Students on secluded beach

 It is early spring, so inevitably, we would be doing the field day on the beach. The one I do with my friend and colleague Lynda, where we look at glaciofluvial sediment exposed in a cliff on a beach in southern Anglesey. Normally we do that first thing in the morning, but this year the tides were against, and the students would only leave the main campus at 11:30. So I had the morning for other things. And at about 11 I took the School’s pick-up truck to the layby by the path to the beach.

When I got there, the water was still too high to get onto the beach. I texted Lynda to say I would have to set out the sections for the students to log while she would give them the introduction. I just had some sandwiches, and then the coach with the students appeared.

No beach! 

By that time, the water was so low the first part of the beach was accessible. But only just! There is a stream that enters the sea, and normally there is enough space to walk behind it. But since last year, it has moved inland; the only way of getting onto the beach now was to clamber over some big boulders by the meander in the stream. Not very inviting!

Stream inhibiting access to the beach

I set to work. I always pick a number of sections that I find interesting, mark them out in chalk, and hammer in a peg with a section label next to them. And I had just about enough beach to mark out to the usual number. Then I went back to where Lynda was talking to the students.

Just enough beach to get past the promontory 

Sediment selfe

She rounded off, and the students went off in their groups to log the sections, and we walked around checking on how they were doing. It was a gorgeous day! It was cold but sunny.

We had to be a bit quicker the normal, as this late start meant we had to do everything in slightly less time. So after not too much time, Lynda did her final spiel, and this first group of students went back to their coach. I waited with Katie, the PhD student we had for support this year, for the second cohort to arrive. And then we did it all again!

Lynda ties it all together 

One thing that was noteworthy that this year, there were practically no other people on the beach, undoubtedly due to the stream getting in the way. That made going for a quick unobserved leak very easy! 

The beach got big later on! 

The second group was a bit colder than the first; the sun was vanishing behind the cliff, so all sections were soon in the shadow. We made sure to be done by five. 

What struck me this year was that the students are really reluctant to make a sketch of the sections. That really is the way to document them! But so many students said they just took a picture, and then took notes in their phone. But how do you know afterwards where you put your unit boundaries? I kept telling them that making a sketch forces you to make decisions, and you can base these decisions on as close a scrutiny of the cliff face as you want right there. Once you are back home and trying to do it in hindsight, you can't anymore. You are inevitably running into trouble!

I am sure that times are not far off that all students know how to draw on the pictures they take. If you do that, it's okay! You have the picture, and then on top of them you have the decisions you made about the interpretation. But nobody was doing that. I did manage to convince a fair number to make a sketch, but undoubtedly not enough!

When we were done I didn't have big problems getting the pegs out again; sometimes that is a bit of a job. But not this time. And then I could drive back to campus again!

I had stupidly left my access card in my other trousers, so I couldn't get into the building to drop off the keys. I just waited around until some better-organised person appeared, and asked them to let me in. And then I could go home! Next year again…