Church Micro 11539....Brentwood- St Thomas Beckett EarthCache

.Hi

This is a church i thought deserved a church micro and an earthcache 

History of the church 

The first church building dedicated to St Thomas in Brentwood was a chapel built around 1221 to serve these pilgrims. The ruins of the original chapel are still to be seen in the High Street. Brentwood remained part of the Parish of South Weald until 1873, but in 1835 a new church was built on the site of the present church to cater for the growing population in Brentwood. The new building had a short and unhappy history, being poorly designed and structurally unsound. Not long after Brentwood became an independent parish, the church was demolished to make way for the third St Thomas's in Brentwood.

Geology of the church

There are three different rock types. Sedimentary, igenous and metamorphic rock

Sedimentary rock- rocks formed from the products of weathering by cementation or precipitation on the Earth's surface

igneous rock- formed from the products of cooling magma inside the Earths surface

Metamorpic rocks- formed by temperature and pressure changes inside the Earth

The walls of the church consist of a great variety of rocks. Notably flint, chert, sarsen stones  and quartzite. Heres some information about each of the rock type.

Flint

• Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary form of the mineral quartz categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fires.
• Flint breaks and chips into sharp-edged pieces, making it useful in constructing a variety of cutting tools, such as knife blades and scrapers. The use of flint to make stone tools dates back more than three million years; flint's extreme durability has made it possible to accurately date its use over this time. Flint is one of the primary materials used to define the stone age. Here is an example of flint

Chert

• Chert is a hard fine grained sedimentary rock. 
• Chert varies greatly in color, from white to black, but is most often found as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red and occasionally as dark green. Its color is an expression of trace elements present in the rock. Both red and green are most often related to traces of iron.
• Here is an example of Chert

Sarsen Stones

• ​​​​​
  • Sarsen stones are silicified sanstone blocks. Silicification is the geological process where petrification occurs. Petrificaiton is the process where an organic material becomes a fossil and this occurs becomes silicia rich materials, so materials high in silicon dioxide seep into earths matierials, like, wood, rock  bones and shells. Sarsen stones can be found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury plain,  Malborough downs in Wiltshire in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire Essex, Oxfordshire and Dorset. 

 Quartzite

• Quartzite is a hard metarmorhpic rock . Pure quartzite is usually white to grey, though quartzites often occur in various shades of pink and red. 

• Quartzite is very resistant and often forms ridges and resistant hilltops. The nearly pure silica content of the rock provides little material for soil ; therefore, the quartzite ridges are often bare or covered only with a very thin layer of soil and little (if any) vegetation. 

• Quartzite has been used since prehistoric times for stone tools. It is presently used for decorative dimension stone, as crushed stone in highway construction, and as a source of silicia.

Door of the church 

The door of the church is made up of a jurassic Limestone.

• Limestone is a type of sedimentary rock  which is the main source of the material lime.  Limestone often contains fossils which provide scientists with information on ancient environments and on the evolution of life.

Now to the earthcache 

• • This earthcache can be completed from outside of the church, but you are more the welcome to go inside to have a look around the church. 
  • This is an earthcache, so that means that you will need to answer geological questions to log as a find 
  • If you do not complete the questions. I will have to delete your log and if your log contains spoilers i will have to delete it.
  • You can send me the answers through message centre or through email 
  • You dont have to wait for response from me to log as a find
  1. Observe the notable rocks on the wall, which of the rocks, do you think is the smoothest in texture and which of the rocks do you think is  the roughest in texture. Explain why you think this. 
  2. Continue observing the rocks on the wall.This one will take slightly longer . In cms Whats the biggest size of each rock can you find and whats the smallest size of each rock can you find. 
  3. Estimate the percentage of the church each rock forms
  4. Go the main door. Why do you think Limestone was used to form the door and not the wall of the church?
  5. An optional task is that if you want to take a photo of your GPS or youself your more the welcome 

Thanks for visiting 

Congratulations Auntymajulie for the FTF. Well deserved 

This earthcache is part of a geotrail around Brentwood high street. There are four other earthcaches you can visit in Brentwood

• Brentwood high street ROCKS GC6C8A0 by Gceyre
• Church Micro 11655....Brentwood-St thomas Chapel GC7JYTN
• Hunters Monument GC8YP3E
• War Memorial#372 Brentwood-geology GC7JVMB
• Historic brentwood- This is an adventure lab, where, the stages corresponds with the earthcaches.

  **************************************
  For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro.co.uk
  
  See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
  **************************************