of contaminants can lead to a situation 

where large volumes of groundwater are theoretically 

unfit for human consumption. It is therefore 

important to take a preventative rather than curative 

approach to groundwater pollution. 

There is a large range of human activities that can 

result in pollution of groundwater. (see Figure 3). The 

obvious examples are contamination due to hydrocarbons 

(NAPL’s) such as leaky storage tanks at petrol stations 

or oil and gas power stations or industrial storage 

sites. Another common source of contamination is 

from landfill and also septic tanks. All of the above 

examples are point source types of pollution. There is 

also diffuse source pollution, which can arise from 

large areas of land during farming operations. A third 

group of pollution arises from line sources, such as 

railway sidings or roads where excessive pollutants such 

as pesticides or salt are used. 

As people’s awareness of pollution improves, and 

regulations become stricter, many current practices are 

identified as having the potential to pollute the environment. 

One such practice is burial sites. 

Cemeteries 

There are many anecdotal references to cemeteries, 

such as a higher incidence of typhoid fever among people 

living near a cemetery in Berlin between 1863 and 

1867 (Bouwer, 1978) or a “sweetish taste and infected 

odour” of water from wells close to cemeteries in Paris, 

especially in hot summers (Bouwer, 1978). There has 

also been an historical prevalence of placing drinking 

wells in close proximity to cemeteries or graveyards. A 

quote from Holme (1896), states: 

“It is a fact that many wells, conduits and pumps in 

and around London were, and still are, in close proximity 

to churchyards, or even within them” 

“Another [pump] in St Georges [churchyard] was 

used for drinking water until the Revd Harry Jones, 

during a cholera scare, hung a large placard on it reading 

‘dead men’s broth!’” 

To understand the potential for pollution from 

cemeteries we have to understand the processes that 

generate the contaminants, however gruesome it may 

appear. There are 5 stages of human body decomposition 

recognised: 

1. Fresh 

2. Bloat 

3. Active decay 

4. Advanced decay 

5. Dry skeletal remains 


70


The decay process begins as early as half an hour after 

death, with muscular flaccidity, desiccation (dull eyeballs) 

and hypostasis (drainage of blood under gravity). 

A human corpse normally decays totally within a period 

of 10-12 years with over half of the contaminant 

loading leached within the first year of decomposition. 

This gives each human body an approximate contamination 

life span of 10 years, depending on prevailing 

conditions such as temperature, chemical conditions 

surrounding material. 

The degradation of a human body is analogous to a 

landfill filled with putrescible waste, with a couple of 

minor exceptions, and is principally controlled by 

microbial decay. The principle outputs for a landfill 

containing putrescible waste is summarised in Figure 

4. Decomposition begins when aerobic bacteria get to 

work. The action of these bacteria consumes the oxygen 

that was incorporated in the waste and produces 

carbon dioxide. This first stage of decomposition usually 

takes from a few weeks to a few months (Phase I). 

When the oxygen has been consumed, anaerobic bacteria 

take over and produce more carbon dioxide and 

fatty acids. Methane also begins to be produced. There 

is large-scale settlement in Stages I and II. In Stage III 

the fatty acids are themselves broken down to produce 

more methane. Stage IV is an equilibrium phase 

where the landfill or body acts as a natural bioreactor. 

The characteristic feature of this stage is the generation 

of relatively constant levels of methane and carbon 

dioxide. This only ends when the putrescible 

component source is exhausted (Stage V) and aerobic 

conditions return. At the same time there is gas produced, 

inorganic material contribute to the composition 

of leachate. 

The principal differences between a landfill and 

decomposition of a human body are that the ratio of 

Carbon to Nitrogen to Phosphorous (30:3:1) in a 

human body provides a good balance between the principal 

microbial nutrients. Landfills are generally deficient 

in Phosphorous. Also, more importantly, the rate 

of leachate production in a grave is far higher than in a 

landfill. Modern landfills are designed with low permeability 

clay caps to reduce the amount of precipitation 

infiltrating into the landfill, which helps to reduce the 

amount of leachate produced. Graves are not, and they 

actually act as preferential channels for infiltration as 

they are filled with disturbed material. Secondly a 

human body contains nearly double the amount of 

water found in an average landfill, also aiding to 

leachate production. Therefore, human bodies decompose 

more efficiently than putrescible waste in a landfill, 

with the process generating leachate containing the 

following main contaminants: 

● Organic compounds 

● Ammonical nitrogen and nitrate 

● Principle mobile anions (Chloride and Sulphate in 

particular) 

● Alkali earth metals (NA, K, Ca, Mg, Fe etc) 

● Pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, 

Clostridium perfrigens) 

● Viruses (Enteroviruses, Polioviruses, Echovirus, 

Hepatitis A, Reovirus and Rotavirus) 

Pollution Risk from Cemeteries 

We have seen that bodies decompose and produce a 

range of contaminants, but are these contaminants likely 

to become a source of pollution Modern landfills 

generally have a low risk of pollution because their pollution 

potential is well recognised and suitable measures 

are in place. As mentioned previously, modern 

landfills have low permeability clay caps to reduce infiltration 

(see Figure 5). 

Landfills also have a clay liner at the base that is engineered 

to a low permeability (10 -9 m/sec) and often a 

Figure 4: 

Organic and nonorganic 

products 

from a putrescible 

waste landfill 

Figure 5: 

Modern 

Landfill design 

(UK Groundwater 

Forum) 

71 www.esta-uk.org


Figure 6: 

Mechanisms for 

dispersion in the 

saturated zone 

synthetic liner on top of even lower permeability. This 

acts to contain all leachates, which can then be removed 

if required. A down side to this is that it can hinder 

decomposition, but it does reduce risk of a pollution 

incident. 

This type of precaution is not seen at cemetery sites, 

yet there are over 200,000 burials per year (Young et al, 

2001), which equates to 12,000 tonnes of decomposing 

material (based on average body weight of 60kg). However, 

if burials were so contaminating then there would 

be widespread pollution as a result, and awareness 

would be high, as seen with landfills. This lack of 

awareness is either due to a lack of research in correlating 

pollution incidences with cemeteries or that the 

contaminants are attenuated. The attenuation of contaminants 

has much to do with the environment in 

which the burial occurs. As mentioned earlier a grave 

acts as a conduit for infiltration, due to the presence of 

disturbed infilled material. This infiltrated water then 

can dissolve and react with the products of degradation 

to produce the leachate. What happens next The 

movement of leachate from the grave “cell” is primarily 

determined by the surrounding strata and geology, 

with 3 principle components of pathways from the 

grave: 

● The soil surrounding the burial 

● The unsaturated zone of the underlying aquifer 

(if present) 

● The saturated zone of the aquifer (if present) 

The principle characteristics of each pathway are: 

1) Soil Pathways: Soils are often more complex in 

terms of composition, chemistry and biological 

activity than the underlying rocks or sediments from 

which they are derived. They may be the site of 

intense biochemical reactions, so that contaminants 

may undergo change as they pass through them. Air 

access to soils is generally good and likely to be aerobic, 

unless waterlogged, and this encourages oxidation 

of pollutants (i.e. Ammonia to nitrite and 

nitrate). The physical processes of filtration, adsorption, 

absorption and cation exchange are all important 

attenuating processes. 

2) Unsaturated zone pathways: These zones are generally 

less chemically and biologically active than the 

overlying soils. The rate of re-oxygenation from the 

surface is lower than in soils and anoxic conditions 

may develop. Nevertheless, chemical and biochemical 

reactions may continue to immobilise pollutants, 

whilst filtration, adsorption and cation exchange 

may continue to immobilise pollutants and some 

dissolved pollutants. 

3) Saturated zone pathway: Once in the saturated zone 

the contaminant begins to follow the regional 

groundwater movement (depending on relative densities 

of water and contaminant). The contaminant is 

transported with the groundwater by advection. The 

groundwater/contaminants are subject to dispersion 

(see Figure 6), and is the principle cause for dilution 

in the saturated zone. There are additional factors 

such as chemical and biological reactions, or filtration 

and diffusion. 

From this we can see how important the unsaturated 

and saturated zones are in attenuating the pollutants 

from a burial and that the potential for a cemetery to 

pollute is often largely dependent on the vulnerability 

of the soil, unsaturated zone and groundwater (see 

Figure 7). A thin sandy soil (little material for chemical 

reactions), a thin unsaturated zone and highly fractured, 

rapid transport aquifer would be highly 

vulnerable to pollution; whereas a thick clayey/organic 

rich soil, with thick unsaturated zone and deep 

water table offers good protection of groundwater 

from contamination. 

The potential risk from many of the contaminants is 

well documented, and their attenuation in aquifers is 

relatively well known. However, the study of bacteria 

and virus transport in aquifers is relatively new. Studies 

have shown several microbial contaminants in the 

groundwater associated with cemeteries. One of the 

most significant was Staphylococcus aureus, and is a bacteria 

commonly associated with human decomposition. 

Other potentially harmful bacteria resulting from 

human decay are Bacillus cereus and Clostridium perfrigens. 

There are also a series of potentially harmful viruses 

such as: Enteroviruses, Polioviruses, Echovirus, 

Hepatitis A, Reovirus and Rotavirus. 

Most enteric pathogens die within 2-3 months once 

outside the human gut, however, under cold conditions 

they could survive up to years. Enterovirus survival has 

been reported to range from 25 to 170 days. There is, 

however, a lack of research and consequently understanding, 

into firstly the potentially harmful microbes 

produced from decomposition, and secondly the 


72


mobility and survival of these microbes in groundwater. 

An understanding of these factors needs to be considered 

before an assessment of the potential risk from 

bacteria and viruses resulting from decomposition can 

be made. 

Conclusions 

An increased awareness of water – from a resource perspective 

and a pollution perspective – is critical for sustainable 

development. Water is continuously recycled as 

part of the water cycle, of which groundwater is just one 

part. The movement of water through the ground 

occurs by two mechanisms; firstly water moving 

between grains of material, termed intergranular flow, 

and secondly water moving along fractures, termed 

fracture flow. In the UK there is a large dependency on 

groundwater in southern England (72%), and a low 

dependency in Scotland (3%). This is primarily due to 

the location of the main water bearing units, or 

aquifers, in southern and central England, but also 

because of the high population density in southern 

England reducing space available for reservoirs. 

Groundwater can be polluted by a wide range of 

activities, either from a small aerial area, point source; 

from a large aerial area, diffuse source; or from a line 

source. An increasing understanding of pollution has 

helped identify many previously unthought-of potentially 

polluting activities, one of which is cemeteries. A 

human body decomposes in 10-12 years, depending on 

prevailing conditions. For this period the human body 

acts as a potential contaminant source, with ammonia, 

organic compounds, bacteria and viruses being some of 

the products. The surrounding soil, unsaturated zone 

and saturated zone control the movement of these contaminants 

with the lowering of contaminant concentrations, 

or attenuation, largely occurring in the soil zone 

due to complex composition and chemistry allowing 

biochemical reactions, chemical reactions, filtration, 

and adsorption. In the saturated zone, attenuation of 

contaminants is principally controlled by dispersion 

within the main groundwater flow. There are many 

unknowns in contamination arising from cemeteries, 

principally the presence and movement of bacteria and 

viruses, and therefore continued research is required to 

improve understanding and help towards the management 

of the “fundamental resource for sustaining life 

and for conserving the natural environment”. 

Mike Lelliott 

British Geological Survey 

Keyworth 

Nottingham 

NG12 5GG 

Tel. 0115 936 3206 

mlell@bgs.ac.uk 

Figure 7: 

Vulnerability of 

groundwater 

(UK Groundwater Forum) 

References 

Price, Mike (1996) Introducing Groundwater. 2nd edition. Stanley Thornes 

Ltd. 

Ward, R.C & Robinson, M. (2000). Principles of Hydrology. 4th Edition. 

McGraw-Hill. 

Young, C.P., Blackmore, K.M., Reynolds, P & Leavens, A. (2001). 

Pollution Potential of Cemeteries. R&D Project Record P2/024/1. 

Young, C.P., Blackmore, K.M., Reynolds, P & Leavens, A. (2001). 

Pollution Potential of Cemeteries. R&D Technical Report. 

Holmes, B. (1896). The London Burial Grounds. T Fisher Unwin 

Bouwer, H. (1978). Groundwater Hydrology. McGraw-Hill 

73 www.esta-uk.org


Mass Extinctions: 

The Alternatives to “Deep Impact” 

ROSALIND V. WHITE 

This article is based on a presentation given to an INSET meeting for Post-16 Geology teachers at 

the ESTA Annual Course and Conference, Keyworth, September 2002. 

“Earth’s biggest mass extinction 251 million years ago was triggered by a collision with a comet 

or asteroid, US scientists say.” (BBC News website, 23 February 2001) 

“A huge outpouring of molten rock 250 million years ago may have been the decisive factor in the 

deaths of nearly all lifeforms on the Earth at that time.” (BBC News website, 6 June 2002) 

Figure 1. 

The five mass 

extinctions of the 

Phanerozoic (after 

Sepkoski, 1984). 

Confronted with openly conflicting headlines 

such as this, how should teachers react One of 

the main difficulties facing post-16 students is 

the realisation that science is an active process that, 

instead of giving “correct” answers, just yields a reasonable 

theory that fits the evidence we have at any particular 

time. This is especially true of topics on the AS/A2 

syllabus that are also the focus of active research at university 

level. Less-than-impartial media reporting of 

new advances can add to the confusion. This article 

gives an overview of the possible reasons for mass 

extinctions at the Permo-Triassic and Cretaceous-Tertiary 

boundaries, and outlines recent developments in 

research on the Permo-Triassic extinction. 

What is a mass extinction 

It is important that students understand the distinctions 

between death, extinction, and mass extinction. Death 

is an issue affecting individuals, with a 100% probability 

per organism. Extinction occurs for a particular 

species when the death rate exceeds the birth rate for a 

sufficiently long period. Extinctions happen all the 

time: the vast majority of species that have ever inhabited 

the Earth are now extinct. The rate at which species 

replace one another due to factors such as competition 

is known as “background extinction”. 

At some times in geological history, the extinction 

rate increases markedly above this background level, 

and this is known as a “mass extinction”, defined as the 

extinction of a significant proportion of the world’s 

biota in a geologically insignificant period of time. Of 

course, we can then argue about the meaning of the 

word ‘insignificant’, but for the purposes of this article, 

the term “mass extinction” is reserved specifically for 

the five most significant events of the last 500 million 

years (see Figure 1). 

Causes of mass extinctions: killing mechanisms 

Surprisingly, there are actually only a handful of ways to 

die: by direct physical trauma; via poisoning; through 

starvation; or by suffocation. It’s possible to reclassify 

all sorts of other deaths into these categories, e.g., death 

from old age could be as a result of being physically 

unable to collect or eat food (starvation) or inability to 

breathe (suffocation), and death from disease could 

potentially kill by any of the four mechanisms. However, 

to cause a mass extinction, we need to kill millions of 

individuals (or stop them reproducing), all within a relatively 

short period of time, so we need a mechanism 

that can cause direct physical trauma, poisoning, suffocation 

or starvation on a massive scale. Because of the 

apparent need for a catastrophic driving force, much of 

the recent research has focused on two scenarios: meteorite 

impact, or massive scale volcanism. 

The K-T impact 

In 1980, Alvarez proposed that a meteorite impact was 

responsible for the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) mass 

extinction. This proposal was based primarily on the 

presence of elevated iridium concentrations (“iridium 

anomalies”) in rocks at the K-T boundary. Iridium is a 

siderophile (iron-loving) element that is very rare in 

crustal rocks, but is much more abundant in certain 

classes of meteorite. Over the subsequent two decades, 

more evidence for an impact was amassed, including 


74


tektites (once-molten droplets), shocked quartz, 

stishovite and microdiamonds (high pressure minerals), 

soot from wildfires, and exotic minerals (e.g., 

spinels). This data-gathering culminated in the discovery 

of a ~180-km-diameter buried crater at Chicxulub, 

located on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. A crater 

this large would have been caused by an impactor 

roughly 10 km in diameter, and the impact would have 

had devastating effects on life. 

Impact Winter 

What would have happened when the meteorite hit 

The scenario painted is gloomy. A fireball scorched 

everything in its path, and violent tsunami and widespread 

wildfires occurred. There would have been a 

lengthy period when sunlight was obscured by dust 

particles, reducing temperatures, hindering photosynthesis 

and resulting in breakdowns in the food chain. 

The meteorite landed on (and vaporised) gypsum and 

limestone, injecting sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide 

into the atmosphere. The sulphur dioxide resulted 

in acid rain, and excess carbon dioxide contributed to 

greenhouse warming. 

At the present day, even though most geologists are 

convinced that there was a meteorite impact at the K-T 

boundary, and believe that its environmental effects 

would have been severe, discussion continues about 

what actually caused the K-T extinction. For example, 

on 31 August 2002, the BBC News website reported 

that “Cold was killing dinosaurs long before the asteroid 

commonly thought to have been their downfall hit, 

according to scientists.” 

