2006 U.K. Cassa Fund Trip

In May, professors Jeff Niemitz and Beth O'Shea took twelve students to explore the geology of the U.K. using the departments Cassa Fund. The Cassa Fund was donated by Mary Rose Cassa ('76) and is used to supplement Geology Field experiences to make them affordable to the widest range of Dickinson students possible. Other recent Cassa Fund trips include trips to Hawaii and Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks.

 

• Lyme Regis And the Jurassic Coast

 

Lulworth Crumple in Portland Limestone
Jurassic rise and fall of sea level created depositional environments of limestone and black shale in shallow seas as Pangaea rifted -post-depositional Miocene folding and faulting caused by the collision between Africa and Southern Europe

 

	-Lyme Regis is famous for its fossils, especially ammonites which lived in a shallow, warm sea -The fossil collector, Mary Anning, famous for discovering the first plesiosaur, collected and studied fossils along the Dorset Coast during the nineteenth century -The coast contains fossilized bivalves and gastropods

 

 

• Bath, England

	Local rainfall in the Mendip Hills recharges the springs and a high geothermal gradient related to granite intrusions provides the heat source for the ancient baths.

 

• The Lake District

	Mt. Helvellyn, The highest point in England
U-shaped Valley	England's Largest Erratic: Bowder Stone
Ophiolites

 

 

• Isle of Arran, Scotland

Siccar's Point "The Holy Grail of Geology," Siccar's Point is where James Hutton, "The father of geology," in 1788 deduced that the earth was a dynamic system in which rocks could be deformed over long periods of time.

 

Drumadoom Point
	Igneous intrusions with columnar basalt feeder dykes.

 

Kings Cave	These caves were carved out by the sea (sea-level was lower). After carving, the caves moved above sea level in response to isostatic rebound due to retreating/melting glaciers.

 

Salisbury Crags
	Hutton's Section on Salisbury Crag formed from magma that intruded into older layers of sedimentary rocks.

 

To see more examples of Dickinson Geology students in the field, Click Here to check out our Field Work page!