Box Rock Circus - official opening

BOX ROCK CIRCUS OFFICIALLY OPENED BY PROFESSOR IAIN STEWART

Photo credits Charles Hiscock

Click on photo to see larger version

On a rather damp Tuesday May 14^th 2013 a large number of people from the village of Box, near Corsham, Wiltshire, pupils from the local schools, members of the Bath Geological Society, and many other interested folk gathered at the Selwyn Hall recreation field for the official opening of the Box Rock Circus. The Circus, the brainchild of local geologist and Earth Science Educator Elizabeth Devon, which had been unofficially unveiled on its completion on the 9^th August 2012, has since received an interpretation board entitled ‘Box Rock Circus - A magical circle of rocks, fossils and minerals’ and the fossil moulds inserted into a different position, making them more accessible to the smallest child.

            Amongst a colourful array of umbrellas, Elizabeth Devon and the Chairman of the Parish Council welcomed everyone to the event after which Professor Iain Stewart, Professor of Geoscience Communications at the University of Plymouth and well known television presenter officially opened the Box Rock Circus. He enthusiastically praised all those who had the foresight to plan and carry out the project and the referred to the ages and conditions of formation of the rock monoliths. He also suggested that other towns and villages should follow the example of Box. BBC Wiltshire Sound was present to record the event, interviewing the enthusiastic pupils of Box Primary School. Following the opening of the Circus by Professor Stewart, a buffet lunch had been prepared for invited guests in the Box Pavilion.

A full description of the rocks and specimens can be found in the Avon RIGS blog for 2012 - http://avonrigsoutcrop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/box-rock-circus.html when the Circus was unveiled following its completion. For more information go the website - www.boxrockcircus.org.uk

Charles Hiscock

The Geology Collection University of Bristol goes OnLine

The School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol holds a collection of over 100,000 mineralogical, paleaontological and petrological specimens which were donated to the School over the past 100 years. Some iconic specimens are an original map by William Smith, a near complete and mounted skeleton of a sabre-toothed cat, fossilised bones of early dinosaurs and an array of minerals from now inaccessible mines in the UK. The collection also contains over 1500 type fossils and published specimens, a unique and valuable resource to researchers worldwide.

Rhodochrosite from Argentina (BRSUG B2502)

 

Over the past decade efforts have been made to record and document the collection to unlock its scientific and educational potential. The current digitisation project OnLine aims to improve remote access to the wealth of geological specimens in the collection. The project includes the design of a brand new website as well as the development of an extensive photo archive and a searchable online database.

A taster of the future website of the Geology Collection University of Bristol, going live in autumn 2012.



Claudia Hildebrandt, Collections Manager: "With the valuable help of students and volunteers we have now digitise over 60,000 specimen records for online publication. We collected details from registers, card catalogues, collectors’ field notebooks and the specimens themselves and merged all information into a comprehensive database. Additional funding from JISC (as part of the BRICOLAGE project) allowed us to employ a student who reorganised taxonomic, stratigraphic and geographic entries and ensured consistency across the whole database.”

“We have also started to add recently taken photographs of specimens to the database. This will offer users a look behind the scenes of our stores.”

Volunteer Charlie Navarro editing photographs of Cretaceous chalk fossils.

Once the website goes live in autumn 2012 the OnLine project will enter its second phase.

Claudia: “We aim to create links between specimens and relevant scientific publications and publish a tool that visualises the geographic distribution of all our UK specimens. We will also add a feedback function to the catalogue which will allow amateurs and specialists to comment on specimens and send enquiries.”

"And this is just the beginning. Parts of the collection need to be revisited to update taxonomic and stratigraphic information. We also plan to highlight the historic value of our collection. Many honorable and well know geologists donated their samples to the Geology Collection, from local fossil collectors to internationally known palaeontologist. We would like to dig deeper and reveal the people behind our collection and the extraordinary journeys some of our specimens have been on.”

If you would like to find out more about the Geology Collection follow us on Facebook.

Claudia Hildebrandt

Inspiring the next generation

Kate Hibbert, University of Bristol

Guest blogger Kate Hibbert is a PhD student in Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. She is also a STEM ambassador and is interested in how academics can inspire the next generation of scientists.

