The Ground Beneath our Feet

The Marches Festival of Geology, 2007

The regional geology of the Marches has led the area to be portrayed as “The Geological Capital of the Country” and many have felt this should be reflected in the Bicentennial Celebrations of the Geological Society of London. A number of organisations in the Marches have therefore agreed to collaborate to run a festival to celebrate their 200th anniversary which will also be the 150th anniversary of the Geologists' Association and, incidentally, the 175th anniversary of Murchison’s epic visit to the area that led to publication of The Silurian System.

The festival will be centred on a one-day symposium in Ludlow, on Thursday 13th September 2007, on the theme of “The ground beneath our feet: 200 years of geology in the Marches”, supported by fieldtrips, exhibitions and workshops. It will be aimed at a range of people including local children and adults, amateur geologists, and geologists with research interests in the Marches. Related activities are timed within a month or so either side; these will all be listed in a brochure to be published in the New Year and details are already appearing on the Festival web site:
www.shropshiregeology.org.uk/festival

The symposium’s aim is to attract a wide range of attendees by focusing on five themes of general as well as regionally significant interest, each with a pair of speakers: one with a national reputation and the other a local expert. There will also be an accompanying poster display. The titles of the five themes are:

• The Marches in the past: on the edge of a lost ocean
• The Ice Age: on the edge of a glacier
• The mark of distinction: how local character is shaped by landscapes and building stones
• Geology in the community: evolving perceptions and realities
• The future for geology in the Marches
  

There will be a Bicentennial Exhibition in support of these themes, to be displayed first at Hereford Museum and then at the Ludlow Museum Resource Centre. In addition, it is planned to mount and display the posters prepared by John Fuller for the Geological Society’s History of Geology Group meeting in the late 1990’s, on the theme of early geological studies in the region.

There are fieldtrip opportunities for fossil-hunting (Wenlock Edge, to be led by the SGS) and raising awareness of the landscape (a geological walk up Caer Caradoc, near Church Stretton, to be led by the SGS) in addition to reviewing the geological science of the region. Another fieldtrip will study the bedrock geology and glacial features in the Wigmore area, visiting classic localities made famous by Murchison's early fieldwork in the company of the Rev Thomas Lewis, to be presented as an historical re-enactment of the early Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club to the area (to be led by the Woolhope). The programme will also permit attendance on the Geological Society’s own Bicentennial fieldtrips to Ironbridge Gorge and the Malverns.

In order to glean lasting benefit from the Bicentennial Celebrations, it is highly desirable that the opportunity be taken to record the current state of our knowledge of Marches geology. The SGS Proceedings will be used as the vehicle for initial publication (on the web) with the Woolhope Transactions as the formal printed version. There will be opportunities for publishing contributions from both the symposium and the fieldtrips.

A series of GeoTrails is being prepared, in part to support workshops and fieldtrips, and in part as self discovery guides. These include:

• in front of the last glacier in South Shropshire
• the landslides of Ironbridge Gorge
• a revision to the Teme Bank Trail
• a reprinting of the Mortimer Forest Trail, originally prepared by Jim Lawson
• the building stones of Ludlow
  

The strategy to further encourage local participation is to invite poster displays and to offer to publish these or supporting papers in the SGS Proceedings. Thereby it is hoped to encourage contributions by individuals, local schools and amateur geology groups (U3A, WEA, SGS, Woolhope and BCGS), and provide a public outlet for the workshops run by the County Museum Services.

This is to be a co-ordinated effort involving the Shropshire Geological Society, the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club Geology Section, the Ludlow Museum Resource Centre (part of the Shropshire County Museums Service), the Herefordshire Heritage Service (the County museum service), the Hereford and Worcester Earth Heritage Trust, the Ludlow Research Group and the West Midlands Regional Group of the Geological Society.

The Festival web site is used for notification of all events and dissemination of related information, including registration.

Registration

Registration for this event (20 pounds in advance, before 31st August, including a light buffet lunch; 25 pounds after 1st September or on the door excluding lunch) includes attendance at all the lectures and the poster exhibition in the Ludlow Assembly Rooms on 13th September, and tea/coffee in morning and afternoon

Advance registration for the one-day Symposium should be made with the Treasurer, David HT Smith:

25 Grange Road
Shrewsbury
SY3 9DG

Cheques should be made payable to 'The Shropshire Geological Society'.

Registration enquiries may be made by email to: david@thursfieldsmith.co.uk