Flood basalt volcanism 

The major thorn in the side of the impact theory is the 

fact that a meteorite impact was not the only catastrophic 

event to affect the Earth in Cretaceous-Tertiary 

times. In India, a vast “flood basalt” volcanic province 

called the Deccan Traps was being erupted. The current 

consensus amongst geologists is that flood basalts are 

the result of melt generation in mantle plumes: convective 

upwellings of anomalously hot material in the 

underlying mantle. Estimates of the original volume of 

the Deccan Traps are in the range of 1 to 2 million cubic 

kilometres, enough to cover the United Kingdom in a 

layer of lava 4-8 km thick! Individual eruptions may 

have lasted about a decade, with periods of quiescence 

lasting for centuries or millennia between eruptions. 

What was even more problematic for those advocating 

a meteorite impact as the sole cause of the K-T 

extinction was the observation that other mass extinctions 

also seemed to be temporally linked with the 

eruption of flood basalt provinces (see Figure 2). The 

biggest mass extinction of all, the Permo-Triassic (P-Tr) 

extinction, coincides exactly with the eruption of the 

Siberian Traps, and work published in 2002 shows that 

this province is twice as large as had previously been 

thought. Another example is the Triassic-Jurassic (Tr-J) 

extinction, which was contemporaneous with eruption 

of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, 200 million 

years ago. 

Volcanic Winter 

What would the Earth have been like during this massive 

scale volcanism Dust and ash were thrown up into 

the atmosphere, together with tiny aerosol droplets of 

sulphuric acid derived from volcanic sulphur dioxide 

gas. These particles obscured sunlight, possibly for 

months or years on end, reducing temperatures and 

hampering photosynthesis. The sulphuric aerosols ultimately 

fell back to the ground as acid rain. Lava set fire 

to vegetation, causing wildfires. Toxic fumes derived 

from fluorine and chlorine resulted in local poisoning. 

Carbon dioxide was injected into the atmosphere, contributing 

to greenhouse warming on longer timescales. 

And the worst of it is, just when things were recovering, 

there would be another eruption, and it would all happen 

again. 

Volcanism or impact 

As you can see, the effects of large volcanic eruptions 

and meteorite impacts are potentially fairly similar. 

This means that discussions of their environmental 

effects, while interesting, are not a particularly good 

way of deciding what actually caused the extinctions. 

We are called upon to make judgements about whether 

one serious event would be more serious than the 

cumulative effects of lots of smaller events. 

Unfortunately, because we are dealing with evidence 

that is millions of years old, there are many pieces of the 

jigsaw missing, and with the available data it’s impossible 

for either side to prove their case. This resulted in an 

uneasy stand-off, with volcano-theory supporters conceding 

that, in the case of the K-T, the “impactors” had 

a good case, but maintaining that the Deccan Traps 

must surely have had some significant effect. They also 

pointed out that the impact theory doesn’t seem very 

good at accounting for the other extinctions, which 

must, therefore, be volcanism-related. The impact-the- 

Figure 2. 

Timing of eruption 

of flood basalt 

provinces 

compared to the 

rate of extinctions. 

The three largest 

extinctions all 

correlate with 

flood basalt 

activity, but the 

lack of extinctions 

associated with 

other flood basalts 

demonstrates that 

flood basalts do 

not, on their own, 

necessarily cause 

mass extinctions. 

75 www.esta-uk.org


ory supporters, meanwhile, were busily searching for 

evidence of impacts at other mass extinction horizons. 

Impact at the P-Tr and Tr-J boundaries 

In the mid-eighties, the first paper claiming to have 

found an iridium anomaly at the P-Tr boundary was 

published, but subsequent work found the anomalies 

to be insignificant, or non-existent. More recently, in 

February 2001, the British national newspapers proclaimed, 

“Comet killed life before dinosaurs”, and the 

debate about an impact at the end of the Permian 

recommenced. The articles arose from reports of 

fullerenes (carbon ‘buckyballs’) in P-Tr boundary sediments; 

the fullerenes contain trapped noble gases 

with isotopic ratios indicative of an extraterrestrial 

source. These results are highly controversial: 

attempts to replicate them have so far been unsuccessful, 

and the experimental details of the original work 

have also been questioned. 

For the Tr-J extinction, early searches for iridium 

If there really were large life-threatening impacts, 

even if the craters themselves have been subducted or 

destroyed by tectonism, the fallout would have been 

global, and I’m sure we’ll see a steady stream of 

supporting evidence published over the next few years 

anomalies were negative. However, a paper published 

in 2002 reports a small iridium anomaly, indicating that 

a small bolide impact occurred at this time. 

Likelihood of meteorite impacts 

My personal view is that I remain to be convinced that 

significant meteorite impacts occurred at these other two 

extinction horizons. That isn’t to say I don’t believe it – 

I am keeping an open mind! The key issue here (again) 

is the meaning of the word ‘significant’. If there really 

were large life-threatening impacts, even if the craters 

themselves have been subducted or destroyed by tectonism, 

the fallout would have been global, and I’m 

sure we’ll see a steady stream of supporting evidence 

published over the next few years. Then I’ll probably 

believe it. The reason for my scepticism is that smaller 

impacts happen fairly frequently, geologically speaking, 

and discovery of their products in the relevant time 

interval doesn’t prove anything about whether they 

were large enough to cause extinctions. 

Take, for example, the story of Manicouagan Crater 

in Canada. It is 100 km in diameter, and was once considered 

a very likely suspect for the Triassic-Jurassic 

extinction, at 200 Ma. However, when the crater was 

dated, it turned out that it was 14 million years older 

than the extinction, so could not have been the cause. 

And what’s more, there is no mass extinction at 214 Ma, 

so impacts causing craters as large as 100 km across 

don’t necessarily cause extinctions. 

We don’t know exactly how often impacts of different 

sizes occur. Geologists estimate impact frequencies by 

counting craters of different sizes on parts of the Earth’s 

surface unaffected by tectonism, and the results from 

this agree fairly well with astronomers’ estimates 

derived from counting bodies with Earth-crossing 

orbits. However, the errors are large – something like a 

factor of two. Nevertheless, as more craters and Earthcrossing 

bodies are discovered, it seems that the original 

1980 estimate of a 100-million-year repeat time for 

a K-T-sized impact is an overestimate. Estimates of 

impact frequency published within the last five years 

yield a repeat time of only ~30 million years for a K-Tsized 

impactor, and 100-km craters would form even 

more frequently – every 10 million years or so. 

Do meteorite impacts cause flood basalt volcanism 

If claims for meteorite impacts at the P-Tr and Tr-J 

boundaries turn out to be true, and each of the three 

main extinctions correlate with both an impact and a 

flood basalt, does that mean that flood basalts are also a 

consequence of meteorite impacts After all, doesn’t it 

seem rather unlikely that impacts and flood basalts 

would coincide on three occasions if they were not 

linked in some way Although this idea has been aired 

in the media, it is only believed by a minority of geologists. 

Originally proposed for the K-T impact and the 

Deccan Traps, it does not adequately explain our observations: 

the discovery of the iridium-rich layer between 

lava flows of the Deccan Traps indicates that the lavas 

started erupting well before the meteorite hit. Moreover, 

the Deccan Traps were not at the impact site, and 

contrary to some claims, they weren’t directly opposite 

it either. 

In fact, because both impacts and flood basalts are 

more common than they are perceived to be, random 

chance is capable of explaining away a few coincidences 

between impacts and flood basalt volcanism. This 

analysis is dependent on the size of impact chosen: 

because smaller impacts are much more common, a 

few coincidences between flood basalts and, say, 100- 

km craters are entirely credible. If, however, evidence 

comes to light that several flood basalts correlate with 

200-km craters, I may have to reconsider my opinion! 

“Meteorites vs. volcanoes” oversimplifies the story 

Of course, in reality, it’s much more complicated than 

choosing between impacts and volcanoes. At the P-Tr 

boundary, for example, there’s evidence of other 

adverse environmental conditions. Discovery of pyrite 

in shallow water sediments demonstrates that the shallow 

oceans were oxygen-deficient (anoxic) – in which 

case, many organisms would have suffocated. This 

oceanic anoxia was probably a consequence of global 

warming, which reduced the pole-to-equator temperature 

gradient and made ocean circulation sluggish. This 

global warming may, in turn, have been caused by CO2 

release from the Siberian Traps, or from an impact site. 


76


Additionally, warmer ocean waters may have triggered 

the catastrophic release of methane hydrate from 

continental shelf sediments. Methane hydrate is a white 

crystalline substance consisting of CH4 molecules 

trapped in a structure of H2O ‘cages’. It is stable only 

when temperatures are low and pressures are high, and 

forms in sediments where decay of organic matter by 

anaerobic bacteria results in high methane concentrations. 

If released during an interval of global warming, 

it contributes strongly to the positive feedback loop: 

methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than 

carbon dioxide. Evidence supporting an interval of 

methane hydrate release at the P-Tr boundary comes 

from changes in the carbon isotope composition of 

ocean water (see White, 2002 for further reading). 

Conclusions 

At least three of the major mass extinctions of the last 

600 million years appear to be temporally correlated 

with flood basalt volcanism, meteorite impact, or possibly 

both. However, we should not confuse ‘correlation’ 

with ‘causation’. Correlation is easy to prove, but causation 

very difficult. Flood basalts and meteorite 

impacts are both much more common than mass 

extinctions, implying that neither type of event routinely, 

on its own, causes mass extinctions. Instead, it 

seems that mass extinctions only occur when Earth is 

attacked on more than one front, or when it is already 

in a vulnerable state. 

Catastrophic events such as meteorite impacts and 

massive volcanism provide an attractive means of 

explaining mass extinctions. We should be wary, however, 

about assuming that catastrophic outcomes necessarily 

require catastrophic stimuli. Because of positive 

feedback loops in the Earth’s biological and climatic 

systems, particularly those related to global warming, 

small perturbations in conditions may become amplified, 

and may potentially lead to catastrophic changes. 

This is important, because humans are currently contributing 

CO2 to the atmosphere at a rate that, in geological 

terms, is unprecedented. If we continue at this 

rate for a couple of thousand years, we will have exceeded 

the entire CO2 budget of the Siberian Traps. That’s 

quite a scary thought. Are we forcing the Earth into a 

vulnerable condition, such that a meteorite impact, if 

(or when) it occurs, will push us over the edge 

Catastrophic events such as meteorite impacts and 

massive volcanism provide an attractive means of 

explaining mass extinctions. We should be wary, 

however, about assuming that catastrophic outcomes 

necessarily require catastrophic stimuli. 

Further Reading 

Alvarez, L. W., Alvarez, W., Asaro, F. & Michel, H. V. 

(1980) Extraterrestrial cause for the Cretaceous 

Tertiary extinction. Science 208, 1095-1108. 

Becker, L., Poreda, R. J., Hunt, A. G., Bunch, T. E. & 

Rampino, M. (2001) Impact event at the Permian- 

Triassic boundary: Evidence from extraterrestrial 

noble gases in fullerenes. Science 291, 1530-1533. 

Hallam, A. & Wignall, P. B. (1997) Mass extinctions and 

their aftermath. Oxford University Press. 

Reichow, M., Saunders, A. D., White, R. V., Pringle, 

M. A., Al’Mukhamedov, A., Medvedev, A. & Kirda, 

N. P. (2002). 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dates from the West Siberian 

Basin: Siberian Flood Basalt Province doubled. 

Science 296, 1846-1849. 

Sepkoski, J. J., Jr. (1984) A kinetic model of 

Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity. III. Post-Paleozoic 

families and mass extinctions. Paleobiology 10, 246-269. 

White, R.V. (2002) Earth’s biggest ‘whodunnit’: 

unravelling the clues in the case of the end-Permian 

mass extinction. Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. London A 

360, X-XX (in press). Copies available (pdf files) by e- 

mailing the author. 

A Powerpoint version of this presentation is 

available on request by e-mailing the author. 

Rosalind V. White 

Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow 

Department of Geology 

University of Leicester 

University Road 

Leicester 

LE1 7RH 

e-mail: rvw1@le.ac.uk 

Telephone: 0116 252 3315 

Fax: 0116 252 3918 

77 www.esta-uk.org


Fossils Under the Microscope 

IAN WILKINSON 

Micropalaeontology is a subject that is not as widely taught as macropalaeontology - everybody 

has heard of trilobites, brachiopods and corals, but how many know of the existence of acritarchs, 

coccoliths or ostracods Although many organisms really are microscopic (a few microns in 

length), I will stretch the term to include fossils up to about 1500 microns across. It is an 

impossible task to describe all types of microfossils in the Earth’s rocks, but I give a taster of 

some of the more common. Microfossils from five kingdoms (see Figure 1) are studied and 

applied in finding solutions to geological problems in stratigraphy and palaeoecology. Although 

microscopic, it is not beyond the scope of schools to find at least some of these fossils. 

Figure 1. 

The relationship 

of common 

microfossils to 

kingdoms and cell 

type. (Note that 

some authors 

prefer to use the 

term Protoctista 

rather than 

Protista as the 

latter has been 

used primarily for 

single celled 

organisms.) 

Plants 

Spores 

Pollen 

Eukaryotes 

Prokaryotes 

Finding microfossils 

Microfossils can easily be extracted from marine, 

Mesozoic, Tertiary and Quaternary mudstones, siltstones 

and finer sandstones, particularly softer ones 

such as the Oxford Clay, Kimmeridge Clay, Gault and 

Speeton Clay. Softer chalk can also be disaggregated to 

liberate microfossils. However, a little care will be 

required as chemicals are involved. Soak the sediment 

in (flammable!) white spirit for half an hour then drain 

it off through filter paper to be used again. Wash the 

sample through a 75 micron (or smaller) sieve; add to 

warm water with washing soda and bring the water to 

the boil (care required!). Allow it to cool before washing 

it again through the sieve. When dry, the residue can 

Fungae 

Spores 

Fruiting Bodies 

Protista 

Acritarchs 

Dinoflagellates 

Coccolithophores 

Radiolaria 

Diatoms 

Foraminifera 

Algae 

Monera 

Bacteria 

Animals 

Conodonts 

Ostracods 

Chitinozoa 

be viewed best through a binocular microscope. Cross 

contamination of samples is a danger with microfossils 

and all equipment must be thoroughly cleaned after 

each sample. Ostracods, foraminifera, radiolaria and so 

on will be found with low-powered binocular microscopes 

at X10 or X20 magnifications. Other microfossils 

are probably beyond the scope of the equipment 

found in many schools as more specialised preparation, 

including acids, is needed and then high magnification 

microscopes are required. 

Those schools some distance from suitable rocks 

might try modern pond, lake, estuarine or coastal sediments, 

where similar organisms can be found. Modern 

sediments are the easier to deal with. Soak them in 

warm water with teepol or washing soda, before washing 

them on a 75 micron sieve to remove all the fine 

muds. Allow to dry. Examine the washed sediment 

through a binocular microscope at X10 or X20 magnification 

to see foraminifera and ostracods, in marine 

and estuarine sediments, or ostracods, diatoms and 

charophytes in lake and pond sediments. 

At the end of this article I give 14 separate summary 

boxes to show the range of microfossils across all five 

kingdoms. 

Kingdom Monera 

The history of life begins with the evolution of Kingdom 

Monera, and stretches back almost to earliest of 

Earth’s preserved rocks. Kingdom Monera is based on 

the prokaryote cell. These lack membrane bounded 

organelles (such as mitochondria and chloroplasts) and 

a nucleus with chromosomes. Some may have a simple 

flagella composed of the protein flagelin. 

There is often debate whether putative microfossils 

are actually mineral growths (remember the Martian 

‘microfossils’). The oldest undoubted fossil bacteria is 

from the 3,465 million year old Apex Chert from Australia, 

but there is some dispute whether older ‘microfossils’ 

are truly biotic. Bacteria must have passed 

through a phase of non-biological evolution before 

evolving into chemautotrophs and later into the more 

advanced photosynthesising organisms. The fact that 


78


Banded Ironstones began to develop about 3,500Ma 

indicates when photosynthesis had evolved. 

Blue-green cyanobacteria (formerly known as bluegreen 

algae) began to evolve a little later and by 

3,000Ma were removing CaCO3 from seawater during 

photosynthesis. Stromatolites, thin calcareous mats laid 

down one on top of the other by blue green cyanobacteria 

form domes, sometimes several metres in height 

and 3,000 million years later living representatives are 

doing exactly the same thing at Shark Bay in Australia! 

The evolution from Prokaryotes to eukaryotes was 

probably the most significant step in the evolution of 

life. All living organisms (with the exception of Monera) 

are based on the eukaryotic cell structure. Eukaryotes 

are aerobic and so could only have evolved after 

oxygen had built up in the atmosphere. They had a larger 

cell than the prokaryotes, with a membrane-bounded 

nucleus containing chromosomes of DNA and 

RNA and proteins. The eukaryotic cell also contained 

membrane-bounded organelles (such as mitochondria). 

