Learning Outcomes:
1. Appreciation of the stages of basin development, their structural and sedimentological character and their stratigraphic record.
2. Techniques for analysis of sedimentary characteristics to infer depositional environments and paleogeographical settings.
3. Techniques for analysis of faults and folds including kinematic indicators to infer structural evolution.
4. Consolidate a range of geological field-skills (logging, mapping, structural analysis).
5. Integration of outcrop and subsurface observations.
Indicative Module Content:
The specific itinerary changes year-on-year to accommodate tides and logistical arrangements, but will involve visits to most of the following localities:
Field Area 1. The metamorphic rocks on the South Devon Coast: Salcombe North Sands; Hope Cove; Thurlestone Sands.
Field Area 2. Folded and faulted Carboniferous sedimentary rocks on The North Cornwall and North Devon Coasts: Westward Ho!; Hartland Quay; Northcott Mouth; Upton.
Field Area 3. The Basement / Basin unconformity at outcrops around the Severn Estuary: Aust Cliff; Royal Inn; Kilkenny Bay; Portishead Point.
Field Area 4. Continental Permo-Triassic sandstones around Exmouth: Dawlish; Budleigh Salterton; Ladram Bay.
Field Area 5. Triassic – Jurassic deposits, and basin extension and inversion structures on the the North Somerset Coast: St Audrie’s Bay; East Kilve; Lilstock; West Kilve; Beacon Hill; West of Watchet harbour; Blue Anchor Fault.
Field Area 6. Jurassic to Tertiary sedimentary rocks and evidence of Tertiary inversion on the Dorset Coast: Eype; Hive Beach; Osmington Mills; Kimmeridge Bay; Lulworth Cove; Studland Bay; Wytch Farm viewpoint.