The Holey Schist 'Review of 2009

Greetings Everyone!

And a slightly belated 'Happy New Year' to one and all!

So that was it - 2009! What a year that was!?! Some good, some bad and definitely, some downright UGLY! So here goes. Brace yourself - it's The Holey Schist Review of 2009 from my own personal vantage point!

January:- Okay, so 2009 got off to an optimistic start with Ruth being offered a job at Nottingham Trent Uni opening the way for our longed for relocation to the East Midlands! Then I received an unconditional offer of a place at Leicester Uni to study Geology! Exciting times ahead . . .

February:- Ruth and Amy move to Loughborough in readiness for their starts at NTU and Robert Bakewell Primary School respectively! Both settle in really well, but boy is it tough being separated from me and Anna back in Bolton. What sounded a straight forward idea in principle wasn't to prove as easy as all that!

March:- Meanwhile, my Open University course - S104 starts to get tougher, more so when weekend study time is swallowed up by trips to Loughborough in order to reunite the family!

April:- Quantum Physics! The subject that I feared most in S104 turns out to be my greatest triumph! It just showed that with grit and determination great things can be achieved! 90-odd percent? Extraordinary! The 'End of Course Assessment beckons!

May:- My 49th Birthday arrives and gifts of money were used to purchase several books of a geology persuasion, including Wayne Ranney's 'Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau' - definitely my 'Book of the Year - 2009'. Simply, a GEM!

June:- After Anna completes her GCSEs we both move down to Loughborough to be reunited with Ruth and Amy! Hoorah! Meanwhile, S104 Exploring Science is finished, done and dusted. Just a 2 month wait for the result! Left my job with Jacobs and endured possibly the most farcical and stressful job change of my life!

July:- Had offer on the house in Bolton! Hoorah! Buyer later pulls out! Boo! Meanwhile, now working for Balfour Beatty - kind of, err sort of jumped ship as it were!?!  Don't ask!!!

August:- Passed S104 with 'flying colours' (whatever that means!?!). Just 8 tantalising percent short of a distinction! Getting that close was something of a miracle in itself, given the mega-stressful year we've all had! Anna also got her GCSE results - umpteen passes as expected! We're VERY proud of her!!!

September:- Can't remember much happening in September other than too much work and stress, Work proving to be fun though - actually involved in building a road - 28 kilometres of it to be precise. Okay, it means turning green fields into tarmac and concrete, but it wil actually improve peoples lives in the long run and help stop lots from getting killed! Yes, really!

October:- Enrolled on S193 - Fossils and the History of life with the OU. Starts in December and is just a short 2 month, 10 pointer. Should be very interesting! Went to sister-in-law Caroline and Charlie's Wedding in Sileby, Leicestershire.  Fantastic day! Lovely couple! Got a tad drunk, myself!

Here's a few photos of the great day....

Caroline, Charles and  his parents.

My gorgeous wife Ruth, with me looking rather like Mr Fezziwigg from Scrooge. I mean me, not Ruth!

Amy Claire and  Anna-Ruth looking beautiful!

November:- NOT a good month! Ruth not well. Details are rather personal, but suffice to say, our 'work/life balance' is a bloody mess and needs addressing as soon as poss! The sooner that damned house is sold in Bolton the better!!! On a positive note, both the girls took to the stage, with Anna singing in a choir called 'Enchanted' while Amy made her first public perfomance with 'Stagecoach'. Step-dad (yours truly) blubbed through every performance! Bless!

December:- Christmas comes and with it snow and weather, the like of which I aint seen for decades! The fossil course is now underway and fascinating it all is!

Above: Gryphaea arcurata, also known as 'Devils toenail' a fossil from  the Triassic/Jurassic. (Source: Wikipedia - 2009).

Regular reference to the 'Geological Timescale' means that it is at long last sinking in! Had a great Christmas break well and truly recharged the batteries in readiness for the NEW YEAR!!!