The composition of the flagella (undulipodia) is 

complex, being composed of tubulin and other proteins. 

It has been suggested that the eukaryote cell 

evolved by the symbiotic relationship of a number of 

different prokaryotic cells. So Kingdom Protista had 

evolved. 

Kingdom Protista 

Exactly when eukaryotes evolved is questionable. 

There is good fossil evidence of their existence 900- 

1,000 million years ago and there is strong evidence that 

they were probably around 1,500 million years ago. 

However, recent geochemical study on 2,700 million 

year old shales has found eukaryote lipids, which if correct, 

pushes the origin of the eukaryotes even further 

back in time. 

The Kingdom Protista is difficult to define and it is 

easiest to say what it is not, rather than what it is. They 

are not animals because they do not develop from blastula 

(a hollow sphere of cells formed from the cleavage 

of an ovum). They are not plants as they do not develop 

from an embryo (e.g. within a seed). They are not 

fungi as they have undulipodia (flagella for locomotion) 

and do not develop from spores. They are not Monera 

as they have a eukaryote cell structure. In other words, 

they have none of the characteristics of more advanced 

eukaryotic kingdoms. 

Kingdom Protista is perhaps the single most useful 

kingdom in the micropalaeontologist’s armoury. Of 

course, in the palaeontological record, only protistids 

that secreted a skeleton or went through an encysting 

stage were normally fossilised. There were a number of 

encysting organisms, including acritarchs and dinoflagellates, 

but other protists secreted a calcareous skeleton 

(such as various forms of algae, including 

coccoliths, and foraminifera) or a siliceous skeleton 

(such as radiolaria and diatoms). 

Protista are important tools in the more applied side 

of palaeontology (biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental 

reconstruction). Dinoflagellate cysts are particularly 

useful in dating organic-rich rocks, in which they 

are found in abundance, and they have been particularly 

useful in hydrocarbons exploration. Coccoliths are 

also useful for biostratigraphical studies, particularly 

through the Mesozoic and into the Tertiary, while 

acritarchs and foraminifera can be used throughout the 

Palaeozoic and through to the Quaternary. The history 

of Radiolaria extends back into the Palaeozoic, but they 

are useful as biostratigraphical markers particularly in 

the Late Jurassic and in the Tertiary. 

Diatoms are useful in several respects. In some cases 

huge numbers of diatoms were deposited to form a sedimentary 

rock called a diatomite (with industrial applications 

in, for example, sugar refining, toothpaste 

manufacturing, as a mild abrasive and in paint production). 

However, their scientific application is in environmental 

reconstruction. Fresh water diatoms can be 

useful in monitoring the acidification of lakes as certain 

species are affected by pH. By logging the species present 

in sediments of different ages, it is possible to see 

the effects of industrial pollution. 

Algae are frequently single celled, but there are many 

instances where they are multicelled (seaweeds, for 

example). The single celled algae are generally considered 

to be protista, but the multicelled algae are sometimes 

considered to be members of the plant kingdom. 

Undoubtedly the earliest plants evolved from multicelled 

algae, probably the ‘green algae’, the chlorophytes, 

but the definition of the plant kingdom, must 

preclude them. 

Kingdom Plantae 

The plant kingdom comprises multi-celled, sexually 

reproducing eukaryotes that develop from an embryo 

(e.g. within a seed). The cell contains photosynthetic 

organelles called chloroplasts that contain chlorophyll, 

and its walls are composed of cellulose and pectins. 

With the appearance of the plant kingdom from their 

algal forebears, so spores and pollen became common 

microfossils. The earliest spores are Mid Ordovician in 

age (465-470 million years old) and probably produced 

by bryophytes. The earliest fossilised plants are vascular 

types (e.g. Cooksonia), which evolved in the Late Silurian. 

They rapidly diversified so that by the Carboniferous 

the first tropical rain forests had developed. 

One of the difficulties that need to be faced in 

palaeontology is where different parts of a single organism 

are given different names. This is seen in palaeobotany 

where the stem, leaf, root and pollen or spores of 

a single plant are given different names. Although the 

stems and leaves of plants do not fall within the definition 

of microfossils, the spores and pollen do. 

Spores and pollen are important microfossils for dating 

and correlating terrestrial, lacustrine and marginal 

marine sediments and for providing palaeoenvironmental 

information. An example of how pollen can be 

79 www.esta-uk.org


used in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction comes 

from Eemian (Pleistocene) lake sediments of southern 

England. Pollen from sediment cores show that with 

the retreat of the ice, cold birch forests with abundant 

small herbs and shrubs were established. With continued 

amelioration pine colonised southern England and 

then as the climatic optimum approached, elm, oak, 

alder and hazel pollen began to appear in the sediments. 

Climatic deterioration then set in re-establishing first 

the pine forests and then the birch. 

Kingdom Fungi 

This kingdom contains eukaryotic organisms that 

reproduce by spores. Reproductive structures may be 

microscopic or macroscopic (mushrooms for example). 

Reproduction is mainly sexual, the hyphae fusing 

together, but a few produce only asexual spores. 

Whichever stratagem is used, the hyphal nuclei are haploid. 

However, they lack flagella in all phases of their 

life cycle. Fungi are aerobes and heterotrophs. They do 

not ingest food, but excrete enzymes that break down 

the food into molecules outside the organism, before 

absorbing it. 

Fossil spores and fruiting bodies of fungus have been 

found in rocks as old as the Devonian, although they are 

not widely studied and do not form an important element 

in the biostratigrapher’s armoury. I mention them 

here for completeness. 

Kingdom Animalia 

The animal kingdom comprises multicelled, eukaryotic 

organisms. They are heterotrophic (obtaining energy 

from organic compounds), diploid (cells with a nucleus 

containing two sets of chromosomes) and anisogamous 

(gametes of different morphology, ova and 

sperm). The diploid zygote develops by mitosis and 

forms an embryo resembling a hollow ball of cells 

(blastula) before progressing to the foetus. There are 

several microscopic members of the animal kingdom 

that are found as microfossils. 

Ostracods, for example, are small bivalved crustacea. 

The origin of ostracods is obscure because the soft bodies 

of some Cambrian ‘ostracods’ have occasionally 

been preserved intact, and prove that they are neither 

ostracods (as discussed by Mark Williams elsewhere in 

this volume p.89) nor, in some cases, crustacea. They 

have applications in biostratigraphy, but as different 

species live in a wide variety of environments, they are 

also useful in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and 

modeling. Ostracods (together with Foraminifera) have 

been particularly useful in studying climate change. 

Different taxa have differing requirements and this can 

be used to model palaeoclimates. In addition, all species 

take up oxygen when forming their carapace during life 

and an oxygen isotope ‘finger print’ is left that can be 

used in palaeoenvironmental studies. 

In the Palaeozoic, it is not unusual to find organisms 

of uncertain affinity. Chitinozoa, for example, are 

extinct flask-shaped organisms that are said by some 

palaeontologists to have been related to foraminifera, 

others have suggested they are egg cases, and yet others 

considered to be related to an unknown animal. In fact 

nobody is certain what they are related to and they are 

often placed into ‘incertae sedis’. 

Another animal that has caused a great deal of scientific 

debate regarding its relationships is the conodont. 

These are found as small teeth-like structures in 

Palaeozoic rocks. Although first described as long ago as 

1856, it was not until 1983 that palaeontologists knew 

what the conodont animal looked like. These small 

teeth came from the mouth of an eel-like animal, possibly 

a distant relation of the hag fish. However, one of 

the fundamental problems in palaeontology is illustrated 

here. Different species and genera of conodont have 

been erected on the basis of the different morphologies 

of their tooth-like structures. Only when the whole 

animal was found did palaeontologists realise that different 

genera and species of conodont were found 

together in a single creature. A taxonomic can of worms 

was opened-what should the animal be called What 

genus should it be put in 

Conclusion 

Microscopic life began with the prokaryotic cell when 

monera evolved early in the Earth’s history. From these 

the eukaryotic cell evolved and with it the protista, a 

kingdom that experimented with multicellular body 

plans. Some protista show a relationship with plants 

(e.g. algae and dinoflagellates) and others with animals 

(e.g. foraminifera). It was from protista that the three 

other eukaryotic kingdoms evolved, plants, animals and 

fungi, all with microscopic representatives preserved as 

fossils (see Figure 1). A brief description of some of the 

more common types of microfossils are appended in a 

series of boxes. 

Microfossils are not only important from a taxonomic 

and evolutionary context, but they have important 

stratigraphical applications for mapping, surveying 

and coal or hydrocarbons exploration, where an understanding 

of correlation, tectonics, geometry and relationships 

of rock units is required. Some groups of 

microscopic taxa evolve rapidly, live for a short time 

before becoming extinct. Biostratigraphical dating of 

the geological record and the recognition of zones and 

subzones provides the geologist with a tight temporal 

control and a tool for correlating widely separated exposures 

and boreholes. Different species have a variety of 

environmental requirements so that microfossils are 

also useful in the study of palaeoenvironments and 

modeling aspects such as sea level change, climate 

change and conditions during sediment accumulation. 


80


Suggested Reading 

Although the literature is full of detailed scientific 

description, discussion and geological applications of 

microfossils, there are few books outlining microfossils 

in a general way. Those that have been written are 

becoming a little elderly and may be difficult to obtain 

outside a library, although a revision of Brasier’s book is 

in progress. 

Bignot, G. (1985) Elements of Micropalaeontology. 217pp. 

London: Graham & Trotman. 

Brasier, M.D. (1980) Microfossils. 193pp London: 

George Allen & Unwin. 

Haq, B.U. & Boersma, A.(1978) Introduction to Marine 

Micropaleontology. 376pp. New York: Elsevier. 

The following can be purchased through the BGS or any good bookshop. 

Wilkinson, I.P. (1996) Fossil Focus: Ostracoda. Nottingham: BGS. 

Wilkinson, I.P. (1997) Fossil Focus: Foraminifera. Nottingham: BGS. 

Acknowledgements 

I thank the following for assistance in illustrating this paper. Bacteria and 

blue-green bacteria were drawn by Chris Wardle. Photographs were taken 

by Mike Stephenson (pollen & spore), Jim Riding (dinoflagellate), Stewart 

Molyneux (chitinozoan and acritarch), Nick Riley (calcareous algae) and 

Mark Dean (conodont). Former members of staff of the BGS captured the 

images of the radiolarian and diatom (Murray Hughes) and coccoliths 

(Alan Medd). This paper is published with permission of the Director of 

the British Geological Survey (N.E.R.C.) 

Ian Wilkinson 


Keyworth, Nottingham NG12 5GG 

Summary Charts 

Ostracoda 

Kingdom: Animal 

Chitinozoa 

Kingdom: Animal() 

Geological range: 

(Cambrian) Ordovician 

to Recent 


Ordovician-Devonian 

Late Jurassic ostracod 

Ostracods are small crustacea that secrete a bi-valved, 

calcareous carapace. The hinge line along the dorsal margin 

may be a simple bar and groove or a series of teeth and 

sockets. The animal opens and closes the carapace with 

adductor muscles, the scars often being seen inside each 

valve. The surface of the carapace may be smooth or 

ornamented with punctation, reticulation, ribs and spines. 

Most ostracods are less than 1500 microns, although the 

largest is about 2.5 centimetres long. Ostracods are found in 

all aquatic environments from the deep sea to coastal rock 

pools, estuaries, ponds and lakes. They have even been 

found in trees of tropical rain forests where a small pools form 

in the leaves. Although they are not usually regarded as 

terrestrial animals, one genus has been found amongst leaf 

litter on wet, marshy ground. Fossil ostracods are particularly 

useful when making palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. 

I.P.Wilkinson (BGS) 

An Ordovician chitinozoan 

Chitinozoa are flask- or bottle-shaped organisms with a 

vesicle and an aperture at the end of a neck. They are 

sometimes found attached in chains. They may be smooth, 

hispid, tuberculate or spiny. They are usually 150-300 

microns long, but may be as small as 30 microns or as large 

as 1500 microns. The walls are made of chitin-like material 

and generally brown or black in colour. These extinct 

organisms are found in marine Palaeozoic rocks (especially 

shales and siltstones) and mainly those that accumulated in 

shallow, well oxygenated conditions. It is not unusual to 

find organisms of uncertain affinity in Palaeozoic deposits. 

The Chitinozoa is an example of this. Some palaeontologists 

believe that they were planktonic and probably zooplankton; 

others have suggested that they were related to 

foraminifera, and yet others consider them to be egg cases 

of an unknown animal. 


81 www.esta-uk.org


Bacteria 

Kingdom: Monera 

Blue green cyanobacteria 

Kingdom: Monera 


Archaean to Recent 


Archaean to Recent 

Precambrian bacteria 

Kingdom Monera is based on the prokaryote cell (they lack 

organelles, like mitochondria, and a nucleus with 

chromosomes). The most primitive would have been 

chemoautotrophs, adapted to the reducing conditions, but 

photautotrophs soon evolved. Some of the oldest known 

fossils were single cells less than 1 micron long, but others 

formed chains of cells (filaments), like those from the Apex 

Chert (3465Ma), or star-like arrangements e.g. Eoastrion 

from the Gun Flint Chert (2000 Ma). Bacillus-like 

Eobacterium are found in the Fig Tree Chert (3000Ma). These 

organisms formed Banded Ironstone Formations (BIFs). 

Oxygen given off by the bacteria caused ferrous iron in ocean 

water to oxidise and precipitated as a red layer of iron onto 

the sea floor. At times when oxygen was not being created, 

grey cherts were precipitated instead. These layers built up 

alternately to form BIFs. 


Precambrian blue-green cyanobacteria 

Blue green cyanobacteria are found as fossils in 

Precambrian cherts, the oldest being from the 3400Ma old 

Towers Formation (Australia). Other examples come from the 

Fig Tree Chert and the Gun Flint Chert. These single-celled 

organisms may occur as single cells or form a chain of cells 

called a filament. Cells may be spheroidal, cylindrical or 

irregular. They photosynthesised, giving off oxygen as a 

waste product. In some places, vast numbers of blue green 

cyanobacteria formed a mat on the sea bed and by 3000Ma 

they were removing CaCO3 from the sea water during 

photosynthesis. Precipitation of these carbonates produced 

the first limestones. Mat upon mat were built up to form 

domes and mounds of limestone called stromatolites. 3000 

million years later they are still doing the same thing in 

Shark Bay, Australia. 


Acritarchs 

Kingdom: Protista 

Dinoflagellates 



Precambrian to Pleistocene 


Silurian, Late 

Triassic to Recent 

Early Ordovician acritarch 

Acritarchs are amongst the earliest protists. The oldest 

fossils are simple spherical cysts that first appear in shales 

1900-1600 million years old. Acritarchs are diverse and most 

abundant in rocks of Cambrian to Devonian age (c. 550 to 350 

million years ago). The cyst, which is up to about 150 

microns across, has a resistant wall that may be preserved as 

a fossil. Their exact affinities are unknown, but it is likely that 

many were marine phytoplankton, similar to dinoflagellates 

and some Prasinophyceae. If so, the organisms responsible 

for producing the cysts probably had a motile planktonic 

stage that encysted as a result of environmental stress or as 

part of their reproductive life cycle. Nothing is known of the 

motile stage, probably because it was composed of an organic 

compound like cellulose, which is less easily preserved. 

Jurassic dinoflagellate 

Dinoflagellates are single celled protistids. They are plantlike 

in having cellulose in the walls and chlorophyll pigments 

in the protoplasm, but animal-like having a motile phase with 

whip-like flagella to provide propulsion through ocean 

waters. The hard envelope (theca) comprises a number of 

plates and contains the large nucleus and chromoplasts. Like 

acritarchs, during periods of adverse environmental 

conditions or after reproduction, they have a ‘resting stage’ 

when they encyst. But, unlike acritarchs, the plates of the 

theca are retained in the cyst stage. Cysts, the only part that 

is fossilized, are 20-150 microns across, and may be smooth 

or ornamented with spines, ridges and granules. When 

improved conditions returned, the dinoflagellate escapes 

their cyst through a hole (archaeopyle) in the wall, made by 

discarding one of the plates. 




82


Coccolithophores 


(Precambrian) 

Late Triassic to Recent 


Foraminifera 


Cambrian to Recent 


Jurassic coccoliths 

Coccolithophores are chrysophytes, unicellular and 

planktonic, with two flagella for locomotion. Of the c. 2000 

species, all but four live in normal marine salinities (three live 

in fresh waters and one in high salinities of the Dead Sea). 

They require well oxygenated waters and live within the top 

50m of the water column in order to photosynthesise. 

Between 10 and 30 tiny (3 to 15 microns) calcareous plates 

(coccoliths) envelope the organism in a cyst-like coccosphere. 

On death, the coccosphere breaks up into coccoliths and, with 

diagenesis, these often break up into component crystals. 

Coccoliths and their debris comprise over 90% of the 

Cretaceous chalk of Britain. Coccolithophores are important 

in our environment today as they remove carbon dioxide, a 

greenhouse gas, by trapping it in their calcareous (CaCO3) 

skeletons on the ocean floor. They are sometimes so 

abundant that they form a coccolith ooze. 


