10:10 AM Apr 12th : Packed up and heading for the ferry terminal. Folk are looking rather weathered. – RJ

I think I speak for all of the students there in saying that it was a fantastic trip; both for the geology, and simply for the fun times we had. No account of this trip would be complete without thanking the people who made it possible, so here we are:

Firstly, a big thanks to the staff members involved. They taught us a lot, and put up with a lot:

• Dr. John Faithfull – The Man with the Tunes
• Dr. Vernon Phoenix – An endless source of excellent quotes
• Dr. Fiona Meade – An exciting driver ;)
• Jannik Kremer
• Euan Macrae

Next, Tom and Sheila at the Shorehouse. Without whom the trip wouldn’t be possible (and who also put up with 40-odd noisy students for a week).

The Arran Distillery and Arran brewery; for their excellent tours, and even better free samples.

…and the local pubs, whose alcohol supply has been severely depleted.

The liveblogging effort also owes its thanks to several individuals and organisations:

Dr. Gordon Curry, for setting the plan in motion.

Twitter, Twitterific and Hashtags for providing the software service used.

and Apple, for making my iPhone (and generally employing me – UK Uni Students and Staff can get a discount here)

Finally, no trip to Arran would be complete without thanking the excellent geologists who’ve worked there over the years. Too many to mention, but James Hutton floats to the top of the list.

Thank you dear reader for reading my account of the trip; I hope it was at least somewhat entertaining. I’ll leave you with my favourite photo from the trip:

Almost looks tropical

8:40 AM Apr 11th : Up and ready for a day in the field. I think we’re measuring wide dykes today. – RJ

I’d apologise for the cracks about Dykes, but to be honest it’s an accurate representation of what we were talking about while there. That’s one of the milder ones.

9:41 AM Apr 11th : It is a gorgeous day here on Arran – RJ

Looking South from Arran

11:00 AM Apr 11th : Looking at Dykes on Kildonan beach. Mainly basaltic some with phenocrysts. Glorious weather – HS

11:53 AM Apr 11th : Stopped for lunch, sunshine is glorious. – RJ

Stopping to Eat on a Dyke

1:13 PM Apr 11th : Team Faithfull Photo Opportunity – RJ

Team Faithfull

We finished early today to pack, eat a hearty meal (from the nearby Chippie) and generally get ready for the evening’s festivities.

9:07 PM Apr 11th : Last night of Arran ‘09 – we’re all chilling out after a great day of sun and dykes. – RJ

I haven’t included most of the messages we posted later in the evening; after most of a bottle of Laphroaig they got increasingly incoherent. There was definitely Karaoke. But I’ll leave you with the last one…

2:58 AM Apr 12th : Earth scientists are the best drinkers in the world. – RJ

9:34 AM Apr 10th : Pigtails are the choice of hair style for field trips! At blackwaterfoot goin to look at some ig. Rocks. – HS

9:35 AM Apr 10th : King’s Cave today as well I think. – RJ

12:24 PM Apr 10th : Stopping for lunch next to doon sill. Lots of lovely Igneous rocks. Now off to the caves. – HS

12:28 PM Apr 10th : ‘The Doon’ – a great big sill, seen from the beach and the view from halfway up. – RJ

The Doon Sill

Slightly closer View

Field Sketch

Sketch Diagram of the Base of the Sill

12:30 PM Apr 10th : The real reason we wear hard hats. – RJ

The real reason Geologists wear hard hats.

12:31 PM Apr 10th : Small intrusions with brilliant chilled margins. – RJ

Lovely Chilled Margins

2:00 PM Apr 10th : Just scrambled up a muddy waterfall, through a gorse thicket to touch John’s ‘thing’, turned out to be Triassic reptile footprints. – RJ

This innuendo probably requires an explanation. John wanted to make the Isochirotherium footprints a surprise for the groups so was referring to it as his ‘thing’. We of course took that statement and ran with it. (For more info about these check out Neil Clark’s paper in the latest volume of the Scottish Journal of Geology – Vol. 45 pt. 1)

Reptile Footprints

2:29 PM Apr 10th : Weather has turned really lovely, skimming rocks while we wait for everyone to look at the footprints. – RJ

The footprints were halfway up a waterfall and fairly inaccessible – so we went up 5 people at a time.

2:58 PM Apr 10th : A wee snake on the path. – RJ

A Snake in the Grass

3:14 PM Apr 10th : In king’s cave – a raised sandstone sea cave. – RJ

King's Cave

8:18 PM Apr 10th : Listening to John Faithful lecturing on paleogene igneous activity. – RJ

7:42 AM Apr 9th : In the field from 8:30 this morning to avoid the tides. Brutally early start. – RJ

11:09 AM Apr 9th : Tide coming in quickly. Exposures being hidden unfortunately. Finely lam. Sandstones. Found crinoid fossils – HS

10:31 AM Apr 9th : Looking at a very rare palaeo-fulgurite. – RJ

Fossilised Lightning Strike

1:32 PM Apr 9th : Finished early for the day (highly unusual), going for a tour of the brewery and distillery – geologists work hard, and play hard. – RJ

Between the rock outcrops being underwater, horrific weather and being done for the day we all decided a bit of a break was in order. (Inevitably, this was when the weather got better).

