Geology of the UK

Using this today with Year 7

UK Landscape and Geology

An article in the Independent on the UK's natural wonders.

"It's geology that has created our diverse and extraordinary natural wonders. We owe the creation of vertiginous cliffs and sea stacks to deposits of sandstone and chalk; soft limestone has been etched and scoured to carve craggy gorges, coastal arches and echoing caverns; and sculpted from extrusions of volcanic basalt are the weirdly geometric columns of causeways and sea caves".

Volcanoes Top Trumps

You'll perhaps have seen the Volcano Top Trumps that we have a set of in the Geography department. You can now play against the computer, as the game has been turned into an online interactive game.

Useful for all KS3 groups.

You will need to register to play - e-mail and password required, plus an e-mail verification link will be sent. Consult your teachers / parents as appropriate before doing this.

Top 100 GeoSites

The top 100 places in the UK where rocks are found have been revealed in a new map and survey from the Geological Society of London.

There's also a cool interactive map. (sadly not embeddable)

One of the nearest sites to us here in Ely are the cliffs at Hunstanton, which used to be on my doorstep, and won the best coastline location.

Here's a picture I took a few years ago.

Which of these have you visited ?
We'll take a look at these after half term...

Moh's Hardness Scale

To help you with one of the Top Trumps categories...
This is the scale by which the hardness of rocks is measured..

Thanks to Dr. Duane, we have our own Moh's scale box too.

Year 7 Rock factfiles...

Geology underlies the landscape, which is draped over it...
Prep for Year 7 groups this week and next has involved the production of a rock factfile.
This can be done in powerpoint (or similar) format.

Choose a suitable rock - could be either igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic....
Or perhaps a gemstone...
Tell me a bit about the rock, particularly how hard it is, how it was formed etc... What would the world be like if your rock didn't exist ?
Where is it formed ?

Source some appropriate images and parcel the whole thing up nicely...
Rock on !