Essex Rock

Ros Mercer, Ian Mercer

Description

All landscapes are built on rock: from hard stone for building with, to the softest clay or sand. Each piece of rock is a storehouse of prehistorical information; even a simple pebble from the garden has its own complex tale to tell. Geology is the great detective science that can unlock these secrets. In this entertaining and eye-opening book, the authors take a deep dive – quite literally – into their home county of Essex.

We are all living in an ice age, an ongoing event that has hugely affected Essex over the last 3 million years. Yet this county was born more than 500 million years ago. Our story begins when the land we know as Essex was part of a large continent close to the South Pole, tracing the geological processes that continue to shape the countryside around us. The form of the land, boulders on village greens, road cuttings, cliffs, stones in church walls – they can all bring geology to light in unexpected and fascinating ways.

Aimed at a general readership with no scientific background but equally appealing to the seasoned geologist, chapters progress from fundamentals to intricate details of geological investigations and cutting-edge research. Richly illustrated with photographs and colour diagrams, here the geology of a county is visualised and brought to life as never before, along with pertinent environmental insights in the light of climate change that is happening now.

1. Reconstructing Essex

2. The rocks of Essex

3. The deep history of Essex

4. The geological structure of Essex

5. The drowning of the island

6. Seashores and swamps

7. Palm trees and crocodiles

8. Giant sharks and shell banks

9. Ice age Essex

10. Looking into the Essex landscape

11. Uncovering Essex geology

12. Rock and people

13. The future of Essex rock

Sites and views of Essex

Geological collections and displays

Index

Maps and charts

About the authors

Sujets

• Sciences de la nature
• Géologie
• Earth Sciences
• landscape
• Sciences et techniques
• Inglaterra
• Earth science
• Archaeology
• Historical geology
• South East England
• Geology
• England
• Essex
• Science

Informations

• Publié par: Pelagic Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781784272807
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 21 Mo