3:59 PM Apr 9th : Carlsberg dont do geology field trips, but if they did, it would be Arran ‘09. – HS

Arran Brewery

The fake waterfall at Arran Distillery

The Distillery tour at least mentioned the geology of Arran having an effect on Whisky; so we had some justification for going there rather than working. (Maltman, 2003)

8:25 PM Apr 9th : Completed (rather damp) geological map of Carboniferous rocks around corrie. – RJ

The Carboniferous of Corrie

9:00 PM Apr 9th : Hard at work at 9pm finishing off our geological maps. – RJ

Working downstairs in the Shorehouse

8:19 AM Apr 8th : Up bright(ish) and earlyish, weather was horrendous last night, not much better this morning. – RJ

10:35 AM Apr 8th : Mapping a field today without an os map. Using paces and bearings. Cold but dry – HS

The morning was spent practicing mapping techniques by mapping Dougrie Field, an area with Dalradian Rocks, Old Red Sandstone and a Dolerite Dyke.

12:03 PM Apr 8th : Mapping outcrops on a field using compass clinos, pacing and our wits. – RJ

The light came out quite strange for this photo, but you get the idea.

1:36 PM Apr 8th : Taking a break from mapping for lunch. – RJ

Lunchbreak

2:47 PM Apr 8th : Second mini bus to be stuck in mud. Full day of mapping complete. Field split by ig. Dyke and a fault. Vern won stare off with a rock? – HS

3:47 PM Apr 8th : Hard hats required in bus, very bumpy road! Saw some awesome folds and micro folds in imachar beach. – HS

3:50 PM Apr 8th : Some small folds in Dalradian rocks. – RJ

Some small scale folding

After Imachar we went back to North Glen Sannox and walked across a transect of the Highland Border Group; looking at pillow lavas, agglomerates and black slates along the river bed. Since we were in a bog and the weather was shocking I decided not to risk tweeting from my iPhone.

6:59 PM Apr 8th : Putting on after sun – somehow still got burnt despite heavy rain. (Ginger gene). – RJ

7:11 PM Apr 8th : Back in the flats and cooking dinner now. weather is lovely now, forecast for tomorrow is awful! Corrie tomorrow i think. – HS

As might be rather obvious by now, the weather occupied our minds for most of this trip. Days three and four were probably the worst.

9:15 PM Apr 8th : Completed geological map of Dougrie Field. – RJ

Rough Geological Map of Dougrie Field showing presumed contacts

12:13 AM Apr 9th : Finished writing up notes from today. Lots of interesting structural bits and pieces today. – RJ

I hadn’t realised that I’d been working quite that late.

Some of my notes for the day

8:23 AM Apr 7th : Early morning in Arran. Weather is truly horrendous. Rain sloshing down, time for porridge. – RJ

8:34 AM Apr 7th : Just waking up and I’m sure there will be some sore heads today. weather is pretty awful but should be another fun filled geoliday. – HS

10:07 AM Apr 7th : Fiona has reversed into a ditch. – RJ

I think there were more photos of this event taken than of any rock outcrops.

Whoops...

11:25 AM Apr 7th : Mapping Dalradian psammite along the river. – RJ

North Glen Sannox – a quick stop, we came back here later in the week to look at the Highland Border Complex nearby.

Starting to get very wet out here...

1:59 PM Apr 7th : Coming down from looking at paleogene granite, standing on some dalradian meta-sediments.  – RJ

We walked up from Catacol, heading inland over Dalradian Rocks to the Northern Granite intrusion in the centre of the island.

Note the Quaternary glacial landforms...

Next we headed along to Lochranza.

3:32 PM Apr 7th : Mapping another beach, still looking at Dalradian psammites and pelites. – RJ

Lochranza in the Background

4:51 PM Apr 7th : We’re at Hutton’s Unconformity. It’s not quite as impressive as the one at Siccar point. – RJ

A brilliant geological site of historic import; but I come from the Borders originally and can occasionally be proud of that fact.

6:29 PM Apr 7th : The weather here is AWFUL. – RJ

Awful weather in Brodick

9:50 PM Apr 7th : Finished working for this evening; produced a geological map of the beach east of Lochranza. – RJ

9:27 AM Apr 6th : Day 2 on Brodick beach. Conglomerate with quartz and psammite clasts. Dull weather but nice. – HS

10:02 AM Apr 6th : Counting clasts in conglomerate. Some of them are actually just algae. Heading up to Sannox again in the Arran ‘09 partybus. – RJ

Lots of weathering and organic material can make it quite difficult to identify rocks. But that’s what Hammers are for.

