This year has again been one of variety. Unfortunately the beginning of the year saw a very unusual occurrence, literally at the last minute we were let down by our speaker so the year began with a social!! Apart from this slight hiccough, the rest of the year ran smoothly. We have had some 26 events, including all the conservation work, but not including manning the stand at Reading for the six weeks of S103 Summer School. Generally we have had better turn outs for the events this year.

There were ten talks, ranging from the "Geology of Bottled water " (John Mather) to "Minerals" (Mike Henty) and "Messengers from Mars" (Monica Grady). Again we are indebted to the speakers who give up their time for us, notwithstanding if there are low attendances.

Once again we would like to thank Iain and his faithful band of helpers for the Conservation work which has been done over four visits this year. Grants have now been procured to make this a more permanent feature with sign boards.

There have also been five single day events (including Brian Harvey's excellent Geowalks, the Clandon-Albury traverse with Iain Fletcher and a visit to the Dinosaur footprints of Fairlight Cove with David Scarboro) and three weekend events (to Builth Wells with Peter Sheldon, the Lake District with Barbara Cumbers and Lincoln with Paul Olver) and we have been fairly lucky with the weather.

Amongst all this activity there were a couple of items which were tried for the first time, and which were deemed to have been extremely successful. The first was the changing of the day, time and venue of the AGM to being held at the Royal School of Mines on a Saturday afternoon. This was followed by a talk by our President, Peter Sheldon, and then followed by dinner at the Pasta Sugo. Later on in February it was decided to take at least one monthly meeting a year out of London, and we were lucky enough to be able to use Royal Holloway, Egham, as a venue, having had a Geowalk in the afternoon. Because of the success of both of these ventures it was decided to repeat the experience for 2000.

This year also saw the introduction by the OU of the new Geology course, S260. It has had some really good reviews, and has even won the Europrix '99 competition held in Finland recently for the best CD/multimedia in the Knowledge and Discovery category and this was out of a field of 118 entrants from all over Europe. As such we had to rethink the organisation and content of the annual Revision Day in October. We met for discussion in September and then another highly Revision Day was held at Egham for around 50 students in spite of all the worrying beforehand! Thanks again to the usual band of tutors and Committee Members.

The stand at the G. A. Reunion was organised by Kay Walmsley and she and her helpers are to be congratulated on the high standard of the display. A pleasing aspect at the Reunion was the interest taken in our Society judged by the number of membership forms taken.

The sign of a healthy society is a dynamic committee and this is as true of the local branches as it is of the National Committee. After the last AGM it was decided to co-opt some members onto the Committee and we were lucky enough to enlist three new volunteers! Dawn Tilley (who has been stuffing your envelopes for the last couple of years), Paul Hetherington and Chris Sadler joined us in February and have been making their presence felt since then. As some of you are aware we now have our own web page. This is due to the efforts of Paul, who is a self-confessed non-geologist although husband of a committed geologist, Gill. This is by no means a bad thing because he is giving us another perspective.

There are some forthcoming changes to the Committee and it is sad to see some long serving members leave. Kay Walmsley, who has been on the Branch Committee as Treasurer since 1995, came onto the committee at very short notice when our previous Treasurer died suddenly. She was flung in at the deep end and, in spite of everything that has been thrown at her (not literally!), has coped with the exceedingly difficult task in front of her, with diligence and good humour. She certainly kept her head, when all around were losing theirs, to coin a phrase. To say that we are indebted to her is an understatement and we do thank her enormously for what she has done. We wish her all the best in her retirement. As you will know already Barbara Cumbers is giving up the editing of the newsletter which she has done for the last three years and we are extremely grateful to her for all her hard work and commitment during that time. However she is not leaving the Committee.

Apart from the above already mentioned we must once again thank the rest of the committee who work so hard on your behalf. We are delighted that John Wade, the ever long-suffering secretary, is literally back on his feet again and has once more taken over the reins, and we thank Dawn Tilley and other members for stepping in when the need arose. Di Clements has taken on the responsibility of the overall organisation for the monthly meetings at RSM and we thank her for that. Sue Vernon, Iain Fletcher and Chris Sadler have all pitched in with various jobs as well. It is lovely to have the wealth of talent on which to call!!

Next year we look forward to plenty more events for which the planning is already well underway. It will also see the last S103 Summer Schools at Reading (as well as at Keele) and so the responsibility for the recruiting stand will pass to another branch. I am sure that with your support the London Branch will continue to thrive, dare I say it (I refuse to use the "M" word!) into the next century!!

In my final year as treasurer I have finally got it right. Income over expenditure was just £33.06 for the year 1999 on a turnover of £7230.73 or 0.5%. I don't think we^’re likely to get closer than that.

