THERE IS NO NEED TO EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ANY DANGER IN ORDER TO COMPLETE THIS EARTHCACHE.
The co-ordinates take you to the edge of the West Pennine Moors, which stretch from Ramsbottom all the way over to here, at White Coppice. Whilst they are near the urban centres of Bolton, Blackburn, Bury, Horwich, Rawtenstall and Chorley, it is still possible to walk on the moors and have a real feeling of remoteness and openess. Whilst the co-ordinates do not take you into the hinterland of the moors, they do take you to an old quarry - White Coppice Quarry. It is noted on the 1849 OS map, and the whole area has much interest geologically. We are here to look further back in time, before indeed, our hairy feet ever walked.
The co-ordinates take you to the corner of the quarry, there is no need to climb up at all. Here the stone that you can see is known as sandstone.
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock, which is sometimes known as arenite,and it is composed mainly of sand sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and / or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colors are: tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages. First, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water (as in a stream, lake, or sea) or from air (as in a desert). Typically, sedimentation occurs by the sand settling out from suspension; i.e., ceasing to be rolled or bounced along the bottom of a body of water or ground surface (e.g., in a desert). Finally, once it has accumulated, the sand becomes sandstone when it is compacted by pressure of overlying deposits and cemented by the precipitation of minerals within the pore spaces between sand grains. The most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are often derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried.
The sandstone that you can see here is Fletcher Bank Grit, which is a type of Millstone Grit. The Millstone Grit dates from the Namurian stage of the Carboniferous period. At this time a series of isolated uplands existed across the British Isles region. One particular east-west aligned landmass stretched from Wales through the English Midlands and East Anglia to the continent and is now known as the Wales-Brabant High though was formerly referred to as St George’s Land. Other uplands the erosion of which would provide the source material for the Millstone Grit lay to the north and northeast of the region. The Pennine Basin received input of sand and mud largely from southerly directed rivers from these northern landmasses. Rivers running north off the Wales-Brabant High deposited material in the southern parts of the Pennine basin from northeast Wales to the Peak District. Southerly flowing rivers from this same landmass were responsible for the Millstone Grit/Marros Group succession in South Wales. During much of the Carboniferous period, world sea-levels were fluctuating in response to the growth and decline of a series of major ice-caps over the continents then clustered around the South Pole. Britain lay in the equatorial region. At times of high sea-level, silt and mud accumulated within the Pennine basin whilst at times of low sea-level, major deltas prograded across the region, their legacy being the thick sandstone beds of the Millstone Grit Group. The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, to the beginning of the Permian Period. The Carboniferous was a time of glaciation, low sea level and mountain building, diversification and extinction; a minor marine and terrestrial extinction event among animals and plants (Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse) occurred in the middle of the period caused by climate change. The name comes from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing". Many coal beds were laid down globally during this period, hence the name. The Namurian is a stage in the regional stratigraphy of northwest Europe with an age between roughly 326 and 313 million years ago. It is a subdivision of the Carboniferous system or period and the regional Silesian series. The Namurian is named for the Belgian city and province of Namur where strata of this age occur (part of the Belgian Coal Measures). The Namurian age lasted from 326 to 313 million years ago. It is preceded by the Visean stage/age (which corresponds to the upper Carboniferous Limestone of Great Britain) and succeeded by the Westphalian stage/age (which corresponds to the lower and middle Coal Measures of Great Britain). Fletcher Bank Grit was formed in the sub-stage of the Namurian known as the Marsdenian.
So you may feel that is enough, but I have brought you here for another reason, something of interest, a relic from the far forgotten past.
You need to look up, and under an overhang you will see a fossil.
What is a fossil?
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous (fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (Strata) is known as the fossil record.
What do we have here?
What you can see, is a plant fossil. Now in the West Pennines, there tends to be three different types which can be found.
Lepidodendron. The Lepidodendron tree, also known as the scale tree, was an extinct primitive, vascular, arborescent (tree -like) plant related to the club mosses. They were part of the coal forest flora. They sometimes reached heights of over 30 metres (100 ft), and the trunks were often over 1 m (3.3 ft) in diameter. They thrived during the Carboniferous Period before going extinct. They had tall, thick trunks that rarely branched and were topped with a crown of bifurcating branches bearing clusters of leaves . These leaves were long and narrow, similar to large blades of grass, and were spirally-arranged. The closely packed diamond-shaped leaf scars left on the trunk and stems as the plant grew provide some of the most interesting and common fossils in Carboniferous deposits. These fossils look much like tire tracks or alligator skin,and likely lived in the wettest parts of the coal swamps that existed during the Carboniferous period.
Types of Lepidodendron fossils.
Calamites. These are extinct tree-like horsetails to which the modern horsetails are closely related. Their fossils have close linear segmented lines. Unlike their modern cousins, these plants were medium-sized trees, growing to heights of more than 30 meters (100 feet). </>
Goniatites, theses were the ancestors of ammonites, and were free-swimming marine animals. They could propel themselves by squirting streams of water and would have moved jerkily. Goniatites are small in size. Goniatite fossils, along with bivalves and brachiopods are found in beds of shale known as marine bands.
Goniatite fossil.
So this being an earthcache, I ask you to complete some tasks in order to log, please send me the answers, do not include them in your logs.
1. What colour is the Fletcher Bank Grit?
2. What geological period was the Fletcher Bank Grit deposited?
3. How high up is the fossil?
4. Please describe the features of the fossil, and from that tell me what type it is.