Geology

A visit to Stori Brymbo

/ TIDE and CANUTE / Leave a comment

I went to Stori Brymbo, Wrexham, to see a 300-million-year-old fossil forest. The fossils are just one part of this heritage attraction, which is on the site of an old steelworks.

When looking around, I joked, “There’s something for everyone at Stori Brymbo.” It’s not entirely true. But if you’re interested in nature walks, industrial history, post-industrial communities, coal, fossils, or photography, you’ll be glad you visited.

The site isn’t fully wheelchair accessible. However, I saw online that Stori Brymbo can offer support for people who are able to ride in a 4×4 vehicle. You’ll need to contact them ahead of time to talk about arrangements.

I enjoyed photographing the ruins and looking at the wide variety of ferns. I also came away with a better appreciation of the relationship between industrial employers and small communities.

The site was an ironworks and then steelworks, in operation from 1796 to 1990. This means it was a multi-generational local employer. I can only imagine the emotional attachment I’d feel to a place that employed my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

Here are a few of the photos I took.

Matchbooks, a block of paper, a brochure covered with signatures, and a photograph wrapped in plastic.
A display of Brymbo steelworks souvenirs; it was common for companies to produce items like these for their employees and customers in the second half of the 20th century.
Museum display board. Text reads: "Then, in 1990, it all stopped. Despite receiving almost £50m of investment in 1976 (equivalent to almost £400m today), owners United Engineering Steels made the decision to close the works. On the 27th September 1990, Brymbo's furnaces were tapped for one last time and almost 200 years of operations came to an end."
Brymbo is in Wales, so the museum display boards are in Welsh and English. This is from a part of the exhibition that focuses on 20th-century workers at Brymbo Steelworks.
Two metal towers with the Sun behind them. High walls but no roof. The area looks like an open courtyard.
The two tall furnaces in the background were added in the 1970s. There used to be a roof above where I was standing.
The remains of a metal machine set into the wall. An arch of old brickwork and a buttress of brick.
There are lots of industrial remains to photograph at Stori Brymbo.
Metal frames, including a staircase. Once part of the steelwork's interior. Now these structures stand out in the open.
Remains of the old steelworks at Stori Brymbo
A very big green vehicle with patches of rust and vegetation growing around it.
This vehicle was used in the reclamation of the site.
A fossilised fern frond
Some of the fossils found at Brymbo Fossil Forest
Exposed bedrock inside a building. Small tree trunks poke up from the ground.
This is the fossil forest itself. I didn’t go on the guided tour offered by Stori Brymbo, but rather wished I had. Sites like these need experts to bring them alive. However, I did enjoy my visit and I found some interesting videos about Brymbo Fossil Forest on YouTube afterwards. The video below introduces a medieval mineshaft packed with fossils.

At the end of my visit, I bought a small piece of the fossil forest from Stori Brymbo’s shop. It’s 314 million years old, which is an inconceivable length of time. I’m boggled just thinking about it!

More exciting than insects in amber?

/ TIDE and CANUTE / Leave a comment

I watched a fascinating public lecture about Earth’s environment around 250 million years ago. Prof Kathleen C. Benison explained how rock salt carries evidence of conditions in this distant past.

Tiny spaces (inclusions) inside the salt crystals can contain water, algae, plant matter, and single-celled organisms. They are preserved in the salt in a way that makes me think of Jurassic Park’s insects in amber.

Thanks to this evidence, we know that conditions in parts of Pangea were extremely inhospitable.

You can watch a video of the lecture on the Geological Society of London’s YouTube channel. There’s lots to see on there. I can’t wait to watch another one!

Shales are interesting

/ TIDE and CANUTE / Leave a comment

I’m a freelance proofreader and line editor. My job often involves looking at texts produced in fields of work that I’m unfamiliar with. I prepare myself for that by learning about new subjects in my spare time.

Recently, I’ve been exploring geology. To start with, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know what geologists did beyond identifying rocks. The resources I’ve read and watched since then have shown me that geology is actually quite exciting!

Rocks and minerals are a record of events that happened millions of years ago. We live surrounded by ancient history. This was brought home to me by a recorded lecture I watched through my membership of the Geologists’ Association.

It was called “Are ‘shales’ really that dull? Continuing to shine light into dark places and what happens when you open Pandora’s Box!”

Shales are a type of sedimentary rock. They form in water from layers of clay, mud, silt, and organic matter. Like tree rings and deeply buried layers of ice in Antarctica, they’re a record of nature’s behaviour over a succession of years, long ago.

The lecturer gave the example of a particular cliff and spoke about samples taken from several different levels. The lower samples were millions of years older than the higher ones.

Each sample was thinly sliced and examined under a microscope. It was fascinating because each one looked different, showing what was happening in the water at the time. The lecturer pointed out some short white lines crossing through the layers. These were the burrows of tiny organisms living in the low-oxygen environment of the seabed.

The lecturer also showed a picture of a rock with a beautiful curved line on it. It was evidence of the water current that had deposited the sediment. It was like a photograph of the past.

Many of the details in the lecture went over my head. For example, I had to pause it to look up the meaning of anoxic event. But I appreciated the overall message. I came away understanding that shales are interesting and not at all dull.

I also understood that geologists can work in very fine detail. As a proofreader, I sometimes have to think about the correct placement of tiny punctuation marks. So I can relate to that.