We have been carrying a considerable sum, over two thousand pounds, 'on deposit' for some time now. It was decided at a recent committee meeting that it was time to spend some of it. In the light of experience at the recent GA where there were not enough boards for us to have our allocation, it was agreed that we should have our own set of display boards and lighting. I have included this information in this report because the expenditure will show in year 2000 accounts and I would not like you to lynch my successor for a large overspend in his/her first presentation of accounts.

Purchase of the boards and lights will still leave a healthy sum in the deposit account I propose no increase in the cost of monthly meetings or the one-day field trips, currently £1.50 and £2.00 respectively. Longer trips will continue to be costed "per trip".

Roger Levoir has confirmed that he will continue to audit the accounts for my successor if so required. I would like to propose a vote of thanks to Roger for his efforts.

Saturday Morning. 

Having breakfasted in the glow of a splendid sunrise reaching us from across the Lincoln Gap where the River Witham; cuts through the limestone ridge of the Lincoln Edge, we set off from the hotel, following the Roman Road along the narrow ridge towards the North. The ridge is the Lincoln Edge, formed from Middle Jurassic Lincolnshire Limestone which dips gently eastwards. As we travelled North we ran parallel to the line of the chalk-capped ridge of the Lincolnshire Wolds outcropping to the East and separated from us by a low lying broad clay vale.

Having reached Kirton-in-Lindsey we disembarked for the first quarry of the day at the now disused Kirton Lindsey Cement Works. With our leader, Paul Olver, we entered the quarry which was partly infilled, obscuring the full sequence previously visible there, but we were able to see the grey Kirton Cementstones at the base, overlain by about 3 m of grey shales indicative of influxes of muddy sediments into this low lying area during the Middle Jurassic. The Jurassic in South Licolnshire is mainly clear, shallow-water limestone but here, nearer the Humber, there was clear evidence of deeper water conditions. Within the shale we saw evidence of patch reefs containing colonial corals particularly near the base. Above this we saw the bed marking the junction between the lower and upper Lincolnshire Limestone, the Crossi Bed; so called due to the presence of a little brachiopod Acanthothyris crossi.

Paul told us that dating of these sediments was hampered by the lack of ammonite finds and so, spurred by this challenge, the group scattered to the four corners of the quarry in futile search of the elusive. Some rather fine geopetals were discovered. Thwarted but sated, we moved on Northwards to the southern side of the Humber, where within view of the Humber bridge we arrived at South Ferriby where Rugby Cement still works the chalk. The crushed chalk is transported by conveyor belt down to the cement works below on the shore of the Humber.

A spectacular sight awaited us and Brian's lifelong ambition was fulfilled. (You'll have to ask Brian about that). The section was reminiscent of the classic coastal section at Hunstanton where the boundary between the red and white chalk is so beautifully exposed. At the top of the quarry was a thin band of Quaternary material and underneath this, the flint-free Lower Chalk. Beneath a considerable depth of this, lay the Red Chalk and at its base this is found to lie directly on Ampthill Clays of Jurassic age. The latter were very dark, almost black in colour, this being caused by iron pyrite disseminated throughout the sediment.

Closer inspection revealed that yellow coloured Carstone was located directly below the Red Chalk. This is a poorly consolidated limonitic sandstone.

At this locality the Kimmeridge Clay, Spilsby Sandstone and Tealsby beds found further South near Redhill, were completely missing as shown above. These rocks do outcrop both to the North and South of the Humber suggesting the existence of two separate depositional basins to the N. and S. of an uplifted area . When sea levels rose in the Cretaceous, the Carstone, Red Chalk and Lower Chalk were then deposited on this surface.

Paul explained that a possible source of the red colour in the Red Chalk was that during its deposition, the basin was surrounded by deserts and that flash floods brought in haematite. The disappearance of the haematite was neatly explained by the land masses being at a greater distance as sea levels rose further. The Red Chalk yielded pocketfuls of belemnites and Jill found a rather nice Pecten ashtray. Many small polished flint pebbles, thought to be Lydian stones were found in the Ampthill Clay, the suggestion being that these were wind polished cherts kicking around on the London platform during the Carboniferous which washed in with the mudstones forming the Ampthill Clay.

At this point, the pub beckoned, rather to resolve a matter of relief rather than the need for a drink and after a superb morning we retired to The Red Lion .

