Thinking back through my life, three experiences of ‘Geology in Action’ demonstrated that Geology was not the lifeless, boring, dead-end, uninteresting subject of dusty museums and incomprehensible text books. To me, it became as captivating as Biology, and just as lively.

The first of these three tales has a palaeontological flavour as it relates to fossils, or rather, a fossil. One of the places I was taken to as a child, on family holidays, was Croyde Bay, east of Barnstaple on the North Devon coast. Croyde was a sandy beach with rock exposures, popular as a holiday destination. I can remember seeing ‘patterns’ in the rocks, especially at the east end of the bay. I didn’t know it then, but the patterns were fossil brachiopods, crinoids, gastropods, corals and bryozoans. Like all potential good palaeontologists, I wanted to take some of these ‘patterns’ home, but banging pieces of rock together was not the way to get at them. As a parent myself, I have now returned to Croyde Bay, but not before reading a book entitled ‘The Geology of Devon’. From that book, I learnt that the rocks in Croyde Bay are very fossiliferous and that the fossils are of Devonian age. The fossils were ‘the patterns’ I had seen as a child, and I had to find them again.

Page 121 of the handbook ‘British Palaeozoic Fossils’, produced by the Natural History Museum, bears an illustration of a quantity of geologically distorted brachiopods named Rynchonella laticosta that can be found in a distinct band in the rocks at the east end of the bay. They became my target. On a collecting trip, I made my way along a cliff top footpath towards Baggy Point at the eastern end of the bay and descended towards the shoreline at a point known as Laticosta’s Cove. It was near there that the brachiopod band could be found. After collecting one or two individual brachiopods of a different species, a piece of slate type rock about 8ins long and 3ins wide was spotted on the edge of which a distinct pattern could be made out. It was wedged between 2 vertical beds of rock and hanging precariously over a deep rock pool, but it was salvaged. From a distance, the pattern took the form of a trilobite, but closer examination revealed it to be something else, though obviously a fossil. It went home. About 30 feet further on from that point, the brachiopod band was found and the target of the trip was achieved.

After returning home, much work was done and many books consulted in an effort to identify my ‘trilobite that wasn’t’. No success was met. By that time, I had become a member of E.R.M.S. and I took the specimen along to some meetings and showed it to other members, including I believe, Gerald Lucy, Stuart Adams and Graham Ward. Some of you reading this may well remember. The fossil was about 3-4ins long, roughly oval in shape, rounded at each end, was relatively smooth at one end and divided into segments at the other. Graham came relatively close to identifying it, describing it as a cephalopod akin to Orthoceras but not being able to pin it down specifically. Also at that time, I had access to personnel and collections at the Natural History Museum in London. It was taken to the museum and a member of staff took it away. He returned some time later looking a bit excited. A barrage of questions was then fired to verify the circumstances of finding, and then the bombshell came. It was a cephalopod, but of the genus Brevicoceras, if my memory serves me correctly, which had only ever been found in the North Eastern United States. My find was the first ever record of that genus from the East side of the Atlantic Ocean. Back in Devonian times, the coastal areas of North Devon and Cornwall were closely associated with the oceans around what is now Northeast America. Obviously, the contained animal populations were the same and, therefore the resultant fossil populations are also the same, even though the areas in which they are found may now be thousands of miles apart. What I had found admirably supported the theory of continental drift, Or in other words ………. Geology in Action.

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The second tale relates to the Isle of Wight and is a clear example of the talk that was given to the society in July 2002 on ‘Coastal Landforms’. My grandparents and, for a while, my parents, used to live in Freshwater, a coastal village at the western end of the Island. The southern aspect of Freshwater was decorated by Freshwater Bay. In Freshwater Bay, just off the shoreline, was a famous landmark …………………… a chalk arch.

The story of the arch begins millions of years ago. The arch started life as a chalk headland, protruding into the sea. Erosive processes created a cave which eventually extended right through the headland to form an arch. Erosion also worked at the ‘neck’ of the headland, eventually cutting the ‘head’ off from the mainland, so forming an ‘island arch’, which is how I remember the feature. Around 1990, a strong overnight autumn storm broke away the pillars of the arch, causing the heavy chalk ‘bridge’ to collapse into the sea, so forming a ‘platform’. Erosion in action. The loss of this landmark, which featured on many postcards and holiday souvenirs, was felt by the whole community and made the national press headlines. A famous landmark was gone. Another example of ………… Geology in Action.

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The final story relates to a family holiday on Tenerife, which is one of the Canary Islands, a volcanic island chain on the east of the Atlantic Ocean. As the airliner prepared to land at Tenerife, it flew around Mount Tiede, an old volcano. Again, like every good geologist , I had to get there. A trip up Mount Teide was organised and feelings can be imagined as we ‘drove above the clouds’. A famous rock formation that is featured on one of the countries banknotes was viewed and a collection of specimens made from the many lava fields that give a lunar appearance to the landscape. However, something particular caught my eye. At the summit of the volcano, if conditions are right, steam fumaroles could be seen blowing out of the ground. Somewhere below, forces of nature were working to produce enough energy to boil water. This was producing the steam. Evidence of the volcanic origins of the island. There are predictions the Tenerife will be devastated by future volcanic activity. When? No-one knows. (Note 1)Another example of …………… ‘Geology in Action’.

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Note 1. See also May 2001 lecture notes; Global Natural Catastrophes by Professor Bill McGuire, especially the section on Giant Tsunami. (RC)