Late Jurassic Foraminifer 

Foraminifera are sometimes called ‘armoured amoeba’. The 

amoeba-like cell engulfs a tiny shell (test) that may be 

composed of calcite, aragonite or sand or silt grains cemented 

together by a calcite or silica cement. The test may be a 

single globular or tubular chamber; a string of chambers; a 

coiled arrangement of chambers or a mixture of these. They 

are often found fossilised. Most species are less than 1mm 

across, but the largest of these single celled organisms was 

over 10 cm in length. Foraminifera are confined to marine and 

brackish waters and extend into estuaries and marshes, but 

are not found in fresh water. Some are planktonic, while 

others are benthonic. They have a complex reproductive 

strategy so that alternating generations occur; an organism 

which was the result of sexual reproduction, will in turn 

reproduce asexually. 


Radiolaria 


Diatoms 



Cambrian to Recent 


Jurassic, 

Cretaceous to Recent 

Eocene radiolarian 

Radiolaria are planktonic actinopods, heterotrophic protista 

that secrete a skeleton of between 100 and 2000 microns. 

The composition of the skeleton may be strontium sulphate or 

opaline silica. The latter, which dominate the fossil record, 

form two large groups. Spumularia, which evolved during the 

Ordovician, are radially symmetrical, often spherical or 

discoidal, with radial spines. Nassellaria, which developed at 

the beginning of the Mesozoic, are elongate and axially 

symmetrical, being elongate, ellipsoidal, discoidal or fusiform 

and often spinose. They live in tropical marine waters 

especially at depths of 100 to 500m. They remain buoyant in 

the water by using fat globules; gas-filled vacuoles; long rigid, 

thread-like axopods on spines; and by having perforated 

skeletons to reduce weight. Reproduction is asexual. 

Palaeogene diatom 

Diatoms are autotrophic, unicellular algae. They occur in the 

photic zone of oceans, estuaries, lakes and ponds. The part 

that is fossilised is the opaline silica shell (or frustule), 

which comprise two valves that fit together rather like a pillbox. 

The frustule may be up to about 2mm across and some 

forms are colonial, forming long chains. There are two large 

groups of fossil diatoms: the radially symmetrical Centrales, 

which evolved during the mid Cretaceous, and the more 

elongate, bilaterally symmetrical Pennales which appeared 

in the Eocene. They may occur in huge numbers on the 

ocean floor to form an ooze. In some cases when huge 

numbers of diatoms accumulated they formed a sedimentary 

rock called a diatomite. One Miocene diatomite in America is 

1000m thick and there are an estimated 6,000,000 frustules 

per cubic centimeter! 



83 www.esta-uk.org


Green Algae 

(Chlorophyta) 


Late Silurian to Recent 


Pollen & Spores 


Ordovician to Recent 

Kingdom: Plant 

Carboniferous calcareous algae 

Chlorophytes are ‘Green Algae’, with chlorophyll in their 

cells. Prasinophyceae have spherical cells, 100 to 700 

microns across, and an organic wall with small plate-like 

scales. Range: Cambrian to Recent. Chlorophycae have a 

large central vacuole surrounded by protoplasm. They may 

be unicellular or multicellular. Eosphaera is an example 

from the Precambrian. Some (Dasycladales and Siphonales) 

are spherical, cylindrical or branched and secrete a skeleton 

of aragonite, which becomes calcite during fossilisation. 

Charophycae are plant-like algae (‘stonewort’) that grow up 

to 2m high. Amongst the branches are small (500-750 

microns) male (antheridia) and female (oogonia) organs. 

The former is rarely fossilised, but the latter is an ovoid 

body, with a spiral ornament that may be found in lacustrine 

and estuarine deposits. 


Pollen (top) & Spore (bottom) from the Permian 

Spores and pollen appeared when the plant kingdom evolved 

from its algal origin in the Ordovician. Spores from primitive 

plants (e.g. bryophytes, Cooksoni and Rhynia) were windblown 

and, if they landed in suitably moist soils, grew into a 

gametophyte plant, bearing both male and female cells. More 

advanced plants (e.g. clubmosses and horse tails), which 

evolved in the mid-Devonian, gave rise to microspores (20-50 

microns), that grew into male gametophytes, and megaspores 

(200-400 microns), that became female gametophytes. 

During the Late Palaeozoic, plants living in drier areas 

“imprisoned” the megaspore in a capsule where it developed 

further, eventually dividing into a few cells. The single celled 

microspores evolved into multicelled pollen grains (the male 

gametophyte), which fertilised the encapsulated female. 

Gymnosperms (e.g. seed-ferns, cycads and conifers) and 

flower-bearing angiosperms reproduced in this way. 


Spores & Fruiting bodies 


Devonian to Recent 

Kingdom: Fungi 

Conodontophorida 

Kingdom: Animal 


Early Cambrian to late Triassic 

Fruiting body (left) & spore (right) of Palaeogene fungi 

Fungi are known to have evolved by the Devonian, although 

their early history is relatively poorly known. Spores and 

fruiting bodies have been found in the fossil record, but have 

been little studied. They have little known biostratigraphical 

or palaeoenvironmental value and have generally been 

ignored by palaeontologists. 

Platform (top) and compound (bottom) conodonts from the Carboniferous 

Conodonts are small teeth-like structures, generally 100 to 

2000 microns in length, but occasionally up to 5000 microns. 

They are made of calcium phosphate. Conodonts may be a 

simple, individual tooth, a compound ‘blade’ composed of a 

series teeth or a row of teeth attached to a ledge-like 

platform. They are found in Palaeozoic rocks, particularly 

limestones. Although first described as long ago as 1856, it 

was not until 1983 that palaeontologists new what the 

conodont animal looked like. These teeth came from the 

mouth of a eel-like fish, possibly a distant relation of the hag 

fish. But here was a problem. Different species and genera of 

conodonts had been erected for the different morphologies. 

Only when the whole animal was found did paleontologists 

realise that different genera and species were found together 

in the mouth of a single individual. 




84

Winter 2002 ● Issue 39 

ENVIRONMENTAL 

IMPACTS – 3 

RIVERS 

Published by the Earth Science Teachers’ Association Registered Charity No. 1005331 

Introduction 

This is the third in a series of PEST’s concerning Environmental Impacts (1 and 2 were from space 

and from Volcanoes). This one concentrates on the environmental impact that rivers can have for a 

variety of reasons. 

Most of this relates to aspects of the Geography curriculum and covers knowledge and 

understanding of patterns and processes (Ga 4); Knowledge and understanding of 

environmental change and sustainable development (Ga5) and Breadth of Study – Themes (Ga 

6, c, d, e,). It can be linked into a variety of topic work particularly when studying any aspects of 

settlement and/or rivers. 

Many people do not realize the positive and often underlying environmental impact of a river such 

as the reasons for a settlement having been established where it is, but are more aware of the 

negative aspects such as flooding, pollution, disease, subsidence and drought. 

One point that is often forgotten is that flooding is natural and is the way a river copes with excess 

water. The flood plain is the flat area around a river channel that becomes flooded. 

This issue provides ideas of where and how to include the environmental impacts that rivers have 

from both a positive and a negative view. 

It includes information about the effects of rivers on its environment, how we make use of rivers 

and the effect this has, also the effect rivers have on our activities and how we live.

WINTER 2002 ● Issue 39 ● ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS - 3: RIVERS 

Accentuate the Positive !!! 

Settlements 

Settlements grew up beside rivers because: - 

There was easy access to water which is vital to human life 

There was fertile land 

There was water to grow crops 

There may have been a crossing point of the river 

There may have been access by water to other settlements 

There was easy access to water for industrial purposes 

The above ideas can be used when investigating a “place” in geography. 

All early settlements needed water to drink and thus were often near to a river or stream. 

The flood plains around rivers, also called alluvial plains, were also fertile land, which enabled 

settlers to grow crops, there was also water there to irrigate the crops. 

If the river had a shallow area where it could be crossed, the area was likely to attract travellers 

who might then also want to trade with the settlers. 

If the river was navigable then travellers might stop off to trade, or it would be easy for the settlers 

to visit other settlements to trade. 

If the river were suitable it could be used for industrial purposes, in earlier days this could have 

been a water mill, which could have provided flour for the settlement. In more recent times this 

light have been in the form of using the water for cooling purposes at a power station or even 

providing power in the form of Hydro electric power where the river flow was sufficient. 

Eliminate the Negative 

Flooding 

When a river floods it is because there is too much water being carried within the river channel. 

This may be due to excessive rainfall over a short period of time, or a sudden thaw of snow and ice 

or even a burst dam. 

Floodplains, narrow valleys and coastal areas are the most likely areas to be affected, with coastal 

areas (particularly low lying ones) more at risk than inland ones. 

As floodwater travels downstream it can become very dangerous depending on the amount of 

water involved, the debris it collects and the area it is flowing through. 

When a river bursts its banks in a rural area fields are flooded and often the only creatures at risk 

are animals. However crops can also be damaged by the floodwater, as can communications, with 

roads, railways and bridges being underwater and sometimes permanently damaged. Land can 

remain waterlogged for long periods of time in some cases with farmers’ livelihoods being put at 

risk. Where a flood is severe trees can be uprooted.


In urban areas there is often far more damage, towns can become flooded, houses and vehicles 

damaged and lives can be at risk. Where a flood is severe buildings and vehicles can be washed 

away and this debris cause even more damage. 

Where a potential hazard from flooding is known river defences are sometimes built to prevent 

floodwater reaching habited areas, but these do not always prevent flooding. Sometimes these 

defences cause as many problems as they solve, such as the levees built on the Mississippi in the 

USA. These are huge banks of earth on either side of the river, which were intended to contain the 

river when it flooded. These were however not enough to contain the summer floods in 1993, 

which followed an excessively wet summer. 

Dams are also used to regulate river flow on those rivers prone to flooding such as Clywedog Dam 

at Llandiloes on the River Severn. Flood defences in the UK are the responsibility of the 

Environmental Agency. 

Pollution 

Pollution after flooding can be as a result of floodwaters being polluted by sewage and other 

contaminated waste such as from industrial areas, plus fuel storage sites. 

However another form of pollution can be caused when industrial waste is released into a river by 

accident and causes pollution downstream, damaging wildlife and fish. Water is also taken from a 

river to be used for industrial purposes. 

Disease 

Due to pollution that occurs as above disease can sometimes cause more loss of life than the 

floods that preceded it. This is more often the case in underdeveloped areas where the water 

supplies may become polluted and cause diseases such as dysentery. 

Subsidence 

In certain types of areas, particularly those underlain by limestone, subsidence is the result of 

flooding. Landslides are also a hazard, and can be as dangerous as the flood water itself. 

Drought 

You may wonder why we have included this here, but drought can have just as dramatic effect on 

the environment, and can greatly affect river flow. In areas where there is a lock of rain a river 

becomes a vital source of water, however the drought itself can also cause the river volume to 

decrease and can affect crops and health.


Activities 

Making a Flood 

Build a river, using an old slide or plastic gutter and a mixture of sand and gravel (see instructions 

in PEST 16). Demonstrate normal flow then increase the volume of water flowing to show the 

difference that a large amount of water makes to a river. Ask children to predict which areas will be 

safe by placing plasticine blocks where they think houses will not be affected. 

Field Work. 

When studying rivers it is of course ideal to be able to visit a local on. Even a small stream can 

provide a good source for research. Ideally visit it at different times during the year so that the 

children can see the difference between a low volume summer river and a high volume winter river. 

Photographic records are very useful to remind children of what they have seen previously and to 

compare findings. Children can measure the depth and width of the river using metre sticks and 

tape measure, as well as the rate of flow using a floating object, metre stick and a stop watch Care 

should always be taken when doing work of this kind. 

Planning a New Town or Village 

Give the children a map of an appropriate area with a river, flood plain etc: and ask them to plan 

where they would build a new town or village. They need to give reasons why they have placed it 

where they have and why they have not sited it in other parts of the area. 

Planning A Factory Site 

Give the children a map of an appropriate area with a river, flood plain etc: You could use the same 

one as in the previous activity, or you might like to use one with a town or village already on it. Ask 

the children to plan where to site a new factory which will either have waste products which, after 

treatment, could be discharged into the river or requires the use of water from the river. Remind 

the children that they need to take into account other people or industries in the area, and the 

effect the new industry might have on them. 

Linking to Work on Ancient Egypt in History. 

Whilst doing work on Ancient Egypt or just afterwards investigate the River Nile. Cover the fact that 

in ancient times the natural flooding of the River Nile was used to aid irrigation of crops as well as 

providing fertile land to grow them on. Although this also led to problems for the population. 

Contrast this with the fact that in more recent times this flooding has been prevented following the 

building of dams on the river, which has meant that life is easier, but has meant that water has not 

been available in the same way for irrigation of crops and other means have had to be found. 

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The Stone Tapes: Building Stones in the 

History of the City of Nottingham 

GRAHAM LOTT 

From my days as a newly qualified geologist I still have a strong memory of an old BBC TV drama 

production called the Stone Tape. The main premise of the storyline was that the historic events 

that had occurred within a particular house were recorded in the stones of its walls and that these 

stories could, in the right circumstances, be ‘replayed’ in the present. To a great extent my 

subsequent career in geology, like that of many other geologists, has been spent in trying to 

understand the geological stories ‘recorded and told’ by such stones through studying their 

mineralogy and physical characteristics. Many of the techniques I learned I then found could be 

applied to the identification of the stones used in buildings and other structures. This has 

allowed me to take the story of the stones one step further by integrating their geological story 

with the history and origins of the buildings. 

The City of Nottingham, like most other cities 

in Britain, fortunately still has many such significant 

stories to tell through its stone buildings, 

despite the tribulations brought about by the sometimes 

catastrophic redevelopments of the 1960’s, 70’s 

and 80’s. Today, enlightened planners and architects 

have realised that conserving rather than demolishing 

historic buildings and landscapes has resulted in much 

more attractive and friendly city centre environments. 

Any study of building stones and their sources is 

very much intertwined with the development of first 

local, and later national transportation systems within 

an area (Lott 2001; BGS 2000). Throughout its history 

Nottingham has always taken full advantage of its position 

on one of the country’s major waterways, the River 

Trent. Its early development was very much reliant on 

the wealth generated from this river traffic. The river 

carried raw materials, like coal, lead, iron and stone, 

items too heavy for the existing overland trackways and 

embryonic road systems, from the mines and quarries 

of Derbyshire and north Nottinghamshire to the 

Humber estuary and beyond. Much of the building 

material that was needed for such a rapidly expanding 

city was imported using this river system which, from 

the late 18th century, was considerably improved by a 

series of local canal networks. 

As is typical of many cities, much of the older 

stonework is of local origin. The oldest stone buildings 

still surviving are the medieval churches of St Peter and 

St Mary. Though both have been much restored and 

added to over the centuries, the recently cleaned spire and 

surviving early stone fabric of St Peter’s, and the tower of 

St Mary’s, are constructed of large blocks of fine-grained 

sandstone from the local Triassic Sherwood Sandstone 

Group. The original quarries are now lost in the suburban 

developments of Sneinton and Gedling but they, 

together with quarries at Castle Donnington and Weston 

on Trent, sited just upstream on either side of the Trent, 

supplied a considerable amount of stone to the city until 

at least the late 18th century. Stone from these quarries is 

particularly well displayed in the Shire Hall (1770) (Galleries 

of Justice Museum), comprising large blocks of 

greenish or reddish-grey, cross-bedded sandstone, pockmarked 

by the erosion of the soft clay clasts that often 

characterise these fluvial, Triassic sandstones. 

The city is still dominated by its castle sitting high on 

St Mary’s Church: 

Local Triassic and 

Carboniferous 

Sandstones 

Shire Hall: 

Local Triassic 

sandstone. 

Mansfield Red 

pilasters 

85 www.esta-uk.org


the ridge of Triassic sandstone that divides the city. 

This sandstone has, unfortunately, always proved to be 

too poorly cemented to provide good building stone 

and was more widely utilised in the creation of the 

warren of man-made caves that underlie much of the 

urban area (Charsley et al. 1990; Waltham 1996) and 

which much later encouraged the construction of the 

Nottingham via the Trent. This finer grained, sandy Permian 

dolomitic limestone is now only found in a few surviving 

buildings in the city. The Mansfield White variety, 

with its characteristic green clay seams, can be seen in the 

Nottingham Corn Exchange (1849-50) in Thurland 

Street and in the old Chapel (1815) on George Street. 

The more ferruginous Mansfield Red variety was much 

St Andrew’s 

Church: 

Bulwell 

Golden Stone 

(Magnesian 

Limestone), 

Ancaster 

Limestone quoins 

and mouldings, 

grey Lias 

limestone arches 

Wollaton Hall: 

Ancaster Stone 

many railway tunnels that cross-cut the city. Little 

appears to remain of the stonework of the original 

medieval castle, which figured so prominently in the 

city’s early history. What does remain, however, suggests 

that a considerable amount of local Permian 

dolomitic limestone together with assorted Carboniferous 

and Triassic sandstones, were used in its construction 

(Drage 1990). The present italianate ‘castle’ 

(1674), built for the Duke of Newcastle was largely 

destroyed by fire in 1831. Today’s castle, restored by T. 

