Westbury Zig Zag EarthCache
Brownburys: Unable to see the quarry easily due to new fence so decided to archive this one
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This cache takes you to the boundary of a large chalk quarry, called Beggars Knoll. This quarry has been used since 1962 by the cement factory down the hill, where after excavation, the chalk was crushed and mixed with water before being piped down to the factory.
There is plenty of parking, either at the white horse or closer to the quarry itself. The parking waypoint is the closest you can park for this cache. There is a compacted path to walk along, the quarry is to the left.
What has brought us to this spot is the massive scar on the landscape. But while it may be seen as a blot on the landscape, it offers us a unique opportunity to look back for millions of years. At least 65 millions years, to be more exact. This chalk was formed in the Cretaceous period, the last period of the dinosaurs, and the majority of the chalk is part of the Zig Zag Chalk Member.
A this time most of Wiltshire was under a few hundred metres of warm sea. Many sea creatures lived on the sea bed here and local geologists have found fossils of sea urchins and crabs, as well as minute shells of alga.
The depth of the quarry is 80 metres and it's said that there is a further 60 metres of chalk below that. The chalk will have built up over a long period of time, perhaps up to 30 million years. It is said that the chalk reportedly accumulates at a rate of around .5–3 inches (1.25–7.5 cm) per thousand years.
When you reach the cache location it is possible to see, faintly, layers of flint in the chalk. This is thought to be from the remains of organisms that used silica to build their skeletons, such as sponges. In pre-historic times, humans used filnt to make weapons and tools.
From the cache location, look for the track in the quarry, follow this to the far side and estimate the distance from the track to the top of the quarry, if the chalk had accumulated at 7.5cm per thousand years; work out how long it would have taken for this amount of chalk to build up. To claim this cache as a find, please email us with your estimate of the depth and how many years it would have taken for the chalk in this section to build up.
While it's not neccessary to claim this cache, it would be nice to see photos of you or your GPS with either the quarry or the chimney stack of the cement factory in the background.
Well done to twigletcaz for the FTF.
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