This EarthCache has been placed to mark the 75th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, also known as ‘D-Day’, which took place on 6th June 1944. At GZ, you will find the D-Day Memorial, a cuboid construction surrounded by a low stone wall. The steps make it difficult for a wheelchair to move directly from the Memorial to the sunken garden area, but the adjacent pavement can be used to move around the perimeter of the large traffic island that the Memorial and gardens lie upon. Rocks are composed of either crystals or fragments of older rocks, and can form in seconds (e.g. from a volcano) or over many millions of years.
There are three groups of rock:
Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic
Igneous rocks are formed from magma that originates from the molten interior of the Earth. If it remains underground, it cools slowly, forming crystalline rocks such as granite, which contains large crystals, these typically being white cuboid-looking crystals of feldspar, with greyer quartz, and varied black and shiny/metallic-looking mica crystals too. When magma erupts it cools to form volcanic landforms, with basalt a typical example, a black/dark rock that contains small crystals due to the fast rate of cooling.
Sedimentary rocks are formed from sediments (pieces of older rocks), that have settled at the bottom of a lake, sea or ocean, or been deposited by the wind, and have then been compressed over millions of years. The sediment comes from eroded rocks that were carried there by wind, or rivers of liquid water ice, and from the skeletons of sea creatures. Examples of sedimentary rocks include limestone, coal, and sandstone. Limestone is made of calcium carbonate, and forms in warm shallow seas, where many types of shells, corals, sponges and other fauna once lived. If formed in deeper seas, there will generally be a wide variety of fauna, probably of differing sizes too. If formed in shallower, maybe inter-tidal areas of a coast, the rock will have thin layers, maybe alternating between mud and sandy layers, these possibly having the traces of snails or worms, or ripple marks from the water currents in the shallow sea. Coal is a dark-coloured rock composed of the remains of plant materials. Sandstones are composed of sand-sized grains of rock or minerals, these deposited in large sand dunes upon the land in a windy desert, or on beaches around rivers or beaches, or offshore from the land.
Metamorphic rocks have been subjected to tremendous heat and/or pressure, causing them to change into another type of rock. They are usually quite resistant to weathering and erosion and are therefore very hard-wearing. Due to how they were formed, no fossils are found in metamorphic rocks, as they are destroyed when the original rocks are deformed. Examples of metamorphic rocks include marble, a sugary-looking crystalline rock which originates from limestone. Slate originates from clays or mudstones.
D-Day
The Americans had been pushing for an invasion of NW Europe from the moment they joined the war in 1941. There was pressure, too, from the Soviet Union, which was desperate for its allies to relieve pressure on the Eastern Front. But it wasn't until the Allies had made great headway in North Africa and the Mediterranean, and, more importantly, the U-Boat menace had been contained in the critical Battle of the Atlantic, did Churchill and Roosevelt promise Stalin that they would open a new front in the late spring of 1944, with the intention of pushing the Germans out of France and the Low Countries. So they started planning for an invasion, codenamed ‘Operation Overlord’.
The military build-up that followed was of astonishing dimensions. In the run up to June 1944, nine million tonnes of equipment crossed the Atlantic, together with 1.4 million US Servicemen. In total there were more than 2 million troops from a dozen countries stationed along England's South Coast, with Portsmouth being the focal point for the planning and eventual operation. The decision where to land needed to take into account the weight of the tanks on the chosen beaches, so men were sent to swim ashore to collect sand samples. From this, two locations offered possibilities, the most likely one being the beaches around Calais. The Allies chose Normandy instead, but set up what arguably became the most ambitious deception plan since the Trojan Horse, codenamed Operation Fortitude. Fortitude was needed to persuade the German high command that Calais was the chosen spot and involved a vast web of disinformation, including inflatable tanks in Kent, fake radio transmissions and other fake secret documents being 'lost'. It was so successful, that the Germans were still convinced an attack on Calais was on the cards a month after D-Day.
After poor weather was forecast for the original invasion date, 5th June, caused the operation to be delayed by one day (but still benefit by a full moon), the invasion commenced shortly after midnight with 18,000 airborne troops being parachuted into Normandy to capture bridges and toad crossings, together with Allied bombers attacking targets along the coast. Very early on the morning of 6th June, thousands of landing craft - part of the largest invasion fleet in history began transporting men and equipment across. In the course of the day, 156,000 landed on the five beaches - the British and Canadians on Sword, Gold and Juno and the Americans on Omaha and Utah. Despite fierce fighting and significant casualties on both sides, the beachheads had been secured in four locations and allowed further personnel and equipment to pour in. By the end of June 1944, 850,000 men and 570,000 tonnes of supplies had landed in Normandy.
At GZ, you will find the D-Day Memorial. The inscription on the west side states:
"1940 FRANCE AND THE LOW COUNTRIES HAVING BEEN OVERRUN WE LABOURED ALONE TO OBSTRUCT OUR COASTS WITH SUCH BLOCKS AS THIS AGAINST INVASION BY THE ENEMIES OF FREEDOM"
The block is actually made of concrete and is not of special geological interest for this EarthCache. To log this EarthCache as a find, therefore, please study the tasks questions below and email or message your answers to me. As an optional extra, you may, if you wish, post a photo of yourself with the D-Day Memorial in your online log. Please log your find as soon as you have posted answers and don't wait for the inefficient CO to get back to you.
Q1 - Please study the rocks that form the wall that surrounds the D-Day Memorial stone.
1a - Describe the rocks you see. Include their colour, grain size, texture and anything else that might help to classify them.
1b - From your observations as above, deduce the type of rock that has been used to make the wall.
1c - Are these Igneous, Sedimentary or Metamorphic rocks?
Q2 - Now go and look at the rocks that were used to make the steps down to the sunken area adjacent to the Memorial.
2a - Once again, please describe the rocks you see. Include colour, grain size, texture and anything else that might help to classify them.
2b – Please describe any fossils you see. What might they be?
2c - What type of rocks are these? (Clue - they are the same rock type, but from a different geographical area).
Q3 - Which of the rocks in Q1 and Q2 might have been deposited in shallow warm seas, and which may have been deposited in deeper seas? Please explain how you came to your conclusions.