 

Postgraduate students at the University of Bristol are heavily involved with outreach teaching activities, visiting Bristol schools to talk about various topics in Earth Sciences. Volunteers are co-ordinated by the STEM ambassador scheme. The aim of the scheme is to get more young people involved with STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) and it effectively acts as a matchmaker between schools and willing expert volunteers. The network includes professionals as well as university students. STEM ambassadors go in to schools and might, for example, run a workshop, provide mentoring for a small group, talk to an after school club or take part in a careers fair.

Bristol students have been involved in several projects, including the Bristol Dinosaur Project. Thousands of school children of all ages have had a visit from the Dinosaur Project team, giving them the opportunity to learn about this dinosaur unique to the Bristol region in an interactive workshop. The session also involves a life-sized jigsaw of the Bristol dinosaur and handling real fossil specimens, an activity that never fails to spark the imagination.

Primary school children getting some hands-on experience of life as a palaeontologist. Photo credit: Bristol Dinosaur Project

But it’s not just dinosaurs that can inspire children – workshops run by Bristol Earth Sciences PhD students have covered a wide range of topics, from the rock cycle to volcanoes to meteorites. A workshop might involve handling rock specimens, squashing plasticine to learn how a metamorphic rock is made, or using the classroom to reconstruct the scale of the solar system.

Teaching the rock cycle using crayons. Photo credit: http://mesmrswhitesclass.blogspot.co.uk

The benefits of these school visits are not limited to imparting knowledge about the topic covered, but also come from allowing children to meet ‘real-life scientists’, helping to break down some of the stuffy scientific stereotypes and encourage more people into science subjects and science careers. The rewards for volunteers are great, not least giving confidence in public speaking. If you can successfully hold the attention of a classroom of 10 year-olds, then giving a professional presentation seems significantly less daunting! 

Three lots of fossil finds for local school children. Photo credit: Bristol Dinosaur Project

Kate Hibbert

Links:

If you’re interested in the STEM ambassador scheme or want to arrange for an ambassador to visit your school: http://www.stemnet.org.uk/content/stem-ambassadors

A previous blog post about the Bristol Dinosaur: http://avonrigsoutcrop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/bristol-dinosaur-project.html

The William Smith Stone Column

The William Smith Stone Column near Wellow

Photo credit Andrew Mathieson

In 2006 the transport charity Sustrans commissioned the sculptor Jerry Ortmans to design and construct an art installation to celebrate the work of William Smith, the “Father of English Geology”. This Stone Column was to be in natural stone and to be installed near the village of Wellow, a few miles south of Bath, and along Route 24 of the National Cycle Network. The section of the Route from Bath to Frome has been called the Colliers Way and it provides new access to both the disused Somerset and Dorset railway line and the original route of the southern branch of the Somersetshire Coal Canal, which Smith worked on between 1793 and 1799.

        The siting was intended to link Smith's understanding of the local geology with his work on the survey and construction of the canal, which gave him so much evidence for his ground breaking understanding of stratigraphy and the use of fossils to identify beds of rock. In fact, although most of this southern branch of the canal was excavated, the company ran out of funds to build a flight of locks and it was never connected to the rest of the canal by water. Instead coal was carried along the original towpath on a horse-drawn railway and transferred to boats on the main canal near Midford.

        The design of the sculpture was based on Smith's account of the sequence of local rocks which he drew up in his famous Table of Strata in 1799, shortly after his dismissal from the Coal Canal Company. Seven large blocks of local rock were chosen and these were arranged into a vertical structure in their order of succession. Ortmans worked with local geologist Simon Carpenter to select suitable stone from a number of working quarries in the West of England, and they range from Carboniferous Pennant Sandstone up to Cretaceous Chalk.

        Sustrans also commissioned two information panels to be installed along the Colliers Way to help visitors better understand Smith's work in terms of the local geology and his work on the construction of the Coal Canal. One was placed beside the Stone Column and it concentrates on the local geology and Smith's work and the history of the Canal. It features a little-seen engraving of Smith in 1807, when he was aged 38, and emphasizes that the canal was one of the most prosperous in the south of England. Unfortunately there is little evidence of the canal nearby since its route was mostly destroyed by the construction of the railway.

