Continuing the early geological history of the british isles

This course will be taught by means of examination of actual specimens with their interpretation providing guidance to palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. Colour slides, photographs, maps and handouts will form an important part of the illustrative material which students will study. Students will be encouraged to bring to class any appropriate geological materials they may have collected.

Week 1- Introduction to the Upper Palaeozoic Era. Britain crosses the Equator. Upper Palaeozoic life and environments.

Weeks 2 & 3 – The Devonian System in Britain – The areas of outcrop, the rocks and fossils and the recognition of dissimilar environments in different areas. Marine and terrestrial (Old Red Sandstone) facies.

Weeks 4 – 7 – The Carboniferous System in Britain – The areas of outcrop, the rocks and fossils and recognition of dissimilar environments in different places. The Lower Carboniferous; Carboniferous Limestone, volcanoes and lavas, and other rock types. The Upper Carboniferous: Millstone Grit; deltaic environments of the Namurian. Westphalian Coal Measure forests and swamps. Britain at the Equator.

Weeks 8 & 9 – The Hercynian (Armorican, Variscan) Orogeny in Britain – The Rheic Ocean closes as Gondwanaland collides with Laurasia to produce complicated folds in SW England, and folds in S. Wales and the Mendips. Faults, thrusts, igneous intrusions, a granite batholiths and important mineralization all result from this collision. The supercontinent of Pangaea is born.

Weeks 10 & 11 – The Permian System in Britain – The areas of outcrop, the rocks and fossils and recognition of dissimilar environments in different places. The formation of the New Red Sandstone in N. Hemisphere deserts and vast evaporate deposits in the supersaline conditions of the Zechstein Sea.

Weeks 12 & 13 – Introducing the Mesozoic Era. Triassic deserts and salt pans, rifting, the break-up of Pangaea, the Rhaetian transgression.

Weeks 14 – 17 – The Jurassic System in Britain.

Week 14 – Jurassic outcrops and areas of deposition in Britain. Life and correlation. Axes and basins.

Week 15 – Lower Jurassic – clay, limestone and ammonites and saurians; facies variation; correlation; axes and basins; environmental reconstruction.

Week 16 – Middle Jurassic – Oolites, limestones and building stones, N deltas and Scottish Lagoons.

Week 17 – Upper Jurassic – More clays and limestones, marine regression and fossil forest.

Weeks 18 – 21 The Cretaceous System in Britain.

Week 18 – Outline of the Cretaceous System and life in Britain. The Wealden deltas and lakes.

Week 19 – The Aptian transgression.

Week 20 – The Albian transgression.

Week 21 – The Cenomanian and further transgressions; the Chalk; end of the Cretaceous extinctions – why did they really occur?

Entry requirement:

None

What you will need for your first session:

Pen, pencil & paper to make notes on.

Overall course aims and objectives:

For students to:

1. handle and study actual geological specimens – rocks, fossils and minerals;
2. study geological maps and photographs;
3. appreciate that what is now Britain has been built up of various fragments over geological time;
4. understand that Britain has moved northwards throughout geological time;
5. appreciate the immensity of geological time;
6. understand that Britain's geology shows the different climatic belts through which it has passed.

On this course you will develop the following skills:

1. Observation, recording and interpretation.
2. Recognition of different fossils which lived at different times during the Upper Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Eras.
3. Be able to correlate rocks from the fossils they contain
4. Be able to interpret the environment of formation of a rock from the characteristics of the rocks and the fossils which it contains.
5. Be able to mark, on an outline map of the British Isles, the outcrops of each of the following Systems – Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous.
6. Be able to quote the major divisions of the Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Systems as they occur in Britain, and the types of rocks they contain in different areas.
7. Be able to describe the geological histories of the Upper Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Periods in Britain
8. Be able to recognise and describe the main effects of the Hercynian (Armorican, Variscan) Orogeny in the British Isles.

Assessment:

(homework, on line tests, and/or exams)