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| Snow on the awesome cliffs at Hunstanton on the undergrad field trip |
This blog (and my PhD) is not just about birds.
Assisting on fieldtrips is always a welcome
change from being desk or lab-bound –and not badly paid either! Yesterday I
went to Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast to assist on an undergrad fieldtrip for
the 'Earths Chemical Processes' module. I enjoy delving back in to my old undergrad territory of Earth
Sciences.
The coast always looks beautiful with the
huge expanse of sweeping sand and the distant wind turbines out over the flat
sea –if bitterly cold! Both years I have assisted on this fieldtrip snow has been falling.
The cliffs at Hunstanton are very striking.
They tell a tale of slowly rising sea level from the dark brown estuarine
conglomerate at the base, through the warm brown carstone sand deposited just offshore; and continuing up to
the red and white chalks laid down over millions of years far from land in a
warm, deep sea. As my group chipped samples from the cliffs with geological
hammers ready for lab analysis next week, we encountered fossils: belemnites
(extinct squid), echinoids (sea urchins) and fossil worm burrows. Apparently you can find sharks teeth here too, although I
never have despite many visits collecting samples for various workshops. If
anyone has found sharks teeth here let me know, my optimism for finding a
sharks tooth in the Hunstanton geology needs topping up!