Extrait

ESSEX ROCK
GEOLOGY BENEATH THE LANDSCAPE
Ian Mercer & Ros Mercer
Illustrations and design by Trevor Johnson
Pelagic Publishing
Published in 2022 by
Pelagic Publishing
20-22 Wenlock Road,
London N1 7GU, UK
www.pelagicpublishing.com
Essex Rock: Geology Beneath the Landscape
Copyright Ian Mercer and Ros Mercer 2022
This book is a greatly expanded and updated version of Gerald Lucy s work of the same title, now out of print, which was published by the Essex Rock and Mineral Society in 1999.
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Apart from short excerpts for use in research or for reviews, no part of this document may be printed or reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, now known or hereafter invented or otherwise without prior permission from the publisher.
While every effort has been made to trace image copyright holders, any queries relating to the use of images in this publication are to be directed to the authors via the publisher. Necessary corrections will be made in any subsequent printing. Unless otherwise credited, the photos and figures were taken by or belong to the authors.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
https://doi.org/10.53061/YKSO7005
ISBN 978-1-78427-279-1 Paperback
ISBN 978-1-78427-280-7 ePub
ISBN 978-1-78427-281-4 PDF
Cover artwork by Peter David Scott. Summertime in Essex during the Anglian glaciation 450,000 years ago. Steppe mammoth Mammuthus trogontherii is four metres tall at the shoulder and weighs ten tonnes. The ancient Thames flows across mid-Essex, where Chelmsford is today.
Contents
Preface to the second edition
Preface to the first edition
Foreword
Acknowledgements
1 Reconstructing Essex
Geology: the great detective science
Geological time
The importance of Essex geology
2 The rocks of Essex
Seeing Essex rocks
The land beneath the soil: geological maps
The shaping of the Essex landscape
Digging into Essex
Naming rock layers: decoding the jargon
Time gaps
3 The deep history of Essex
Hidden history: the oldest rocks beneath Essex
Dinosaur island
4 The geological structure of Essex
Down to the basement
A story of tilting and squeezing: the London Basin
5 The drowning of the island
A rise in world sea levels
The Chalk Sea
The Chalk in Essex
Life in the Chalk Sea
The origin of flint
6 Seashores and swamps
A great extinction
Edgeland Essex
The Lambeth Group
Pebble beds and shell banks
7 Palm trees and crocodiles
Subtropical Essex
Harwich Formation
The London Clay
Shallow seas to deltas
8 Giant sharks and shell banks
A time gap and a cooling climate
Crag seas and shell banks
Red Crag in Essex
Chillesford Sand and River Thames
9 Ice age Essex
Time and change
Ice age Essex in three episodes
Climate change and ice age geology
Ice age River Thames: the Pre-Anglian Kesgrave Sand and Gravel
River terraces
Glaciers and ice sheets: the Anglian Glaciation across Essex
Around the ice edge
The Post-Anglian: a major diversion
10 Looking into the Essex landscape
After the ice
Geology, soil and farming
The dynamic landscape
Landslips
Earthquakes
Stories in the Essex landscape: looking back into time
Caring for the evidence: geoconservation and Essex geological sites
11 Uncovering Essex geology
The Essex geology detectives
12 Rock and people
Economic geology: what we take out of the ground
Development of water supplies in Essex
13 The future of Essex rock
Climate, rock and recycling
Sea defences and the future: the Naze example
The next glaciation
Beyond the ice
Sites and views of Essex
Geological collections and displays
Index
Maps and charts
About the authors
Preface to the second edition
The original edition of this book, written by Gerald Lucy, was the first general account of Essex geology for a wide readership. In the years following that pioneer edition, the deep-time story of Essex has been further enriched - especially its ice age history - as we ourselves discovered following our retirement. Much of the rock of Essex Rock is admittedly rather squashy and crunchy, but this does not deter geologists from defining it as rock . When we were both at university in the 1970s, Essex geology was dismissed as gardening . Like Rev. Eley, vicar of Broomfield, who in 1859 wrote Geology in the Garden, we looked more closely at the pebbles all around us. There is a story in every single one; we wanted to learn more and to share these stories.
All of us are living in an ice age - something that has profoundly affected Essex over the past 3 million years. Yet this county was born more than 500 million years ago. Our deep history begins when the land we know as Essex was part of a large continent close to the South Pole. Looking around you anywhere in Essex, along footpaths, beaches, urban areas or village streets, we want to help you notice some of the details and features in the landscape and link them to this deep-time story. You might see a strange boulder on a village green, or layers of sand or chalk in a new road cutting. There are interesting pebbles in church walls, in gardens and fields - as well as along the seashore. These can all bring geology to light in unexpected and fascinating ways.
Research by professional geologists and archaeologists and many amateur fossil collectors and other enthusiasts continues to increase our understanding of time and of environmental change. Building and engineering projects such as tunnels, coastal defences and structural foundations require continuing investigations into the nature of the rocks and their geological stories. All of this is adding constantly to the fascinating history of Essex , enriching our knowledge and opening up new avenues to explore.
We hope this new edition of Essex Rock will encourage more people to enjoy the land and its story of time - past and future. Such enjoyment is enhanced through individual enquiry and the use of museums and other institutions as well as libraries and clubs. Amid rapid changes, now is the time to appeal for more examples of the real thing in museums and to press for a dynamic treatment of geology in museums and schools. Many museums have lost their displays of useful geological detail and accessible reference material and now have few or no staff who can identify geologically related objects and materials. Those displays that remain need careful protection. The national curriculum for schools in England currently contains little coherent geological content. We hope this book will help promote education and enlightenment about rocks, land use and soil, water supply, oceans and climate; that it might help people in some small way to comprehend the huge changes to come.
This account of the county might also encourage you to promote the conservation of important geological sites - currently low in the list of priorities in planning and development - you can find out more by joining clubs and societies such as the Essex Field Club, Essex Rock & Mineral Society, or a local U3A group and by viewing the work of the conservation group GeoEssex online.
Ian Mercer and Ros Mercer
2022
Preface to the first edition
Many people have visited Walton-on-the-Naze and have found sharks teeth and fossil shells on the beach beneath the Naze cliffs. A number of these visitors must have wondered how they came to be there, how old they were and what Essex was like when these creatures were alive. Until now this information has been very difficult to obtain; no popular works have ever been written about Essex geology, and the subject receives little attention in natural history publications. This book, originally produced by the Essex Rock and Mineral Society, is intended to fill this gap and provide an account of the prehistory of the county up to the time of man.
Few people think of rock when they think of Essex, yet every landscape is built on rock of one or more kinds, from granite to the softest clay or sand. Each piece of rock is a store of prehistory. Even a pebble from the garden has its own story to tell. We therefore hope that this book will generate more interest in geology, the subject that investigates the foundations of our natural heritage. Although Essex has few prominent geological features when compared with most other parts of Britain, there is still much to see and this book emphasizes the visible evidence of the county s geological past. Geology has been called the great detective science and it is always best to examine the evidence for yourself first hand.
What started off many years ago as an idea for a slim booklet on Essex fossils has grown into the present work out of a desire to produce a book which would not only be of interest to the general reader, but also be a useful source of reference for anyone interested in natural history. So as to present this subject to as wide a readership as possible, some generalisations have inevitably had to be made and some geological terms that may now be considered outdated have been used. Comment or criticism will be welcome and considered for incorporating in any future edition. The text, diagrams and illustrations have been compiled from a large number of sources, and jargon has been kept to a minimum.
For the purposes of this book Essex is taken to be bounded on the north by the River Stour, on the south by the River Thames, on the east by the North Sea, and on the west by the River Lea. It will be clear from this that we have chosen the old geographical borders of Essex before the local government reorganisation of the 1960s, and so include the present London boroughs of Barking, Havering, Newham, Redbridge a