Thanks, Roads, for the description of Kimmeridge B...

2008-04-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Roads, for the description of Kimmeridge Bay, the geology and geologic history - and the way you've written about it, it's just like being there!

Ninety 11-year olds sounds like a handful, and it sounds like you have an ideal place to go for such a field trip. Good luck, and have fun.

I missed Earth Day, but next month I'll be taking ...

2008-04-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

I missed Earth Day, but next month I'll be taking ninety 11-year olds to Kimmeridge Bay in Dorset on England's Jurassic Coast.

It's a wonderful place to introduce geology to children - lapping waves of the English Channel, leading out into the Atlantic just 200 million years young, and ammonites galore for the kids to find beneath their feet on the wave-cut platform.

The Kimmeridgian at its type locality dates back to the restricted circulation phase of the Atlantic and outcrops here as a rhythmic succession of organic-rich mudstones, marls and limestones, together making up the Kimmeridge Clay, the prolific world-class source rock for the North Sea as well as Wytch Farm, Western Europe's largest onshore oilfield (500 mm bbl) which is hidden away in the trees just a couple of miles away.

If you break a piece of shale you can really smell the petroleum, and if you've a kitchen blowtorch handy, not only could you make a crême brulée, you can also get the rock to ignite.

A nodding donkey from the (much smaller) 2 mm bbl Kimmeridge field is still active on the clifftop, clearly in sight from on the beach.

Truly, it's geology in action.

Comments on Looking For Detachment: Here Comes the Sun

Thanks, Roads, for the description of Kimmeridge B...

I missed Earth Day, but next month I'll be taking ...