C. Hine (see above) survives as a Museum of Art and 

is built of strongly cross-bedded Carboniferous sandstone 

probably from nearby Derbyshire quarries, to the 

west, around Trowell, Stanton or Little Eaton. 

The most commonly seen stone within the city is the 

local Permian magnesian or dolomitic limestone (Cadeby 

Formation) from the Bulwell quarries (Bulwell Golden 

Stone), now also engulfed within the city’s northern 

suburbs. They provided stone for many Victorian industrial 

buildings, numerous churches (St Andrew (1869- 

71); Goldsmith St.) and schools (Nottingham High 

School (1866-7); Arboretum St.). This distinctive, 

coarsely crystalline, pale yellow-brown, dolomitic limestone 

formed the basis of a major local industry from at 

least the 16th century, but particularly flourished in the 

19th century. Not well suited for carved work, Bulwell 

Stone was often used as a wall stone together with pale 

yellow, Middle Jurassic Lincolnshire Limestone for the 

dressed quoins, window and door mouldings (All 

Saint’s Church (1863-4); Raleigh Street) 

In 1796 the Chesterfield Canal linked the Permian 

magnesian limestone quarries of the Mansfield area with 

sought after, both locally and nationally, for decorative 

stonework and often found in the door and window 

mouldings of larger houses and shop fronts. 

The Roman Foss Dyke that links Lincoln to the 

Trent provided the distant Ancaster quarries with 

access to Nottingham and, just outside the city centre, 

Wollaton Hall (1580-88), home of the coal magnate 

Francis Willoughby. Designed by Robert Smythson it 

was constructed largely of Ancaster Stone, together 

with some finer grained, Cadeby Formation dolomitic 

limestone, the former transported no doubt by using 

this ancient waterway to reach first the Trent and then 

Nottingham beyond. 

The gradual replacement of local stone by varieties 

imported from further afield, fuelled by the increasing 

industrial development in the city, reached its climax 

in the mid-late 19th century with the gradual establishment 

of the local rail network. Quickly replacing 

the canals as the best means for transporting heavy 

goods, and driven by the demands of many innovative 

Victorian architects, a wide range of new building 

stones and other building materials began to appear in 

the city. Most commonly, buildings of this period in 

the city show an increasing use of Derbyshire Carboniferous 

sandstones as in the solidly built old GPO 

Buildings (1895; Queen’s St.) and former Bank 

buildings (c.1872; Victoria St.), the latter mixing buff 

coloured sandstone with oolitic and shelly, Middle 

Jurassic, Lincolnshire Limestone. 

Leaving aside the legends of Robin Hood, the city of 

Nottingham is perhaps most-famed for its lace production. 

The industry still survives and was, in it heyday, 


86


housed close to the city centre in an area now known as 

the Lace Market. There has been considerable thought to 

the conservation of the numerous mill buildings that 

survive in this area and perhaps the jewel in the crown is 

the Adams Building (1855; now Clarendon College). 

The power, wealth and occasionally benevolent 

nature of some local Victorian mill owners in this 

industry is showcased in this recently restored building. 

T. C. Hine the architect designed an imposing 

entrance-way of ornately carved, pale yellow oolitic 

Lincolnshire Limestone (Ancaster Stone), with the 

street levels faced with harder, coarse grained Carboniferous 

sandstone from the Millstone Grit of Derbyshire. 

Inside, Adams provided a chapel and school for his 

workforce. The need for each mill owner to display his 

success through commissioning such exceptional 

buildings is clearly evident in the area. 

Like most Victorian cities local architects have played 

an important role in shaping the character of the city 

through their buildings. Nottingham had two such 

luminaries, Thomas C. Hine and Watson Fothergill. 

Hine from the early part of the 19th Century dominated 

the building contracts within the city. He often favoured 

brick but invariably used local stone for the more decorative 

parts of his designs, as in the Adams Building. As 

architect to the Duke of Newcastle Estate which included 

the castle, his influence is everywhere in the city. Watson 

Fothergill dominated the city’s architecture over the 

latter part of the century producing a far more flamboyant, 

polychromatic, architectural style. Strongly influenced 

by the gothic works of Burges and Street, many of 

his multifaceted buildings still survive. He used Derbyshire 

buff and grey Carboniferous sandstones, Mansfield 

Red dolomitic limestone, Upper Jurassic Portland 

Stone and a variety of Scottish granites in his Nottingham 

Express 1876 (Upper Parliament St.) and former 

National Westminster Bank 1877-82 (Thurland St.) 

buildings, which both typify his style. 

Better known nationally Augustus Welby Pugin, 

jointly with Charles Barry architect of the Palace of 

Westminster, was contracted to design the impressive, 

but very much plainer, St Barnabas (1841-4), Nottingham’s 

R. C. Cathedral. He used the local, greybrown 

Stancliffe Darley Dale (Ashover Grit) sandstone 

from Derbyshire. 

Industrial progress, particularly at the breakneck 

pace of the late 19th century was not without a price. As 

elsewhere the effects of coal-fired pollution had soiled 

and blackened many of the stone buildings in the city. 

In order to counteract these effects some architects, 

notably Alfred Waterhouse, began to use colourful 

glazed terracotta blocks that were thought to be more 

impervious to the pollutants. Waterhouse’s Prudential 

building (1896; King St.) in red terracotta with his characteristic 

animal casts and the bronzed Art Nouveau 

style of the shop front (1904; High Street) are just two 

of many such examples in the city. 

Growing Victorian cities like Nottingham were 

Adams Building: 


with Carboniferous 

Sandstone 

Nottingham 

Express Building: 

Carboniferous 

sandstone; 

Mansfield Red 

decoration 

87 www.esta-uk.org


Arkwright 

Building: 


often conscious of their image and liked to portray not 

only their industrial success through their buildings but 

also their concerns for other aspects of everyday life 

such as the educational well being of their population. 

In 1881 the University College of Nottingham was 

founded and a new prestigious building was constructed 

in pseudo-gothic style (Arkwright Building (1888); 

Shakespeare St.) of Ancaster Stone. Although the University 

has subsequently moved to its present site outside 

the city centre the buildings now form part of the new 

city centre Nottingham Trent University campus. 

The last substantial classical style stone building to 

be constructed in the city was the new Council House 

(1927-29). The architect (T.C. Howitt) used white, 

oolitic Portland Stone to clad its immense iron framework. 

Portland Stone, from Dorset, subsequently 

became a common feature in many office buildings in 

this and many other UK cities during this period. It was 

also used in the new University Park buildings when 

the supply of its chosen sandstone, Darley Dale, proved 

unreliable and again in the Nottingham Trent University 

Newton buildings in the 1950’s. 

Today, the stories being told by the stones tell us yet 

again how transport systems have further evolved. Blue 

Pearl Larvikite and migmatite imported from Norway; 

travertine limestones and marbles from Italy; granites 

from India are all showcased in the city’s newer buildings 

and shopping malls. However, fewer and fewer 

stone buildings are being constructed of local stones. 

An encouraging exception is the Crown Court (1985; 

Canal St.) building constructed of pinkish, Carboniferous 

Birchover Sandstone from Derbyshire. The focus 

has now turned to preserving and utilising the built 

heritage of the city. As part of this process it essential not 

only in Nottingham, but elsewhere in the country, to 

continue to record and interpret the ‘messages’ being 

broadcast by our many surviving stone buildings, messages 

which are still, unfortunately, often being ignored. 

Some of these ‘stone tapes’ are in need of ‘re-recording’ 

to pass on to new audiences before either they are 

irreparably damaged by inappropriate conservation 

techniques (Kennet 2001) or wiped clean forever (Harris 

1999). These ‘stone tapes’ form a major part of our 

built heritage and can tell us far more than just their 

geological history. 

References 

BGS (2000) Building Stone Resources of the United 

Kingdom (BGS Map 1:1,000,000 Scale). 

Charsley, T.J., Rathbone, P.A. and Lowe, D.J. (1990) 

Nottingham: A geological background to planning and 

development. British Geological Survey Technical 

Report WA/90/1 

Drage, C. (1990) Nottingham Castle. A Place Full Royal. 

Published by Nottingham Civic Society and the 

Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire. 

Harris, J. (1999) No Voice from the Hall - Early Memories 

of a Country House Snooper. London: Joh Murrray. 

Kennet, P. (2002) Chemistry in the High Street. 

Teaching Earth Sciences, 

27 (1), pp. 7-8. 

Lott, G.K. and Cobbing, J. (1996) Nottingham. 

Heritage in Stone. BGS Earthwise Publication. 

Lott, G.K. (2001) Geology and building stones in the 

East Midlands. Mercian Geologist, 15, pp. 97-122. 

Waltham, T. (1996) Sandstone Caves of Nottingham. 

East Midlands Geological Society. 

Published with the permission of the Director, British 

Geological Survey (NERC). 

Graham Lott 


Keyworth 

Nottingham NG12 5GG 


88


Lost worlds: 

How Exceptional Fossils Reveal the Past 

MARK WILLIAMS 

Fossils constitute amazing evidence of lost worlds and this article provides four ‘snapshots’ of 

how they contribute to major scientific debates in the biological and geological sciences. The 

fossil ‘snapshots’ are: a half billion year old animal from Shropshire, fossilized in 3-dimensions 

with its soft anatomy, that indicates the presence of modern animal body plans in the Cambrian; 

small fossil crustaceans from the Ordovician of the American Midwest, which appear in Scotland, 

indicating the ancient geographical disposition of the continents; fossil mouthparts from the 

Moffat district, that identify predators in the Silurian marine abyss; and microfossil assemblages 

from ancient marine deposits of the Pacific Ocean that identify tsunamis. Fossils provide 

examples of the evolution of organisms and the biosphere from the Precambrian to the present. 

They can determine the positions of ancient continents and help to reconstruct complex ancient 

ecologies. Fossils can even be used to ‘fingerprint’ tsunami deposits and identify potential 

geological hazards. 

A half billion year old relative of crabs and lobsters 

In the ancient rocks of Shropshire are tiny fossilized 

marine animals only 0.3mm long, preserved with their 

entire soft anatomy (see Figures 1 and 2). So fine is the 

preservation that the animals even display the hairs on 

their legs. This would be amazing if they were one million 

years old. But in this case the fossils are from rocks 

deposited over half a billion years ago. 

The tiny fossils are bivalved crustaceans. Their head 

appendages are arranged in the same manner as that of 

modern crabs, lobsters and crayfish, with two pairs of 

antennae at the front, mandibles and maxillae (see Figure 

2). At over 511 million years old these are the 

grandfather of all tempura! 

The animals come from the Comley Limestones of 

1a 

Shropshire, part of the Lower Cambrian sequence of 

rocks that were deposited in a shallow sea at the margin 

of the early Palaeozoic marine Welsh Basin. They are 

the oldest complete animals preserved in 3-dimensions 

ever found. This kind of preservation is astonishing, as 

most fossils preserve only the hard shell or skeletal tissues. 

Coated in the mineral phosphate, the Shropshire 

animals were virtually ‘mummified’ alive, or preserved 

almost immediately after death. Either way, there was 

no chance for the decay of soft anatomy. 

The fossils are amazing in themselves, encased in 

limestone they waited half a billion years to be released 

from the rock by acid processing techniques in the laboratory. 

But their wider evolutionary significance is 

much greater, given that they occur in Lower Cambri- 

1b 

Figure 1: 

A fossil crustacean 

from the Lower 

Cambrian of 

Shropshire 

preserved with its 

soft-anatomy: a, 

oblique lateral 

view; b, ventral 

view (see also Fig. 

2). At more than 

511 million years 

old, this tiny 

fossil, just 0.3mm 

long, is the oldest 

3-dimensionally 

preserved 

complete animal 

ever found. 

89 www.esta-uk.org


Figure 3: 

The small arthropod Kunmingella from the Lower Cambrian 

Chengjiang deposit of south China (about 520 million years old). 

The flattened specimen, about 5mm long, is preserved with most 

of its soft anatomy, including its head and body appendages. 

Once thought to be an ostracod, the preserved soft-anatomy of 

this animal indicates that it is not even a crustacean. 

Figure 2: 

The fossil 

crustacean from 

Shropshire 

reconstructed in 

ventral view (see 

also Fig. 1b). Two 

legs on the left 

side of the animal 

were lost during 

life or damaged 

after its death. 

an rocks. It is in these rocks that shelly fossils first 

appear in great numbers, as part of what is often 

referred to as the ‘Cambrian explosion’ of life. The 

Shropshire crustacean shows that complex animal body 

plans and animal behaviour already existed in the early 

Cambrian. That such complex animals existed at this 

time, poses the question of when their less derived animal 

ancestors began to evolve Was there a long evolutionary 

‘fuse’ extending back into the Precambrian 

The crustaceans from the Comley Limestones are 

just one of many instances of soft-bodied animals preserved 

in the Cambrian. Perhaps the most famous softbodied 

fauna is that of the Middle Cambrian Burgess 

Shale of British Columbia, Canada. But this fauna, like 

that of the Lower Cambrian soft-bodied fauna at 

Chengjiang, southern China (see Figure 3), is preserved 

as flattened impressions. The great beauty of the 

Shropshire find is that, preserved in 3-dimensions, the 

animals look as though they were alive just yesterday! 

Tiny Ordovician fossils from the American 

Midwest found in Scotland! 

In Oklahoma, in the American Midwest, there is a superb 

sequence of marine sedimentary rocks deposited during 

the Ordovician period, between about 500 and 440 million 

years ago. These outcrop in the Arbuckle Mountains, 

about 3-4 hours drive north of Dallas, Texas. The 

Ordovician rocks of Oklahoma are highly fossiliferous, 

bearing trilobites, brachiopods, corals, graptolites and 

many other fossil marine invertebrates. Amongst these 

are the tiny shells of ostracods (see Figure 4). 

Figure 4: 

The fossilized shell of the ostracod Steusloffina from the 

Ordovician. The figured species occurs in Caradoc-age rocks 

(about 450 million years old) of the Girvan district of Scotland, 

and is also widely documented from North America. The fossil is 

about 2mm long, with its anterior (head) end to the right. 

Ostracods are small bivalved crustaceans that typically 

are about 1 to 2mm long. Known from over 30,000 

species, they occupy all modern aquatic environments 

from peat bogs to the ocean depths. However, during 

the Ordovician the range of environments they occupied 

was limited to shallow to mid-shelf marine settings 

where they occurred amongst the sea-bottom 

dwelling marine benthos. 

The global patterns of Ordovician ostracod distribution 

can be used to map out the margins of ancient continents. 

When these ancient continents were separated 

by wide ocean barriers, ostracods were unable to 

migrate and faunas became highly provincial. But when 

continents drifted together, as a result of plate tectonic 

movements, ostracods migrated from one continent to 

another, and the faunas became cosmopolitan. By measuring 

these changes it is possible to track the relative 

position of ancient continents during the Ordovician. 

In Oklahoma, the Ordovician ostracod faunas 


90


belong to the Laurentia palaeocontinent (Figure 5), a 

landmass that comprised most of modern North America, 

but also Scotland, and which straddled the equator. 

We know that Scotland was part of Laurentia because it 

has the same Ordovician fossils as North America. 

Indeed, ostracods from the American Midwest can 

be found in Ordovician rocks at Girvan on the Ayrshire 

coast! To the south of Laurentia, separated by 

the intervening Iapetus (or Proto-Atlantic) 

Ocean, lay the Baltica palaeocontinent, modern 

Scandinavia. Further south was the Avalonia 

microcontinent, formed from parts of 

Europe, including England and Wales, and 

parts of eastern North America, including 

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (see 

Figure 5). Still further south was the 

Gondwana supercontinent extending 

to the South Pole, where, during 

the late Ordovician, North Africa 

was situated. 

By looking at the Ordovician 

ostracods from Oklahoma and 

Scotland and comparing them to 

those of England and Wales, the 

relative palaeogeographical position 

of the Avalonia and Laurentia palaeocontinents 

can be tracked. In early late 

Ordovician times, about 455 million years ago (see 

Figure 5), the ostracods of England and Wales were 

very different from those of Scotland or Oklahoma. 

But, by latest Ordovician times, about 440 million 

years ago, they shared numerous species in common, 

indicating that there was free migration of ostracods 

between these palaeocontinents. Together with other 

palaeontological, geological and palaeomagnetic data, 

this indicates that Avalonia had drifted north towards 

Laurentia and that the intervening Iapetus Ocean had 

narrowed and was about to close. Indeed, Scotland 

was about to be joined to England and Wales for the 

first time, about 440 to 430 million years ago. 