Lesley Owen

Saturday Afternoon. The Red Hill nature reserve near Donnington-on-Bain (TF 249820) was of great interest from the outset. This is the first locality I have been introduced to more Black Sheep than we had already present in our party! The sheep were part of a rare breeds and conservation programme which is being well managed at this site. This part of the Wolds provides a very attractive glimpse of Chalk Downland, with its mass of different grasses and wild flowers, which is normally only seen in the Chilterns or North and South Downs. Not surprisingly, the Wolds Downland is due to the Chalk, with the Red Chalk, that underlie this part of the reserve. This is a good locality to point out the link between the underlying geology with characteristic soils developing from weathering of those rocks, and hence the influence of what is able to grow on the surface. As geologists, we too infrequently look at the natural flora and fauna, which provide valuable indications of changes in underlying geology when the rocks themselves are not always visible. In this instance, the calcareous plants of the higher ground (over the Chalk) gave way down slope to different species showing a change in underlying geology as Chalk passed into Carstone (a well-cemented sandstone). Sandstones tend to give acidic soils.

There was a good exposure of the Chalk and Red Chalk a little down the roadway from the reserve entrance. The junction between the two chalks was very clear and had a pronounced undulation, unlike the very flat boundary seen elsewhere. The Red Chalk here was also more fossiliferous – numerous belemnites and a fair number of brachiopods (Terebratulids) could be seen in the fallen debris at the base of the few metre cutting.

A short drive around the corner from Red Hill there is a road cutting which exposes the Spilsby Sandstone. This formation is Upper Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous in age (Ryazanian to Portlandian). The Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary therefore occurs within this rock unit. It is a quartzose sandstone which has nodule beds at the base of each unit, indicating an unconformity surface at the base of the Upper and the Lower Spilsby Sandstones. The deposit represents a near shore environment, hence the sand and the pebbles. It is a very variable unit, at Donnington-on-Bain just a mile or so away it is very iron-rich (but this is not presently visible at the surface). A this point, at the very end of the day, we had completely lost the light and were forced to stop grovelling about in the wet and muddy road-cutting and head off to the hotel for some hot toddies and a warm bath!

Jill Eyers

In this quarry large faces of honey coloured rocks were seen. The rocks in this quarry are of Middle Jurassic age i.e. the same age as the rocks in the more northerly Kirton Lindsey Quarry we visited on the previous day. The sequence differs from that at Kirton Lindsey in that the shales and Crossi bed seen at Kirton Lindsey are absent here. The sequence here is dominated by the Ancaster Beds, which were deposited in clear agitated shallow water in where lime was precipitated as ooliths and pesoliths.

The diagram below shows the Middle Jurassic sequence in the Copper Hill Quarry with the sequence in the Kirton Lindsey Quarry for comparison.

In the Copper Hill quarry the Kirton Cementstones (Lower Lincolnshire Limestone) can just be observed at the base of one of the faces. Above the Cementstones a discontinuity can be observed due to intra-Jurassic erosion. This is where the shales and Crossi bed seen in the Kirton Lindsey quarry would have been if they had not been eroded. Above this discontinuity lies the Ancaster Freestone, an even-bedded oolitic freestone deposited where there were strong currents. The Ancaster Freestone is much used for building. In the middle of the two parts of the Ancaster Freestone there is a Coral bed of patch reefs deposited in quieter conditions. Paul compared the environment of deposition to that of the present-day Bahama banks - a great stretch of the imagination as the wind was brisk and chilly. The latitude of deposition was 35 degrees North - the Costa del Ancaster.

Beds of the Ancaster Rag were seen above another discontinuity at the top of the Ancaster Freestone. The Ancaster Rag is the quarry-men's term for the Great Ponton Beds which are false-bedded shelly oolithic and sandy limestones with brachiopods, gastropods and bivalves. The Rag is used for less prestigious buildings.

Paul then compared these rocks of Middle Jurassic age to those in the Cotswolds of a similar age. The rocks of the Cotswolds include the Inferior Oolite, a rather rubbly sequence of rocks used in walls and domestic building which is overlain by the Great Oolite, e.g. Bath Stone which is used for prestigious buildings. Rocks of this age in Lincolnshire are the other way around, the Ancaster Freestone lies below the inferior rag beds.

The quarry lies on the Roman Road and was used in Roman times, the earliest quarry in the Limestone. Beyond Lincoln the Limestone begins to disappear.

The deposition of the Middle Jurassic in Lincolnshire was dominated by calcareous rocks but in the North of the area conditions tended to be more muddy so more shales were deposited than in the South. Limestone is more dominant in the South.

In this disused quarry north of the previous location but south of Kirton Lindsey, there is less evidence of any Ancaster Freestone, (although Paul thought that what has previously been identified as Cementstones may be the final part of the Ancaster Freestone.

Below the "cementstone/freestone' bed lay dark shales of the Kirton Beds. Above a half-a-metre thick bed of Cementstones the Ancaster Rag was seen. The Rag is much thicker here than around Ancaster.

This quarry being between the two previous locations gives added confirmation that more shales occur in the northern part of Lincolnshire and that limestones become more dominant to the south.

And that is the direction most of us then drove home to after a stimulating, interesting and dry week-end.