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

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