So there you have it. A 'funny old year' and not one I'll look back on with much pleasure in truth. BUT, at least the family has relocated to Loughborough at last and there's so much to be positive about as we get stuck into 2010.

I fully intend to blog a bit more this year and I'll start with a review on S193 once I finish it off in a couple of weeks time. As there are no written assignments required on this one, I think it would be a good idea to summarise the whole thing in a series of blogs right here!


So Happy New Year and stay tuned for some palaeontology! Nice!

Cheers,
Alyn.

Car park fossil hunting

Hello again,

With my next Open University course on fossils due to start mid November, I have borrowed a couple of books on the subject from my local library, just to whet my appetite. One is the book of the recent BBC TV series 'Fossil Detectives' and the other, 'Fossils of the World' by Turek, Malek and Benes, which is a much more academic book than the other. They will both prove useful in different ways in the coming months I think.

One of the first passages that I read in 'Fossil Detectives' suggested that when you start out in the world of palaeontology, you never forget that first fossil find. Well, I have only recently begun to look into the subject and have never actually found one at all myself, so feel a bit miffed! Anyway, during my lunch break last week I happened to mention to a colleague of mine that I was going to have a stab at doing the OU course, 'S193 - Fossils and the History of Life'. He immediately opened his drawer and produced a handful of what looked to the untrained eye like shells that you might find on a beach. These were in fact fossils of a mollusc which abound in the car park where we work. Bizarre but true!

To explain further, I work on the construction site of a major road improvement scheme in the East Midlands where the company has constructed a site office for the duration of the scheme. All around the car park perimeter, the borders have been dressed with what I simply assumed to be simple, 'bog standard' gravel. Thanks to my eagle-eyed colleague however, I now see it for what it is - a geologists treasure trove of goodies! In amongst a variety of miscellaneous pebbles and chunks of granite are loads of these:-

A brief thumbing through 'Fossils of the World' easily identified these albeit slightly ropey specimens. They are in fact a fossil called Gryphaea arcuata, a mollusc from the Jurassic, i.e. 180 - 135 Ma. According to the natural history museum web site, this is a fairly common fossil but is particularly common to Suffolk, Gloucestershire and the Scunthorpe area, where the Lower Jurassic rocks were mined for their iron ore. Quite why so many of these fossils are lying in amongst other random pebbles and chunks of granite I've no idea. Maybe the dressing supplied to the company to decorate the borders is just a mix of waste rocks of about 2 -3 cm just thrown together.

Anyway, this little chap consists of two pieces, being what I believe is called a 'bi-valve' - a curved left valve and a flat, lid-like right valve. I have only managed to find one example of the latter, seen at front left of the photo. The curved part of this little creature sat in the soft sediment with the lid above the surface. They are commonly called 'Devils Toenails' apparently, presumably because of their resemblance (with a bit of imagination) to toenails? Well, sort of . . .

It seems amazing to me that even in these fairly poor quality specimens, there are distinct growth bands to be seen, which is remarkable for something up to 180 million years old and have most recently been churned up in sacks! But this is what is amazing. Looking at something that stems from something that lived millions of years ago, is pretty mind blowing. Well, mind blowing to me at least. I'm not sure the rest of my family quite understand the fascination - yet!

So, there you go - my first fossil find! A bit of a cheat really, as they were rather handed to me on a plate! What I need next , is a genuine 'first', out in the field extracting a nice trilobite or ammonite from its rocky matrix. Proper palaeontology?

All in good time eh?

Before I go, I had a message posted up (see here) in response to my June post on the 'Geology of Charnwood'. The postee highlighted an innocent error on my part which I've corrected and highlighted my lack of acknowledgement of the source of my information. While I recognise that paraphrasing other peoples work and passing it off as ones own constitutes plagiarism in academic work, perhaps one should bear in mind what 'Holey Schist' actually is - a humble blog! A serious piece of academic work it ain't! I have and always will acknowledge my sources of text and photos, when I deem it sensible, but please remember folks, these are just the casual ramblings of a wannabee geologist - no more, no less!

Cheers for now!

Alyn.