10:55 AM Apr 6th : First to fall in a burn: Emma. – RJ

12:24 PM Apr 6th : Had a nosey round an old barite mine, now off for sedimentary logging. – RJ

(By which I mean me and Hazel just looked in, no health and safety rules were ignored – we promise). This region was the location of a great deal of mining of large Barite veins in Old Red Sandstone rocks.

In the Afternoon we headed back down to the Beach in Sannox Bay, dividing into groups which logged separate stretches of the coast.

2:35 PM Apr 6th : It’s raining but we just found an awesome fault that hasn’t mangled the stuff around it. :) – HS

A very clearly defined fault through the conglomerate we were logging.

Small, clearly defined fault.

2:36 PM Apr 6th : Sedimentary logging [See Photograph] – RJ

Groups logging further down the shore

3:07 PM Apr 6th : Fiona taking a stage dive off an exposed Flow Channel – RJ

Here’s a preserved channel where a fast flowing flash flood cut through the underlying sandstone, depositing conglomerate on top.

Fiona posing for Photographs

Sketch Diagram of the flow channel, demonstrating what’s going on slightly more clearly.

Diagrammatic Representation of Flow Channel

3:47 PM Apr 6th : Vern: if in doubt lick it.  – RJ

I’m sure there was a reason for Vernon licking a deformation band, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was…

4:11 PM Apr 6th : Looking at deformation bands in Permian sandstones now.  – RJ

Vernon licking a deformation band

8:22 PM Apr 6th : Hard at work graphically logging our beach. We’re working well into the evening tonight. – RJ

9:04 PM Apr 6th : Finished sedimentary log. Next up we do a mini-presentation on it. – RJ

The finished log.

10:21 PM Apr 6th : Long night but has been fun! Learned how to do sedimentary log graphs. Still working away – HS

The Shorehouse (our accommodation for the week)

12:25 AM Apr 5th : Frizbee and instruments packed along with heavy duty waterproofs, lets hope it doesn’t rain too much this week, roll on the fun of Arran 09 – HS

9:04 AM Apr 5th : First quote of the week, ‘”Soil, where rocks go to die” (Vernon). – HS

9:21 AM Apr 5th : Clambered onto the minibus, weather forecast isn’t amazing. – RJ

9:39 AM Apr 5th : Tomayasu Hotei, I’ve got a brand new (electron microscope) and Rammstein as music so far on the arran ‘09 partybus. – RJ

John Faithfull, one of the curators of the Hunterian Museum, has a truly excellent taste in music which kept us entertained for the whole week.

10:09 AM Apr 5th : The weather is glorious today, music has gone from Irish folk, to talking heads to ragtime radiohead covers. – RJ

12:09 PM Apr 5th : Boarded the ferry for Arran. – RJ

12:37 PM Apr 5th : A bit of a fresh wind but great to be back on the sea again. Lovely weather! Emma going to pirate the ferry! – HS

2:46 PM Apr 5th : Heading to Sannox to practice taking dips and strikes. – RJ

3:32 PM Apr 5th : Standing on Sannox beach, cold and sunny. Learning to use a compass clino. Geologists throw rocks apparently. I need gloves. – HS

Some initial practice here to make sure everyone’s doing things right, and to adjust the compasses for magnetic declination.

3:39 PM Apr 5th : Using pacing and stride length to measure distances. – RJ

Stride length was measured here and noted, so that it could be used to estimate distances by pacing later in the week.

4:29 PM Apr 5th : Just finished looking at some terrestrial sandstones and conglomerates, heading to shops. – RJ

A quick stop off to look at some Old Red Sandstone in Sannox Bay.

6:26 PM Apr 5th : The view across the bay is lovely – RJ (Picture below)

Goat Fell viewed from Brodick

7:15 PM Apr 5th : Why are we watching Ghostbusters? Also, we have a lecture in 15 minutes. – RJ

7:46 PM Apr 5th : Listening to a lecture from Vernon about the importance of fieldwork and reports. – RJ

The work throughout the week consisted of Field Work throughout the day (generally 9-5, with variations depending on tides, weather etc), followed by lectures and written work in the evenings (Working from 7 or 8 until we were done, sometimes as late as 11).

This year, we liveblogged (sort of) the trip for the department using twitter. Myself (@bobreturns) and Hazel (@miss_jazz) sent live updates back for people to view. This will eventually go on the information page for our department so that potential students can see what we got up to while we were there.

I’m putting the information and images together for the website just now, and I’ll be putting them up on here as I get through each day.