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[3.137 MB]

Within the field area of the Welsh Marches, centred on Ludlow, the excursion considered the work of two pioneers of geology: Arthur Aikin (1773-1854) and Robert Townson (1762-1827), and the possible train of geological influence from Townson to Aikin, and Aikin to Murchison, leading to publication of the Silurian System in 1839.

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Consideration of recent contour maps reveals that glacial meltwater channels in the Stiperstones and Long Mynd areas have elevations compatible with an ice margin sloping from west to east cutting across SW-NE ridges where they would have dammed water in the heads of the valleys, forcing some flow across cols in the main watershed. Such channels suggest that ice once lapped around the Stiperstones to a height of at least 330 m.

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Shropshire contains a rich landform and sediment record related to former glacial activity, yet relatively little palaeoglaciological research has been undertaken in the county. This paper argues that further research is required to resolve key questions about: (1) the extent and dynamics of Devensian ice masses in the West Midlands, and (2) the origins and ages of specific landforms and sediments. This review is written from a modern glaciological perspective and highlights areas where existing ideas about the nature of glaciation in Shropshire and the origins of Shropshire's glacial landforms and sediments requires revision in light of advances in our understanding of modern glacial processes. A number of avenues for future palaeoglaciological work in the county are proposed.

[3.740 MB]

Randall is best known as a Shropshire historian, of especially the Madeley area. He earned his living as a china painter (one of the best at Coalport - which brought him into contact with local raw materials - which he described in his Clay Industries book of 1877), then printer, postmaster and local councillor. But John Randall's was an extra-ordinary life, both as a centenarian, but also as a prominent amateur geologist and author, the roles examined here.

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Most Shropshire 'quartzites' are described in the literature as strong pale sandstones and explained as being of shallow water sedimentary origin. Recent observations by the author has raised doubts about each of them: outcrops of the Rushton Schists are of metasedimentary country rock, intricately overprinted with granite-like veining. One nearby outcrop is mapped as Wrekin Quartzite, but it seems to be a genuinely metamorphic quartzite. The Wrekin Quartzite is enigmatic: at the Ercall quarries the lowermost several metres are arkose, not quartzite at all; they are rough, gritty, debris-rich sediments containing debris of older basement rocks, together with much greenish silty shale, veined and cemented with barite, and disturbed by small faults. The Stiperstones Quartzite shows characteristics typical of deep water mass flow deposits and may thus not be shallow marine at all.

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Complete volume, p.1-46

All papers.