Fieldwork and the Great British Summer

It’s raining again. This is this morning’s rain radar image from raintoday.co.uk

You are not going to get the Great British public believing in global warming until we start getting those Mediterranean summers that we were promised.

This week I went into the field and got absolutely soaked, despite having some expensive waterproof clothing. Torrential rain plus high humidity and a strenuous terrain including a fast flowing stream combined rainwater, riverwater and sweat to make one sodden geologist.

This is typical British geological fieldwork. In areas of soft mudrocks there is very little rock exposure and what little there is tends to be in stream sections where the river maintains a fresh exposure. Fieldwork therefore involves struggling up and down valleys, crossing and recrossing rivers and usually getting wet from above, below and inside the waterproofs. The exposure, when one finds some is typically uninspiring black mudstone with the occasional sandstone.

You can now see why we send our students overseas to map.

Having said all that, it was a grand day out. It made a great change from working in the office. I really enjoyed been outside again. There was some minor folding …

and the occasional fossil …

Note: I’m being deliberately vague about the location of this Staffordshire valley as it is in part of a nature reserve not open to the public. It was visited with the the reserve warden.