reading rocks

Send us Fan Mail This is a journey from moors above the middle reaches of the River Tees near Barnard Castle to its mouth where it empties into Hartlepool Bay. Along the way the plan is to look at some prehistoric rock art at Barningham, celebrate the merits of sand and gravel and a hear a cautionary tale about flood risk, revisit the salt deposits of Teesside and in Hartlepool Bay hear about some graphic evidence of times when our coastline was very different

Send us Fan Mail The first of our journeys is along the River Tees. The Tees has its headwaters way up in the Pennines, in the Carboniferous rocks just east of Cross Fell, but downstream of Cow Green Reservoir it cuts through some of the oldest rocks in Northern England – that’s why its the first or the rivers in this series. On our way downstream we will explore some different bits of the Whin Sill and some rocks it baked, the making pencils from ancient slates and take a closer look at High...

Send us Fan Mail The episode title of this section of the Roman Rock Trail isn’t perfect – as we are starting in west Durham in a place called Lanchester, then returning to the Wall at Heddon – a village which owes its position to its hard sandstone bedrock resisting glacial erosion more than the surrounding area. And then onto Benwell. A place not on the current Hadrian’s Wall Trail but from what I hear it will be in the near future. As will the final stop, South Shields Fort – popularly kno...

Send us Fan Mail This episode initially takes us from Chesters on the Wall to Hexham. South of the Wall but very much a gateway and one with some important recycled Roman rocks. Then back to close to the Wall at Fallowfield before jumping back south to Roman Corbridge – Coria or sometimes Corstopitum. The geology will be as diverse as the geography. From the rocks that made millstones to a cavalryman's tombstone,

Send us Fan Mail All of these podcasts are geological but this episode is three-quarters pure rock. First the plan is to look closely at the rock that provided the mortar for the wall – limestone – did the Romans use it to sweeten these northern soils too – they can be pretty acid. Next its more whin Sill – I am starting to wonder if there’s too much on this rock already, but it does play a huge role in the landscape and on Roman plans and they say you can’t get enough of a good thing. The Wh...

Send us Fan Mail Time to descend into and out of one of the classic components of this frontier landscape - one of the "gaps". You have already experienced a few and today there will be a few more. But your legs need a break so we are going to deviate south of the Wall too. To see a ditch, then go find about two mineral resources that were used extensively by the Romans - coal and iron - but what do we know about them.

Send us Fan Mail We are starting at Bewcastle Fort around 10 kilometres north of Hadrians Wall – well that’s as the crow flies. But then we will be returning the Wall and some of its most dramatic landscapes and archaeology. From a ruined medieval Thirlwall Castle near Greenhead village – built completely of re-purposed Roman stones – we climb up onto the escarpment of the Whin Sill – 295 million years ago it was an intrusion of molten rock that then solidified into a hard rock called dolerit...

Send us Fan Mail Our journey east continues, we are about one and a half kilometres north east of Lanercost just over the line dividing the red St Bees Sandstone bedrock from grey brown Carboniferous rocks – although there is no bedrock to see here – its covered by a variable thickness of glacial deposits. Those thick stony clays sand and gravels may well explain why the first incarnation of Hadrian’s Wall in the western sector was made of earth and turf and not stone. They also mean its esse...

Send us Fan Mail Series 3 is an extended Hadrian’s Wall rock trail with little side trips and the first episode will start just north of a little seaside town called Maryport on the southern coast of the Solway Firth and head north and then east. We will take in salt making, how the Romans defended an estuary at Burgh Marsh, a large Roman building in Carlisle whose drains have produced a fantastic collection of semi-precious stones - intaglios; and finish at a Roman quarry in a gorge of...

Send us Fan Mail We are so lucky in the north – apart from having far more open space than most people those open spaces have some of the most spectacular landscapes in Britain. Our northern landscapes are a result of our geology and their biodiversity and cultural heritage are profoundly influenced by our geodiversity. How to choose just 7 places to illustrate this? Someone will rightly ask – how could he leave that out!.