Ostracods can be used for reconstructions of 

Ordovician palaeogeography globally. Thus, the ostracod 

faunas of the Argentine Precordillera are different 

from those of the rest of South America until the late 

Ordovician (see Figure 5). It was at this time, about 440 

million years ago, that the Precordillera microcontinent, 

which had split off from North America much 

earlier during the Cambrian, finally docked with the 

rest of South America. 

Ostracod fossils may be diminutive in size, but their 

distribution patterns can nonetheless have global significance 

for reconstructions of ancient geography. 

Figure 5: 

Reconstruction of palaeogeography for the Caradoc Series of the Ordovician, about 450 

million years ago. England and Wales lie on the Avalonia palaeocontinent south of the 

equator, whilst Scotland is situated on the Laurentia palaeocontinent to the north. 

Intervening is the Iapetus Ocean. As Avalonia drifted northwards towards Laurentia during 

the late Ordovician, the ostracod faunas of the two continental areas became progressively 

more cosmopolitan as widespread migration took place. Many species were common to 

Laurentia and Avalonia by latest Ordovician times (about 440 million years ago). 

Figure 6: 

A rare conodont bedding plane assemblage from southern 

Scotland. Several paired Elements (‘teeth’) are visible lying 

adjacent to a lower Silurian graptolite (top of picture). The whole 

conodont assemblage is about 1cm long. At about 435 million 

years old, this is the oldest near complete vertebrate mouthpart 

apparutus ever found in Scotland. 

Ancient fossil mouthparts from the Silurian 

marine abyss 

At about 1cm long, a newly discovered conodont 

mouthpart assemblage from the Silurian of southern 

Scotland may not look very threatening (see Figure 6). 

91 www.esta-uk.org


component of the marine plankton biomass in deeper 

water settings of the early Palaeozoic. But if this is so, 

surely something must have been eating them Despite 

the millions of graptolites recovered, virtually none 

show evidence of bite marks, mastication or occurrence 

in coprolites (fossil dung). 

The Scottish conodont mouthpart association 

strongly suggests that predators were living with the 

graptolites in the overlying water column. It indicates a 

much more complex ancient ecology than could be 

gleaned from the graptolite fossils alone. Given that 

there is also evidence for fossilized marine worms in 

the newly discovered association, which may also have 

been predators, the fossil find from southern Scotland 

provides much evidence for the existence of complex 

ecosystems in the Silurian marine abyss. 

Figure 7: 

Foraminifera are unicellular eukaryotic organisms (Protists) that 

construct a calcium carbonate or agglutinated shell. They range 

through a vast array of different marine and brackish water 

environments and are powerful indices of ecology. The specimens 

shown are shallow marine forms from the Pacific region, and are 

between 0.5 to 2mm in size. 

Nevertheless, it provides evidence for predators in the 

Silurian seas and, at around 435 million years old, is the 

oldest near complete vertebrate mouthpart apparatus 

ever found in Scotland. 

Conodonts were early vertebrates with a somewhat 

‘eel-like’ body-morphology. They possessed hard 

mouthparts, rather like teeth, collectively arranged as a 

kind of ‘jaw’. Most conodonts are known only from 

these ‘teeth’, which typically became dissociated after 

the animal’s death. Only very rarely are the ‘teeth’, 

more correctly termed ‘conodont elements’, preserved 

in association. Such finds are very important for interpreting 

the way in which these animals were eating, and 

also for meaningful taxonomic assessment of their close 

biological affinities. 

The Silurian rocks in which the conodont mouthparts 

were found, are thought to have been deposited in 

a deep sea setting. They comprise black, organic rich 

mudstones, accumulated on the sea floor under anoxic 

sea bottom conditions, probably in an ocean-facing 

marine basin. Fossils in these rocks are mainly graptolites, 

colonial marine organisms that produced a rigid 

protein skeleton. These lived in the overlying water 

column but sank to the sea bottom after death, to be 

locked into the sediments. Millions of graptolite fossils 

have been recovered in southern Scotland and from 

similar rocks in the English Lake District, Wales and 

worldwide. These animals evidently formed a huge 

Small fossils make big waves in the Pacific Ocean 

In the Pacific Ocean tsunamis strike with alarming regularity 

and cause extensive damage and loss of life: in 

the recent Papua New Guinea tsunami of 1998 over a 

thousand people were killed. 

Tsunamis are generated by large scale geological phenomena 

such as earthquakes, or the movement of large 

slumps of sediment on the continental shelf or slope, or 

more rarely are caused by bolide impacts. The resulting 

shock waves from these effects can generate “tidal waves” 

of hundreds of metres, which are capable of picking up 

rock boulders the size of houses and depositing them 

onshore. Recognising the rock deposits formed by past 

tsunami can help to determine their periodicity and causal 

effects. In this way the potentially devastating effects of 

future tsunamis can be identified before they occur. 

Shell assemblages in recent and ancient sedimentary 

deposits can provide a characteristic signature, a kind of 

‘genetic-fingerprinting’ for tsunami. Such tsunamidiagnostic 

assemblages have been recognised in ancient 

rock deposits from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. 

Thus, on the Polynesian islands of the Pacific, coastal 

sedimentary rocks previously interpreted as beach 

deposits, can be ‘fingerprinted’ as tsunami deposits by 

their macrofaunal and microfaunal content. Such 

deposits contain many shell fragments of typical marine 

invertebrates such as bivalves and gastropods, together 

with abundant foraminifera and ostracods. Foraminifera 

are ‘large’ millimetre scale unicellular organisms which 

produce a calcium carbonate or agglutinated shell, and 

which include sea-bottom dwelling and planktonic 

forms (see Figure 7; see also the article by Ian Wilkinson 

in this volume, page 78). 

The faunal signature of tsunami deposits in Polynesia 

can be very distinctive. Ongoing work by British 

Geological Survey scientists shows that the larger 

invertebrate fauna are pummelled to fragments of less 

than 1mm size. The microfauna are winnowed to 

remove both the smaller (immature) sea-bottom 

foraminifera, and the more buoyant planktonic 

foraminifera. This leaves a ‘skewed’ assemblage of 


92


robust, mature, sea-bottom forms, which are clearly 

not representative of an original living population. As 

the fauna are also transported onshore by the tsunami, 

there is a landwards displacement of environment-specific, 

often incompatible faunas, ripped-up from different 

ecologies as the tsunami approaches shore. The 

distinctive faunal assemblage that this produces, a winnowed, 

pummelled, mixed fauna from different marine 

communities, ‘fingerprints’ the high-energy milieu of 

deposition and distinguishes the deposits as the product 

of a tsunami. 

Conclusions: the importance of fossils 

Notwithstanding their immense value for the relative 

dating and correlation of rock sequences, the ‘snapshots’ 

presented here indicate the wider geological and 

biological applications of fossils. Fossils are the key evidence 

for the processes of evolution viewed in the long, 

geological time-frame and, when preserved with their 

soft anatomy, provide immense detail about past global 

biodiversity. The distributional patterns of fossils can be 

used to track the positions of ancient continents, and to 

reconstruct complex ancient ecosystems. Fossils can be 

things of great aesthetic beauty, but have a much more 

practical role when they ‘fingerprint’ geological hazards 

such as tsunami. 

References 

The following references provide more detailed information 

about the ‘Cambrian explosion’, ancient palaeogeography, 

conodonts and tsunamis. For animations and 

much more information about tsunamis visit the United 

States National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration 

website at: http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/ 

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tsunami/ 

An excellent general guide to fossils is the book by 

Richard Fortey given below. 

Cocks, L.R.M. (2000) The early Palaeozoic Geography 

of Europe. Journal of the Geological Society, London, 

157, pp. 1-10. 

Fortey, R. (2002) Fossils: The Key to the Past. Third Edition. 

London: Natural History Museum 

Keating, B.H., Waythomas, C.F. & Dawson, A.G. (2000) 

Landslides and Tsunamis. Birkhäuser Verlag. Basel- 

Boston-Berlin. 

Purnell, M. A., Donoghue, P. C. J. & Aldridge, R. J. (2000) 

Orientation and anatomical notation in conodonts. 

Journal of Paleontology, 74, pp. 113-122. 

Siveter, D.J., Williams, M. & Walossek, D. (2001) 

A phosphatocopid crustacean with appendages from 

the Lower Cambrian. Science, 293, pp. 479-481. 

Dr Mark Williams FGS CGeol 

British Geological Survey, 

Keyworth, 

Nottingham NG12 5GG 

Email: mwilli@bgs.ac.uk 

Acknowledgments 

David Siveter and Mark Purnell of Leicester 

University, Dieter Walossek of Ulm University, 

Maxine Akhurst and James Floyd of BGS 

Edinburgh, and Ian Wilkinson and Dave Tappin of 

BGS Nottingham are collaborators on various 

aspects of the work detailed here. The 

reconstruction used in Figure 2 was drawn by 

Dieter Walossek and Chris Wardle. The 

reconstruction of Ordovician palaeogeography 

used in Figure 5 is courtesy of Mike Bassett and 

Leonid Popov of the National Museum of Wales. 

The image of foraminifera used in Figure 7 is 

courtesy of Ian Wilkinson. Thanks to Vicki Ward 

of Abbot Beyne School, Burton-on-Trent, for 

information about the A-Level Geology 

curriculum. Many of the specimens figured here 

are in the museum collection of the British 

Geological Survey at Keyworth, Nottingham. 

Images are available from the author by request. 

This article is published with the permission of the 

Director, British Geological Survey (N.E.R.C.). 

93 www.esta-uk.org


From Flood to Drought and Back Again 

BRIAN WATERS 

This paper is based on some work that looked at the Potential Impacts of Climate Change in the 

East Midlands on behalf of the East Midlands Sustainable Development Round Table (emsdOt) 

and future climate scenarios in the West Midlands for the Environment Agency. These were two of 

a number of regional and sectoral studies, some of which can be accessed through the web site 

of the UK Climate Impact Programme (www.ukcip.org.uk). 

Everyone must have heard by now of the changing 

climate and its likely causes due to emissions of 

greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from 

the combustion of fossil fuels. Several studies have 

looked at the likely future climate scenarios based on 

assumptions of future trends in carbon dioxide concentrations 

in the atmosphere. In 1998 UKCIP published a 

report for the UK (Hulme and Jenkins, 1998) and this 

was the starting point for the East Midlands study. 

One of the team involved in the study used a technique 

of downscaling to produce scenarios for the East 

Midlands of temperature and rainfall (East Midlands 

Sustainable Development Round Table, 2000). The 

Environment Agency commissioned similar work for 

the West Midlands (Environment Agency, 2001a). 

More recently, the scenarios for the whole of the UK 

have been updated (Hulme et al, 2002) to produce 

maps at a 50km scale giving similar information about 

predicted scenarios for 2020, 2050 and 2080. The scenarios 

show predictions for annual averages and seasonal 

changes in temperature and rainfall for a range 

from low to high future carbon dioxide emissions. All 

the scenarios imply increases in emissions, just at different 

rates. Picking one of these – the Medium High 

Scenario – Table 1 shows how the predictions have 

changed between 1998 and 2002 for the East Midlands. 

Although there are differences in detail, the broad 

picture looks the same: 

● Increased average temperatures 

● Hotter drier summers 

● Warmer wetter winters 

The changes look modest but an increase of 3ºC in 

average temperature ought to be compared with a 5º 

difference between average temperatures now and the 

last ice age. In addition the studies are predicting: 

● More extreme events such as periods of intense rainfall 

and drought. 

● Less frost and snow. 

● Rising sea levels due to expansion of the sea and 

melting of polar and glacial ice caps (compounded by 

relative changes in land level due to geological events 

in some locations such as the East Coast). 

These changes will have profound effects and the purpose 

of the impact studies is to look at these both in 

terms of their local significance and across sectors such 

as agriculture, wildlife, industry and health. 

For the Environment Agency the impacts are also 

significant. It regulates and manages water resources, 

flood defence, water quality and fisheries along with air 

and land quality. 

Increasing temperatures and reduced summer rainfall 

are expected to increase the demand for water for 

domestic and commercial use. For example, people will 

shower more and want to water their gardens, agriculture 

will want to irrigate more and industry will require 

more cooling water. There are already problems with 

water supply in some areas where falling groundwater 

levels due to over abstraction and low stream flows during 

dry periods mean that restrictions are imposed on 

abstractors most years. Changes in water availability 

also affect wetlands and other water features which 

have a consequential effect on wildlife. The Environment 

Agency has recently published a series of Water 

Resources Strategies (Environment Agency, 2001b) 

which start to address these problems. Everyone is 

Table 1 Changing Scenarios For East Midlands 2080-2100 

The table shows how little the Medium-High scenarios for temperature and precipitation towards 

the end of this century have changed with improvements in climate models used in 1998 and 2002. 

UKCIP 1998 UKCIP 2002 

Temperature Change o C Annual +2.8 to +3.2 +3.0 to +3.5 

Summer +2.5 to +3.0 +3.0 to +4.0 

Winter +3.0 to +3.5 +2.0 to +3.0 

Precipitation % Change Annual +4 to +9 +0 to -10 

Summer -15 to -30 -40 to -50 

Winter +23 to +30 +20 to +30 


94


familiar with the problems of drought in many third 

world countries but the UK is likely to find itself in a 

similar, if not so critical, position. Even so, the Water 

Resources Strategies highlight that the annual effective 

rainfall per head of population in parts of the UK is 

already less than in countries such as Ethiopia. 

The response has to include ensuring that new water 

resources are made available but not before demand has 

been reduced through improving water efficiency. 

Much can be done to reduce demand by using waterefficient 

appliances, reducing waste and leakage and 

adopting trickle irrigation. 

At the other extreme, intense storms at any time of 

year can produce local flooding. Wetter winters are also 

likely to increase the risk of more widespread flooding 

as catchments become saturated and unable to absorb 

heavier rainfall. Sea level rise also increases the risk of 

coastal flooding. There have been several major floods 

in the last five years affecting large parts of the country. 

It is too early to say with confidence that these are due 

to climate change as there are natural variations in climate 

and flooding frequency anyway. However, they 

are certainly indicative of the sort of events that can be 

expected more frequently as this century progresses. 

The responses to the increased risk of flooding 

include building more defences along river banks and 

coastal stretches, improving flood prediction tools and 

warning systems and raising awareness among the population 

at risk. Nearly 2 million properties are in areas at 

some risk of flooding but many residents are unaware 

because there has not been flooding in recent years. The 

areas at risk are shown in indicative flood plain maps 

which can be found on the Environment Agency’s web 

site at www.environment-agency.gov.uk. Insurance companies 

are naturally showing an interest as the damage 

over the last few years has escalated. They are loading 

premiums for property in flood risk areas and pressing 

the Government to provide more money for flood 

defence under threat of withdrawing cover. 

There is little sense in producing more problems for 

the future by building more properties in the flood 

plains so the Environment Agency works closely with 

local planning authorities to ensure that this does not 

happen. Local flooding is also made worse by increased 

rates of run off from developments such as paved areas 

and roof drainage. The Environment Agency is keen to 

promote sustainable drainage through techniques such 

as porous pavements, soakaways and retention wetlands 

to store the water underground or at least attenuate the 

rate of run off. 

The changes in temperature and water regime will 

affect wildlife and there are many recorded instances of 

alien species appearing, losses of some species and 

extended growing seasons. New crops such as maize, 

grapes and sunflowers are appearing. Some of these 

changes could be beneficial, offering new markets for 

farmers and a wider, or at least different, diversity of 

wildlife. Decisions will have to be made about whether it 

is sensible to try to preserve habitats against the climatic odds, or whether it 

would be more sensible to go with nature and help species to adapt or move 

to better areas. 

Climate change will also impact on a wide range of other sectors. Health 

risks from exotic diseases, damage to roads, rail and other infrastructure, 

and loss of markets for some products but increases for others (example: 

equipment for heating and air conditioning). Will working patterns become 

more like those in southern Europe Will there be a renaissance in tourism 

in the UK as the current popular resorts become unpleasantly hot These 

are the sorts of questions addressed by the regional and sectoral studies. 

Whichever of the climate scenarios proves eventually to be the one that 

happens, they run close together in the early years and only diverge towards 

the middle of this century. The outlook for the next 50 years or so is for an 

annual average temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees. This is largely 

unavoidable even if we cut our use of fossil fuels dramatically now. The best 

that can be hoped for is that the Kyoto agreement is ratified and forms the 

basis for future cuts of greenhouse gas emissions of up to 60% or more. 

There are lots of opportunities to bring climate change issues into 

schools. The UKCIP web site has many publications which can be a source 

of information on local impact studies or specific to sectors such as health, 

agriculture of wildlife. These could form the basis for a detailed look at the 

potential impacts in the school catchment. In addition, looking at the 

school’s use of energy for heating and lighting, local transport issues, water 

use and flood risk all help to raise awareness of the difficulties in mitigation 

and adaptation. 

Dr Brian Waters, recently retired as Regional Water Manager for the Midlands 

Region of the Environment Agency. 