        The second information panel is just south of the Midford railway viaduct, and this mainly deals with the various forms of transport which once existed nearby. There is a photograph of a train on both the Somerset and Dorset and the Limpley Stoke – Camerton lines in 1958, when the latter railway was being scrapped. The illustration for the Coal Canal is a photograph of Midford Weigh House which was taken in about 1890. An extract from a geological map of Smith's is also included. This was published in 1820, several years after his famous geological map of England and Wales, and Smith included all the existing canals and railways of the time.

        Although these installations are a distance from the sites most people associate with William Smith (Tucking Mill, Rugborne House, etc.), they add new ways of commemorating his pioneering contribution to geology and in addition are set in an area of attractive Inferior Oolite and Fullers Earth countryside which Smith would have known well.

Andrew Mathieson

Box Rock Circus

Box Rock Circus

http://www.boxrockcircus.org.uk

FIG 1: The Box Rock Circus. The standing stones, from left to right around the perimeter, are Permo-Triassic New Red Sandstone, Carboniferous Limestone, the Jurassic Box Bath Stone table, Devonian Old Red Sandstone and Silurian andesite. Photo credit Charles Hiscock

A larger version of this and all the other photos can be seen here

There is the old saying that ‘The sun shines on the righteous’ and this was particularly true on Thursday 9^th August 2012 when the sun blazed down for one of the few days of Summer 2012 at the village of Box, near Corsham, Wiltshire. At 11am on that very warm morning, the good and great (and righteous!) of Box gathered at the village recreation ground for the unofficial unveiling of the ‘Box Rock Circus’, carried out by the Chairman of the Box Parish Council, Pauline Lyons, to mark completion of the construction with many villagers and children and representatives of the press in attendance.

‘Box Rock Circus’, the brainchild of well-known local geologist and Earth Science Educator, Elizabeth Devon, is a circular arrangement of large stone blocks and rock sculptures designed to tell the history of the rocks that we can see in our environment, enabling people to touch, examine, climb on and over or just admire the originality of thought that has produced this superb feature.

FIG 2: Elizabeth Devon, who had the original idea and designed the Box Rock Circus, stands beside the Bath Stone obelisk. Photo credit: Charles Hiscock 

The circular array contains 5 large blocks of rock donated from quarries in differing geological areas. The Carboniferous Limestone block, packed with fossil corals, came from Wickwar Quarry while the volcanic Silurian andesite originates from Moon’s Hill Quarry at Stoke St Michael on Mendip. Two large blocks of red sandstone represent the Devonian Old Red Sandstone, from Black Mountain Quarries of Herefordshire, and the Permo-Triassic New Red Sandstone from Capton Quarry near Williton, Somerset. Local rocks are used for the ‘table,’ cut from the Jurassic Hartham Stone, and the beautifully carved obelisk (fig. 2) from Jurassic Box Ground Bath Stone Quarry, the latter illustrating the importance of this fine rock in the history of Box. The quarry has supplied fine Bath Stone for 1000 years but was closed for 60 years until it was recently reopened. Inset in the top of the ‘table’ rock are moulds of a range of fossils (fig. 3) – Silurian trilobites, Jurassic ammonites, a Carboniferous dragonfly, the first Cretaceous bird Archaeopteryx, starfish, a fossil worm trail and a fish - that children (of all ages!) can reproduce in the same way as brass rubbings. Also on the table is the badge of the Geologists’ Association which sponsored the fossil rubbings through the Curry Fund. 

FIG 3: Inset in the top of the 'table' rock. Moulds of a range of fossils including Silurian trilobites, Jurassic ammonites, a Carboniferous dragonfly, the first Cretaceous bird Archaeopteryx, starfish, a fossil worm trail and a fish. Photo credit: Charles Hiscock 

The sculpted blocks are built up from specimens of different rocks and are intended to be climbed over by children as well as examined for their content of rock types. One is composed of sedimentary rocks and fossils sourced locally and from further afield, topped by a polished block of Purbeck Marble sitting on a specimen of fossil ripples (fig. 4).

FIG 4: The sedimentary rocks and fossils sculpture, topped by a block of Purbeck Marble. Photo credit: Charles Hiscock

The crystalline block contains specimens of igneous and metamorphic rocks, many as polished slabs as used for kitchen worktops and, completing the top, a sculpture of a tiny house built from slates, surrounded by pieces of lavas and a volcanic bomb (fig. 5).