Send us Fan Mail The episode title does have a double meaning – the rocks and deposits that lie beneath us have a very strong controlling influence on what we do to our planet and what we don’t do and what we shouldn’t. They may take time to assert that influence but the fact is that ultimately nature will always win any fight we pick with it. I’m going to be talking about the experiences we humans have in interacting with the ground beneath our feet – the opportunities it presents and the ha...

Send us Fan Mail There are so many places across the north of England that show us how the human race has depended on rocks that I felt this topic needed at least 2 episodes. The last episode explored the origins of stone axes, copper, iron and lead ores, coal and graphite. This one visits 6 more places that have examples of very different uses for the geological resources of our planet. First we are off to the City of Durham.

Send us Fan Mail It is difficult to overstate how dependent we humans are on the resources geology – rocks – provide. It was rock that first provided prehistoric people with shelter and with the raw materials for their tools and weapons, jewellery and pots. Stones built their monuments and the tombs for their dead. Making fire is one of the things that distinguished us humans from animals – we struck two rocks to take that evolutionary step. Our ancestors’ connection with the landscape and it...

Send us Fan Mail This second episode explores those northern rocks that are the domain of palaeontologists – rocks that contain fossils. These remains of lives long ago from sea shells to dinosaurs are one of the three aspects of geology that - along with earthquakes and volcanoes - excite the general public more than any others. How many geologists were seduced into the science by their fascination with these traces of ancient life.

Send us Fan Mail This first episode of Series two - called a restless north - takes a look at how dynamic our land has been (and still is!). At least once or twice a year we are reminded of the awesome but terrifying power of the planet by catastrophic earthquakes occurring around the globe. Earthquakes happen here too – but on a more subdued level. But we have evidence in the north that they were once rather more assertive. How our rocks have been bent, broken and moved is the challeng...

Send us Fan Mail Part two of this short geo-fiction story looks forward 40 years and 100,000 years. It may be a speculative look into our future but it draws nonetheless on forensic climate projections and impacts which have been generated by reputable scientists. Reading the story of the Earth through its rocks has been likened to reading a book with 90% of its pages missing. An incredible tale and fertile ground for the imagination for sure. But everything in this short story is based on so...

Send us Fan Mail Reading the story of the Earth through its rocks has been likened to reading a book with 90% of its pages missing. An incredible tale and fertile ground for the imagination for sure. But everything in this two-part short story is based on sound scientific, archaeological and historical evidence. Part Two - the final two chapters of the story - may be a speculative look into our future four decades and 100,000 years ahead, but they draw nonetheless on forensic climate projecti...

Send us Fan Mail Its time to get to grips with how people and rocks connect. And first in ancient societies. So we will be occupying the overlap – more no-mans-land – between geology and archaeology. The two subjects - just like rocks and humans - are inextricably linked. Our ancient ancestors relationship with their natural landscape – that is its rocks – was intimate. Rocks and sediments provided them with shelter, water and tools. It influenced how they used the landscape – their set...

Send us Fan Mail Our tectonic plates continued their erratic waltz north. All the while billions of tonnes of sediments were deposited, turned to rock, tilted up here and there and then eroded away. 60 million years ago lava started to pour out of an enormous rift that was to become the Atlantic Ocean. North America and Europe have been drifting apart ever since. 2.6 million years ago the Earth‘s temperature began to fluctuate again; we cooled and then warmed, repeatedly – the Ice Age –...

Send us Fan Mail This episode starts with injection of molten rock across northern England a rock that is responsible for a huge chunk of our tourist economy. Then it takes a tour of hot deserts, evaporating salty seas, and finally our secret bit of every fossil hunters dream rock. On the way we’ll hear about plots to blow up a famous stone circle, dispose of nuclear waste, a mass global extinction and a more recent awful tragedy. Sounds dismal, but its really not!