References 

East Midlands Sustainable Development Round Table (2000) The Potential 

Impacts of Climate Change in the east Midlands, Summary Report, available 

from Environment Agency, 550 Streetsbrook Road, Solihull, B91 1QT 

and at www.ukcip.org.uk 

Environment Agency, (2001a) State of the Environment Report; West Midlands 

Region, available from Environment Agency, 550 Streetsbrook Road, 

Solihull, B91 1QT. A more detailed report “Climate Change in the West 

Midlands” is available from the same address. 

Environment Agency, (2001b), Water Resources for the Future: A Strategy for 

England and Wales, March 2001. Available, along with Regional appendices, 

from Environment Agency offices. 

Hulme, M., Jenkins, G.J. (1998) Climate Scenarios for the UK: scientific 

report. UKCIP Technical Report No. 1, Climatic Research Unit, Norwich, UK, 

80pp. 

Hulme, M., Jenkins, G.J., Lu, X., Turnpenny, J.R., Mitchell, T.D., Jones, 

R.G., Lowe, J., Murphy, J.M., Hassell, D., Boorman, P., McDonald, R., 

and Hill, S. (2002); Climate Change Scenarios for the United Kingdom: The 

UKCIP02 Scientific Report, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 

School 0f Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 

UK. 120pp. Available at www.ukcip.org.uk 

95 www.esta-uk.org


ESTA Conference 2003: 

“Earth Sciences in the 21st Century” 

University of Manchester, 12th-14th September 2003 

The next ESTA Course and Conference, hosted by the University of Manchester Department of Earth Sciences in 

conjunction with the Manchester Museum, promises to be a most informative and enjoyable affair. Manchester 

occupied much of our television viewing in the summer when the city hosted the 2002 Commonwealth Games, 

and then gained (geological) fame again recently with a series of small (but certainly perceptible!) earthquakes. The 

city of Manchester is enjoying a renaissance, and the centre is now a thriving village of loft apartments, striking 

modern architecture, pleasant shopping areas, clubs and restaurants. Thanks to the Games, Manchester now has 

some of the finest sports and leisure facilities in the country. The city is within easy reach of some of the finest 

scenery and geological sites in the country: the Peak District, the Pennines, and the Cheshire Plain – destinations 

of some of our Sunday field workshops. 

The venue for the Friday and Saturday workshops, lectures and exhibitions will be the Department of Earth Sciences 

laboratories and lecture rooms, as well as facilities in the Education Section of the Manchester Museum, 

immediately opposite across Oxford Road. Coffee, tea and lunches will also be served here. The Museum has been 

refurbished recently, and the geological galleries are a delight. Delegates will also see some of the new geochemical 

laboratories in Earth Sciences. 

Accommodation for delegates will be in comfortable en-suite rooms at Hulme Hall, just 10 minutes’ walk away 

from the university and museum. Breakfast, evening meals, Conference Dinner, bar and Open Lectures will be 

held at Hulme Hall. For those wishing to explore a little further, Hulme Hall is situated at the start of the ‘curry 

mile’ – more than 50 neon-lit Asian restaurants in actually about half a mile. 

Provisional Programme 

Friday 12th September 

INSET for local teachers and ESTA members, all day. 

● Key Stages 1/2 – 

● Key Stages 3/4 – 

● Post-16 – Update for teachers of Geology at AS/A Level, largely led by Manchester staff. 

● Higher Education 

Saturday 13th September 

The programme is yet to be arranged, but will consist largely of updating lectures and workshops. Whilst the majority 

of these will be of interest to teachers of Geology to AS and A Level, much will be relevant to teachers of Earth Science 

at all Key Stages. As well as some specific provision for Primary and lower Secondary teachers, attendance at the 

full day will result in greater confidence through the acquisition of more background knowledge of the subject. 

Sunday 14th September 

● Fieldwork in the local region, with a choice of visits to be arranged. 

Attendance is open to all with an interest in Earth science education, on a day visit, or a residential basis. (You do 

not need to be an ESTA member). There will be Open Lectures on Saturday which will be free: there are fees for 

other aspects of the conference, to cover refreshments and the usual overheads. 

The convenor, Dr Paul Selden, will be pleased to supply further details and a booking form for the whole conference, 

once these become available in the Spring of 2003. 

For further information, contact the Conference Convenor: Dr Paul Selden, Dept of Earth Sciences, University 

of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL. Tel: 0161 275 3296; email: Paul.Selden@man.ac.uk 

Meanwhile, visit these websites: 

http://www.man.ac.uk............................................University of Manchester 

http://www.earth.man.ac.uk...................................Department of Earth Sciences (inc. a section on the recent earthquakes) 

http://museum.man.ac.uk ......................................The Manchester Museum 

http://www.man.ac.uk/conferences/hulme.html ....Hulme Hall 

http://www.manchester.com...................................Virtual Manchester 


96


Reviews 

Geology and building stones in Wales (north) / Daereg a cherrig adeiladau yng 

Nghymru (y gogledd); Geology and building stones in Wales (south) / Daereg a cherrig 

adeiladau yng Nghymru (y de). 

Graham Lott and Bill Barclay. Folded sheets 42x30cm; 

British Geological Survey 2002, Keyworth, Nottingham NG123 5GG. 

£1.95 each. ISBN 0-85272-423-3; 0-85272-422-5. 

These two pamphlets are published 

by the Geological Survey, but 

produced in association with 

CADW (Welsh Historical Monuments), 

the National Museums and Galleries of 

Wales and the Countryside Council for 

Wales. They are printed on thin glazed 

card, presumably for protection when 

carried in the field. Each carries a 

bilingual (Welsh and English) text: 

Welsh on one side and English on the 

other, but with a single set of 

photographs, and an appropriate and 

simplified geological map. 

For each pamphlet, there is a brief 

account of the geology of the region, 

together with reference to the use of the 

rocks in buildings (e.g. the purple 

Caerbwdi sandstones of the Cambrian 

for the building of St. David’s cathedral). 

Illustrations, necessarily quite small, are 

given of representative or important 

buildings. These range from the 

prehistoric huts at Din Lligwy, Anglesey, 

and a terraced house in Pontypridd, to 

castles and railway viaducts. In addition 

to the use of Welsh stone (usually locally 

sourced) there is also a section in each 

pamphlet on Foreign stones. It is pointed 

out that there are few good freestones in 

Wales, and that easily worked stones have 

been imported from a variety of foreign 

sources, such as Bath and Portland 

stones. These have principally been used 

from the middle of the nineteenth 

century, and also mainly for important 

buildings, whether civic, religious or 

commercial. Decorative stones are given 

a paragraph in each pamphlet: again 

there are not many Welsh stones that are 

suitable, and so imported stones are 

prevalent. Each pamphlet has a 

geological column, listing not only the 

geological periods, but also the principal 

building stones found (the column in 

English only). Finally, there is a list of 

important geologists (all deceased) who 

have worked in Wales, listed in order of 

dates of birth, ranging from G. Owen 

(1552-1613) and E. Lhuyd (1660-1613) 

to R.M. Cummings (1926-1995). 

The geological maps also show the 

locations of the buildings illustrated, and 

it is of interest that, with the exception of 

the Old College Building in Aberystwyth 

(incorrectly described as being of 

Grinshill Stone – it is mainly of Cefn 

Sandstone), no other buildings are 

shown in Wales south of Harlech and 

north of St. David,s. I would have liked 

to see some illustration of , for example, 

the houses of Dolgellau, constructed of 

almost monolithic blocks of local 

igneous rocks, or of the many uses of 

greywackes in Mid Wales. 

The authors and publishers are to be 

congratulated on having produced 

concise, informative and attractive 

publications, widening our knowledge of 

Welsh building stones from just the slate 

industry, to take in rocks of all ages, and 

in all situations. May we look forward to 

seeing this series extended to cover areas 

in the rest of Britain 

Denis Bates 

University of Wales, 

Aberyswyth 

97 www.esta-uk.org


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ESTA Diary 

Reviews 

JANUARY 2003 

Friday 3rd - Sunday 5th January 

ASE, University of Birmingham. 

[Sat 4th is Earth Science day] 

APRIL 2003 

Wednesday 16th April 

10:00 to 16:30 Mineral collecting and 

conservation – hammering out a future 

Harold Riley Suite, University of Salford 

Wednesday 23rd - Friday 25th April 

Geographical Association Annual 

Conference 

University of Derby 

SEPTEMBER 2003 

8th - 12th September 

The BA Festival of Science 2003 

University of Salford 

Friday 12th - Sunday 14th September 

ESTA Annual Conference 

University of Manchester 

SEPTEMBER 2004 

6th - 10th September 

The BA Festival of Science 2004 


To Advertise in 


EARTH 

SCIENCES 

Telephone 

Ian Ray 

0161 486 0326 


EARTH 

SCIENCES 











Kingston 2 01 



Discovering Geology: Fossil Focus, Graptolites. 

Ian Wilkinson, Susan Rigby and Jan Zalasiewicz. 

An Earthwise publication; folded sheet 42x30cm; 

British Geological Survey 2001, Keyworth, Nottingham NG123 5GG. 

ISBN 0-85-272390-3. £1.95. 

This double-sided sheet, printed on 

stout glazed card, follows the 

format established in a number of 

publications by the British Geological 

Survey, packing a concise account of 

graptolites into a minimum of space. 

Colour is used both in the photographs 

of individual graptolites, and also to great 

effect in the diagrams. 

The first panel deals with the 

morphology of the graptolites, and with 

their presumed modern relatives, the 

hemichordates. A good cutaway diagram 

of a Climacograptus shows the general 

structure, together with a diagram of a 

Didymograptus (described unfortunately 

as a “tuning folk graptoloid”!). Though 

this may be seen as a quibble, this latter 

diagram seems too diagrammatic: the 

two stipes appear to emerge from 

opposite sides of the sicula, and the 

sicula has a bulbous proximal end, rather 

than tapering to an extended nema. 

The second panel covers the range of 

morphologies exhibited by the 




EARTH 

SCIENCES 


chers’ A so 



Evolution: 


Cla sr om 



High Str et 

Peter Ke ne t 




Fo sils and Time 

Mike Tuke 


Busine s and 



Using Foam Ru ber in 




Phenomena 

John Wheeler 


Devon Coast: 



Update 




planktonic graptoloids, and the habitats 

in which they, and the sessile dendroids, 

lived. I was interested to see that the 

many branched form Cyrtograptus (c on 

the diagram) is shown as living at abyssal 

depths. However, this would mean that 

most specimens would have come from 

rocks interpreted as being oceanic: in 

contrast many specimens come from 

rocks which accumulated not on oceanic 

crust, but on deeper areas within shelves 

(such as the area around Builth Wells, in 

Wales). It is still likely, though, that they 

lived within deeper water than the 

majority of other graptoloids. 

A dramatic diagram shows the history 

of graptolites, relating their diversity to 

global events. This, together with the 

text, also illustrates the enormous 

potential that the graptoloids have as 

global timekeepers, with a pinpoint 

accuracy of only a few hundred thousand 

years. Finally, a panel of “Graptolites 

tales” deals with sex (all we can say is 

that they probably did it); Charles 

Lapworth; graptolites and roofing slates 

(they can only rarely be found on your 

roof); and what ate them (there is a 

specimen of a crumpled-up graptolite 

that may have been eaten: but we don’t 

know who did). Two cartoons illustrate 

this panel, as well as photographs. 

As with the other publications in this 

series, Graptolites tells a long story in 

simple terms, with the aid of good 

graphics. A surprising amount of detail is 

given, which bears comparison with 

coverage in the more basic textbooks. 

Furthermore, it is better presented, and 

also more up to date. It should certainly 

be on the shelves alongside more 

conventional texts, and students’ 

attention should be drawn to it. 

Denis Bates 

University of Wales, 

Aberystwyth 


98


Websearch 

Walking with Beasts 

Discovery Channel has launched a Walking with Beasts site, 

which provides an opportunity to compare the approaches adopted 

by the leading TV science channels in the US and the UK. 

http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/beasts/beasts.html 

The BBC site is 

www.bbc.co.uk/beasts 

Coastal Environments 

Coastline 2000 

www.angliacampus.com/public/sec/geog/coastln/page02.php 

Schemes of work 

www.learn.co.uki/gleaming/secondary/topical/ks3/ 

coastalerosion/teachers/htm 

www.angliacampus.com/tour/sec/geog/coastal/index.htm 

Case study, Holderness coast 

www.bennett.karoo.net/topics/coasts/html 

Case study, Reculver 

www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~drayner/recintro.htm 

Case study, Droskyn Point, Perranporth, Cornwall 

cil-www.oce.orst.edu:8080/pporth.html 

All along the coastline 

www.theukcoastalzone.com/regional.asp 

National Geographic News: Archaeology & Paleontology 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/archaeology.html 

Palaeontology in the News 

http://www-geology.ucdavis.edu/~GEL3/paleonews.html 

The Geological Society of America has re-posted its 1999 Geological 

Time Scale at 

geosociety.org/science/timescale/timescl.pdf 

It can be printed from that site. 

Glaciers and Ice 

Monitoring Glacier Changes from Space 

sdcd.gsfc.nasa.gov/GLACIER.BAY/hall.science.txt.html 

Glacier and Ice Sheet Research Group 

glacier.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp/index-e.htm 

Glaciological research 

www.maths.ox.ac.uk/~fowler/research/glaciology.html 

Glaciers and Glaciations - Ice Sheets and Glacial Lakes 

vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/framework.html 

Landscape Evolution 

CRC LEME: 

Cooperative Research Center for Landscape Evolution and Mineral 

Exploration 

leme.anu.edu.au/ 

Numerical Models Of Landscape Evolution 

adder.ocean.dal.ca/philippe/LEM_Numerical_models.html 

Modeling Landscape Evolution 

erode.evsc.virginia.edu/frlect/introduction/index.html 

Oceans 

FEMA Fact Sheet: Hurricanes 

www.fema.gov/fema/hurricaf.html 

Ocean Planet 

seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ocean-planet.html 

USGS Center for Coastal Geology 

stimpy.er.usgs.gov/ 

USGS Marine and Coastal Geology Program 

marine.usgs.gov/ 

USGS Woods Hole Field Center 

woodshole.er.usgs.gov/ 

NOAA VENTS Program 

www.pmel.noaa.gov/vents/home.html 

Exploration of Mid-Ocean Ridges 

www.nerc.ac.uk/BRIDGE/ 


National Earthquake Information Center 

wwwneic.cr.usgs.gov/ 

Caltech Seismological Laboratory 

www.gps.caltech.edu/seismo/seismo.page.html 

Tsunami 

www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/intro.html 

Seismology and Earthquake Information 

www.geophys.washington.edu/SEIS/welcome.html 

USGS: Latest Earthquake Information 

quake.wr.usgs.gov/QUAKES/CURRENT/index.html 

San Francisco Bay Area Earthquake Map 

quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/SF_Bay.html 

99 www.esta-uk.org




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Technology Commi t e 





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share’ se sion a the 


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update 

Book Reviews 

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ache 



achers’ Assoc 



Cla sroom 



High Street 

Peter Kenne t 




Fo sils and Time 

Browne 



Phenomena 

John Wheeler 


Devon Coast: 



Update 


Websearch 




Websearch 

Earth’s Interior 


www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/interior.html 

Earth’s Interior & Plate Tectonics 

www.solarviews.com/eng/earthint.htm 


www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/interior.html 

Plate Tectonics 

NGDC Marine Geology and Geophysics Division 

www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/mggd.html 

Ocean Drilling Program 

www-odp.tamu.edu/ 

Plate Motion Calculator 

manbow.ori.u-tokyo.ac.jp/tamaki-html/plate_motion.html 


volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/msh/ov/ovpt/ovpt.html 

Structure and Tectonics Groups on the WWW 

craton.geol.brocku.ca/guest/jurgen/SITES.HTM 

Caribbean Geology & Tectonics Website 

www.fiu.edu/orgs/caribgeol 

Welcome to the World Stress Map (WSM) 

www-wsm.physik.uni-karlsruhe.de 

Plate Tectonics: History of an Idea 


www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/techist.html 

This Dynamic Earth (USGS) 

pubs-usgs-gov/publications/text/dynamic.html 

Plate Tectonics: A whole new way of looking at your planet 

www.platetectonics.com/index.html 

Plate Tectonic Reconstructions at UTIG 

www.ig.utexas.edu/research/projects/plates/plates.html 

The Active Tectonics Web Server 

www.muohio.edu/tectonics/ActiveTectonics.html 

Earth Systems, Impacts 

Climate Processes over the Oceans 

eos.atmos.washington.edu/ 

Comet Observation Home Page 

encke.jpl.nasa.gov 

Climate Change 

www.ucsusa.org/globalwarming/index.html 

U.S. Census Bureau 

www.census.gov/ 

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100



Mineral Collecting and Conservation: 

Hammering Out a Future 

A one day conference to be held at the 

Harold Riley Suite, University of Salford, 

Wednesday 16th April 2003, 10:00 to 16:30 

Mineral collecting is scientifically and 

educationally important and a hobby enjoyed by 

many. However, many mineral sites are finite and the 

issue of sustainable collecting on mineral sites is 

becoming increasingly important. Collecting is 

fundamental to mineralogical research, and for 

educational, commercial and aesthetic purposes, but 

indiscriminate activity can deplete or destroy a 

mineralogical site. This conference aims to discuss the 

different aspects of mineral collecting and the best 

way of conserving the available mineral resource for 

future use by all interest groups. 

