Visiting Cemaes again; now as a geologist

The day after my archaeological walk in the Cemaes area, I was back on my way there in an coach otherwise full of ocean sciences students. I was going to do the same itinerary again, but this time I (with my two colleagues) was supposed to be the source of information. 

It started with something new! From the village beach we went west. There was an outcrop there of several rock types. I hadn't seen it before! It was an old sedimentary rock with a dyke coming through it, and a stromatolite around the corner.

The ‘new’ western outcrop

From there we went back to familiar terrain. St Patrick's Church, the Precambrian mélange to the west of it, stromatolites right by St Patrick's cave, and the view on a thrust fault within the Carmel Head Thrust Belt. 

When we had seen all that it was already time to get back to the coach! That would take us East to Porth Wen, where the firebrick work is, and the fossil pebbly beach. I think the students thought that being back on the coach meant we were done. When it stopped at a layby I saw many unimpressed faces! But they all accepted the situation and trundled after me to the drumhouse again. I spoke a bit about the industrial remains, and Jaco rounded off with his musings about the sedimentary rocks. Then we were really done! 

The drumhouse 

It had, in my mind, been a much more positive trip than last year. That year it had been awfully windy, and we had inadvertently organised things such that I had only had the very last outcrop to talk about, so by that time the students were tired and fed up. The other men had got distracted by something or other. I didn’t enjoy that at all! I had been SO aware that these students came into a School without women in high positions. That makes me really keen on making sure that I, as the only woman teaching on the module, come across as just as worthy of being listened to as the men. Because it isn’t self-evident in a School like ours. And this failed miserably. But it had lead to me speaking out to my line manager. And I’m glad I took that step…