FIG 5: The crystalline rock sculpture, including  slates, pieces of lavas and a volcanic bomb . Photo credit: Charles Hiscock

The rocks, obelisk and sculptured blocks are set in concrete, pinned with steel rods to the base and surrounded by a greenish rubbery matrix made from recycled tyres providing a soft play area for children. Made from the same material are two sets of dinosaur footprints, coloured black which cross the circular area (fig. 6). The outside perimeter is made from granite setts which will, in due course, be painted with red marks to show the geological timeline and how life only evolved very recently. In fig 01, the sculpted blocks stand either side of the obelisk, the sedimentary rocks and fossils on the left while the crystalline rocks stand on the right. The standing stones, from left to right around the perimeter, are Permo-Triassic New Red Sandstone, Carboniferous Limestone, the Jurassic Box Bath Stone table, Devonian Old Red Sandstone and Silurian andesite.

FIG 6: Dinosaur footprints across the Circus. Photo credit: Charles Hiscock

The project has received the backing of Box Parish Council and local organisations and been funded by a Landfill Communities Fund grant from the Hills Group Ltd. Construction of the Circus was carried out by a team of skilled craftsmen managed by stonemason Marcus Mitchell. The celebration on that sunny Thursday morning marked the completion of the construction work but there is more to be done such as the red ‘timeline’ to be painted, with one year representing the age of the earth and an interpretation board is to be set up. 

The website - http://www.boxrockcircus.org.uk is to be updated to give information about the rocks and fossils and fact sheets and a childrens’ quiz will be downloadable and also available in the village. 

Elizabeth Devon will be very happy to explain the Rock Circus and can be contacted on the Earth Learning website elizabeth@earthlearningidea.com. The official opening is to be held later in the year on a date yet to be agreed.

Charles Hiscock

The Bristol Dinosaur Project

Did you know, Bristol has its very own dinosaur? Thecodontosaurs antiquus (the ancient socket toothed lizard) was discovered in 1834 by Samuel Stutchbury in a quarry on Durdham Downs (now known as Quarry Steps, a SSSI that is a tiny sliver of the original quarry) and became the 5^th dinosaur ever described; it has not since been found anywhere else in the world. Thecodontosaurs antiquus dates from over 200 million years ago back when Bristol was an archipeligo of islands and shallow, tropical seas. In 2011, the Bristol Dinosaur celebrated 175 years of holding its species name.

  Tooth of the Bristol dinosaur from the Tytherington fissure.  Found by one of the volunteers.

Some the specimens from quarry were housed in the Bristol Geological Museum. In November 1940, the Blitz struck Bristol hard.  Huge areas were bombed out including the strip of buildings at the top of Park Street.  Many of the collections were lost, either directly to the bombing or the clean-up crews after; fortunately some of the bones were housed in a cave in the Avon Gorge alongside some precious paintings, safely away from the threat of bombers. About half of the original Thecodontosaurus specimens were rescued and are housed in the current Bristol Museum & Art Gallery

In the 1970s more bones from the dinosaur were found at a quarry in Tytherington, South Gloucestershire when over 4 tonnes of material was collected. Remmert Schouten at the University of Bristol works a preparator thanks to funding received from the Leverhulme trust.  Since his appointment the material has been worked on for scientific purposes and teaching students about preparation techniques.  In 2009, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £294,000 for 3 years of funding to improve the lab facilities, hire another preparator, and pay for a learning officer to increase public knowledge of this unique specimen.  The project has been so successful since receiving the funding that over 11,000 school children have had workshops delivered by the learning officer. Many postgraduate students from the School of Earth Sciences have also been trained to deliver the workshops in schools and become STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Ambassadors.  It in fact the outreach work has lead to the School of Earth Sciences winning the Best STEM University Department of 2011 in the West.

Some of the primary aged students with various activities from the Bristol Dinosaur Project.  The outreach activities include are handling specimens, a life sized jigsaw puzzle with replica bones and a talk.

If you are interested in getting involved or want to know more please check us out at Bristol Dinosaur Project website (www.bristoldinosaurproject.co.uk).  We are running a competition for artists to show us what they think Thecodontosaurus looked like when it was alive.  Otherwise look out for us at various events around Bristol, be it schools, museums, Festival of Nature, dinosaur days at the Arnos Vale etc. where we will be giving workshops.

Andrew Cuff, Bristol Dinosaur Project