This meeting aims to open a debate rather than 

attempt to reach solutions and provides an 

opportunity to share views and identify and discuss 

issues. Speakers have been chosen to reflect a full 

range of views on the issues surrounding mineral 

collecting and include; the statutory conservation 

bodies; professional, hobbyist and academic research 

collectors; museums; landowners; and industrial 

archaeologists. The conference will conclude with an 

open debate and it is hoped that stimulating 

discussion will follow. 

The meeting will be co-convened by English 

Nature, the Geological Society’s Geoconservation 

Commission and the Russell Society. The conference 

proceedings will be published by English Nature and 

will be available shortly after the conference. 

Delegates will also have a chance to express their own 

views on mineral collecting and conservation in the 

form of written statements, which will be included 

with the proceedings volume and collected on the day 

of the conference. 

Further information from: 

Jennifer Yau, 

Environmental Impacts Team, 

English Nature, Northminster House, 

Peterborough, UK PE11UA 

(01733 455504). 

Do You Use Geological Sites – Have Your Say 

We need your help so that we can help you. Many readers of 

Teaching Earth Sciences use geological and geomorphological 

sites as a teaching resource – these might include National Nature 

reserves (NNRs), Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Regional 

Important Geological/Geomorphological Sites (RIGS), show caves, 

country parks, coastal, river and other natural sections, pits and 

quarries. 

If this includes you or your school or you manage such a site for 

visits by school groups, then read on. 

The National Stone Centre (NSC) has been asked by English 

Nature to examine particularly the opportunities presented by the 

National Curriculum for using geological sites. The brief also includes 

a review of the use of geological sites for teaching Earth science and by 

schools in general. The NSC is working closely with ESTA members 

on this scheme. The time allowed for the project is very limited indeed 

and so will only enable a scoping study to be carried out. 

So we need as much help as you can give us. 

Please let the NSC know which sites you use and how you use 

them – with what groups – for what purpose – what curriculum area 

and how often Do you use background material published by others 

or produce you own customised material Do you experience access 

problems to sites Ideally would you like to use geological sites more 

frequently If so, what factors constrain use – cost, timetabling, staff 

cover, insurance cover, distance, curriculum/specification limitations 

If you wish we can e-mail these questions to you so that you can 

respond by e-mail (see below). 

The exercise may be a first step in helping English Nature to work 

more closely with schools – to help you to use geological and 

geomorphological sites. So your comments could have a positive 

payback for you in time. If you can help, please respond, if possible 

before 23 December 2002 to ian@nationalstonecentre.org.uk 

Ian Thomas 

Director, National Stone Centre 

Porter Lane, Wirksworth, Derbyshire DE4 4LS 

Tel + Fax: 01629 824833 

GeoSciEd IV, Calgary, Canada, August 10-14, 2003 

Details of this international conference are shown on the separate 

advertisement (p.102) and much more information is available on the 

highly-informative and regularly-updated website, www.geoscied.org. The 

objective of the meeting is to support colleagues across the world who are 

involved in Earth science education from elementary to university/college 

levels and beyond, through a variety of presentations, workshops and field 

visits. There will be opportunities to share expertise and experiences, for 

personal development and for networking with other geoscience educators 

from around the world. We do hope that ESTA and other readers of TES 

will be able to attend the meeting and to contribute as well. The Calgary 

Organising Committee hopes to support a limited number of attendees 

from Developing Countries. Consult the web site for further details. 

CK & RDT 

101 www.esta-uk.org

GeoSci advert 

to be dropped in by printers 


102

THEMATIC TRAILS 

GEOLOGY AND THE BUILDINGS OF OXFORD Paul Jenkins 

A walk through the city of Oxford is likened to visiting an 

open-air museum. Attention is drawn to the variety of 

building materials both ancient and modern, used in the 

fabric of the city. Discussion of their suitability, durability, 

susceptibility to pollution and weathering, maintenance 

and periodic replacement is raised. 

44 pages, 22 illustrations, ISBN 0 948444 09 6 Thematic 

Trails (1988) £2.40 

GEOLOGY AT HARTLAND QUAY Chris Cornford & Alan Childs 

In a short cliff-foot walk along the beach at Hartland 

Quay, visitors are provided with a straightforward 

explanation of the local rocks and their history. 

Alternative pages provide a deeper commentary on 

aspects of the geology and in particular provides 

reference notes for examining the variety of structures 

exhibited in this dramatic location. 

40 pages, 47 illustrations, ISBN 0 948444 12 6 Thematic 

Trails (1989) £2.40 

THE CLIFFS OF HARTLAND QUAY Peter Keene 

Interpreting the shapes of coastal landforms is introduced 

as a method of understanding something of the 

environmental history of this dramatic coastal landscape. 

A short walk following the coastal path to the south of 

Hartland Quay puts this strategy into practice. 

40 pages, 24 illustrations, ISBN 0 948444 05 3 

Thematic Trails (1990) £2.40 

STRAWBERRY WATER TO MARSLAND MOUTH Peter Keene 

A short cliff-top walk between the small but spectacular 

coastal coombes of Welcome Mouth and Marsland 

explains what beaches, streams and valley sides can 

tell us of the history of this coastal landscape. 40 

pages, 24 illustrations, ISBN 0 948444 06 1 


VALLEY OF ROCKS; LYNTON Peter Keene & Brian Pearce 

The drama of the valley is explored both by offering 

explanation for the spectacular scenery and by recalling 

its theatrical setting as seen through the eyes of those 

who have visited the valley in the past. 

44 pages, 35 illustrations, ISBN 0 948444 25 8 


THE CLIFFS OF SAUNTON Peter Keene & Chris Cornford 

I n a short cliff-foot walk along the beach at Saunton, 

visitors are provided with an explanation for the local rocks 

that make up the cliff and the shore. Alternative pages 

provide a deeper commentary on aspects of the geology 

and a chance on the return walk to reconstruct the more 

recent history of this coast by a practical examination of the 

cliff face. 44 pages, 30 illustrations, ISBN 0 948444 24 X 

Thematic Trails (May 1993) £2.40 

INTERPRETING PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS Peter Keene 

A field interpretation guide for beginners. A simple 

teaching model using an adapted graphic log sheet. Of 

wide general educational application, but designed for 

use with the following trails: ‘Westward Ho! Coastal 

Landscape Trail’, ‘Valley of Rocks, Lynton’, ‘The Cliffs of 

Saunton’, ‘Strawberry Water to Marsland Mouth’, ‘Prawle 

Peninsula Landscape Trail’ and ‘Burrator Dartmoor 

Landform Trail’ 10 pages, 10 illustrations 

Thematic Trails (1993 edition) £2.40 

MENDIPS New Sites for Old; 

a student’s guide to the geology of the east Mendips. This 

guide gives a detailed description of 39 safe, accessible 

sites chosen for their educational potential. 

192 pages, 46 illustrations, 

ISBN 086139 319 8 (NCC 1985) £2.50 

MALVERN HILLS; a student’s guide to the geology of the 

Malverns. D. W. Bullard (1989) 

The booklet includes detailed description of 21 geological 

sites of interest in the area. 


ISBN 086139 548 4 (NCC) £2.25 

WENLOCK EDGE; geology teaching trail M. J. Harley (1988) 

Six sites suitable for educational fieldwork are described 

and suitable exercises outlined. 


ISBN 086139 403 8 (NCC) £1.50 

BURRATOR, DARTMOOR LANDFORM TRAIL Peter Keene & Mike 

Harley (1987) 

An interactive circular 6 mile walk exploring the evolution 

of tor and valley scenery on Dartmoor. 


ISBN 086139 385 6 (NCC) £1.50 

THE ICE AGE IN CWM IDWAL 

The Ice Age invested Cwm Idwal with a landscape whose 

combination of glaciological, geological and floristic 

elements is unsurpassed in mountain Britain. Cwm Idwal 

is readily accessible on good paths within a few minutes 

walk of the modern A5 route through Snowdonia. 


ISBN 0 9511175 4 8 

Addison Landscape Publications (1988) £3.00 

THE ICE AGE IN Y GLYDERAU AND NANT FFRANCON 

Ice in the last main glaciation in Wales carved the glacial 

highway of Nant Ffrancon through the heart of Snowdonia 

so boldly as to ensure its place amongst the best known 

natural landmarks in Britain. The phenomena is explained 

in a way that is attractive to both specialist and visitor 

alike. 30 pages, 20 illustrations, 

ISBN 0 9511175 3 X 

Addison Landscape Publications (1988) £3.00 

LONDON. ILLUSTRATED GEOLOGICAL WALKS. 

BOOK 1 (The City) 

Adds to the well-known Pevsner accounts of the buildings 

of the City of London by offering comment upon the rock 

types used in familiar City streets. Maps set out the route 

clearly. No previous knowledge of geology is assumed. 98 

pages, 98 photographs, 14 maps, 

ISBN 0 7073 0350 8 

Geologists’ Association (1984) £4.95 

LONDON. ILLUSTRATED GEOLOGICAL WALKS. 

BOOK 2 (The West End) 

A wide range of exotic rock types are found in the shop 

fronts of Piccadilly, Tottenham Court Road and the office 

blocks of Central London. Again no previous knowledge of 

geology is assumed. 

142 pages, 128 photos, 16 maps, 

ISBN 0 7073 0416 4 

Geologists’ Association (1985) £4.95 

Some earlier items are still available - please enquire 

ORDERS TO: Dave Williams, Corner Cottage, School Lane, Hartwell, Northampton, NN7 2HL E-mail: earthscience@macunlimited.net 

Official orders will be invoiced. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to ESTA. Order forms avaliable from the ESTA Website 

103 www.esta-uk.org

Key Stage 3 

Science of the Earth 11-14 Units have been devised to introduce Earth Science to pupils at Key 

Stage 3 level as part of their National Curriculum studies in Science and Geography. 

Each Unit occupies about one double period of teaching time and the Units are sold as 3-Unit 

packs. Units that are available now are:- 

GW: Groundwork - Introducing Earth Science 

GW1 - Found in the Ground 

GW2 - Be a Mineral Expert 

GW3 - Be a Rock Detective 

LP: Life from the Past - Introducing Fossils 

LP1 - Remains to be seen 

LP2 - A well-preserved specimen 

LP3 - A fate worse than death - fossilization! 

ME: Moulding Earth’s Surface - Weathering, Erosion 

and Transportation 

ME1 - Breaking up rocks 

ME2 - Rain, rain and rain again 

ME3 - Landshaping 

PP: Power from the past: coal (a full colour poster is 

available with this Unit for a p & p charge of 

£1.15 (inc. VAT) please indicate if you do not 

require this. 

PP1 - Coal swamp 

PP2 - Layers and seams 

PP3 - ‘Unspoiling’ the countryside 

HC: Hidden changes in the Earth: introduction to 

metamorphism 

HC1 - Overheated 

HC2 - Under Pressure 

HC3 - Under Heat and Pressure 

M: Magma - introducing igneous processes 

M1 - Lava in the lab. 

M2 - Lava landscapes 

M3 - Crystallising magma 

SR: Secondhand rocks: Introducing sedimentary 

processes 

SR1 - In the stream 

SR2 - Blowing hot and cold 

SR3 - Sediment to rock, rock to sediment 

BM: Bulk constructional minerals 

BM1 - What is our town made of 

BM2 - From source to site 

BM3 - Dig it - or not 

FW: Steps towards the rock face - introducing 

fieldwork 

FW1 - Thinking it through 

FW2 - Rocks from the big screen 

FW3 - Rock trail 

ES: Earth’s surface features 

ES1 - Patterns on the Earth 

ES2 - Is the Earth cracking up 

ES3 - Earth’s moving surface 

E: Power source: oil and energy 

E1 - Crisis in Kiama - which energy source now 

E2 - Black gold - oil from the depths 

E3 - Trap - oil and gas caught underground 

WG: Water overground and underground 

WG1 - Oasis on a desert island-the permeability 

problem 

WG2 - Out of sight, out of mind - waste disposal 

and ground water pollution 

WG3 - The dam that failed 

SPECIAL REDUCED PRICE 

£2.00 each (post free) 

for Key Stage 3 

A Teachers’ Guide to the 

‘Science of the Earth’ Approach - £1.00 

Key Stage 4 

SoE1: Changes to the atmosphere 

SoE2: Geological Changes - Earth’s Structure and Plate Tectonics 

SoE3: Geological Changes - Rock Formation and Deformation 

Investigating the Science of the Earth. Practical and investigative activities for Key Stage 4 and beyond. 

Price £2.95(Per Unit) 

ROUTEWAY – solving planning and technical problems of building a major road. A three-unit pack dealing with aspects 

of planning and engineering geology and associated environmental problems. Science and 

Geography courses at Key Stage 4. Also applicable to problem-solving modules in ‘A’ level or Vocational Science or 

Geology courses. 

Price: £4.95 

Please note - to claim ESTA member prices on the above items, you must enclose a copy of this 

advertisement or an ESTA order form, or simply mention your ESTA membership. 




104

GRAIN SIZE SCALE 

Laminated cards specially printed for ESTA 

(6 x 9 cm credit card size). They show grains 

from coarse sand down to silt. 

30p each 

20p each for 20 to 99 copies 

100 copies or more £15 

1000 copies £100 

WORKING WITH ROCKS PACK: 

Folder of Teacher notes and worksheets; Christina’s Story 

- tale of a marble headstone; 16 postcards of building 

stones - for town and graveyard trails. 

KS1/2/3. £7.00 

ROCK, MINERAL & FOSSIL KITS 

1. ESTA MINERAL SAMPLES 

Boxed set of ten minerals (haematite, magnetite, 

galena, pyrite, mica, gypsum, calcite, halite, quartz & 

feldspar), plus steel nail, copper coin, streak plate, 

dropper botter & magnifier. Essential for use with 

activities in PEST 9 - MINERALS (copy included). 

Suitable for KS2/KS3. £15.00 

2. DIVERSITY OF LIFE - FOSSIL REPLICAS SET 

Boxed fossil replicas, selected to illustrate the 

diversity of life over geological time (dinosaur tooth, 

trilobite, ammonite, shark tooth, icthyosaur tooth, 

fish, sea urchin, coral, reptile footprint, seed fern, sea 

lily & shrimp). 

Produced by GEOU (Open University Dept of Earth 

Sciences) & includes detailed notes and a copy of 

PEST 1 - FOSSILS. 

Suitable for KS2/KS3/KS4. £16.00 

3. ESTA ROCK KITS - ask for details 

POSTCARDS 

1. THE FLOOR OF THE OCEANS 

(14 x 9cm) miniature version of wall map. 

25p each, 10 or more 20p each. 

2. BUILDING STONES 

A set of 16 postcards depicting building or 

ornamental stones to be found in towns and cities 

throughout the country. 

All at natural size. £3.50. 

MAPS AND WALLCHARTS 

1. GEOTHERMAL MAP OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 

Published by BGS 

This coloured chart consists of a map (scale 

1:1,500,000) showing the geothermal potential of the 

UK along with annotations describing the major sites 

and projects. Size approx. 80 x 80 cm. 

£4.00 per folded map 

2. THE FLOOR OF THE OCEAN 

published by Marie Tharp 

Useful for 11-14 Unit - Earth’s surface features. 

Specially imported by ESTA from the USA. Printed on 

laminated paper, a superb map showing the relief 

featues of the ocean floor in graphic detail. 

£14.00 per rolled map 

3. LE PUYS VOLCANOES (AUVERGNE) 

Published by the French Bureau of Geology and Mines 

and the Auvergne Volcanoes Regional Park. Useful for 

11- 14 unit - Magma. 

A folded geological map of the region at 1: 25,000 

scale colourfully illustrates the volcanic sites - £9.00 

An accompanying sheet of 16 postcards has been cut 

into 4-A4 sized sheets for easier mailing - £5.00 

Set of maps and photos - £13.00 

4. GEOLOGICAL MAP OF THE WORLD 

Published by OU/ESSO with help from ESTA. 

Including oceanic crust colour coded by age, 

beautiful! 100cm x 150 cm. Price £8.00. 

5. TARR’S WORLD SEISMICITY MAP 

(return of an old favourite). This large map (120cm x 

90cm) shows a distribution of the world’s major 

earthquakes - shallow, medium and deep focus. 

Magnitudes and dates are given for many. £5.00 

6. U.K. GEOLOGY WALL MAP 

One of Ordnance Survey series for KS2/3, published 

with help from ESTA. 

£4.00 paper, £12.00 laminated. 

Some earlier items are still available - please enquire 



N.B. All items are posted free of charge. 

105 www.esta-uk.org

teaching - Earth Science Teachers' Association

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