This year it would be Dei and me doing the field trip to Cemaes. And I had suggested we distribute the talking points as follows: we take turns, and he starts. That means we would both do ones we normally don’t do. We wouldn’t be as rehearsed as usual, but it made for a change! And that’s nice too.
The forecast wasn’t very good! Rain in the morning, and wind all day. I made sure to dress warmly and bring even more layers.
Dei started off with his usual enthusiasm at a dyke swarm. I took over at an old stromatolite. Then we made sure to drive as close as we could to the next site. There we had hydrothermally altered quartzite. We chose to have lunch in the vehicle. It was very windy, and it also still rained. No day for a picnic!
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| Dei and his dyke swarm |
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| By the White Lady |
The next stop was another melange, with some rare bright orange iron carbonate. Then we had an unusually pretty other stromatolite, and a remote view on a thrust fault. We also popped into the church. It is both associated with St Patrick, and the UK’s first Muslim MP. A big claim to fame!
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| A limestone in the melange; a student is sceptical |
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| The iron carbonate |
We then went around to Porth Wen, where we looked at what may be that thrust fault again. And now up close. But was it? And does the landscape show signs of sea level rise? All this was more complicated than we would have liked. Or maybe we should have hoped for complication. It’s more interesting!
By then we were all tired and ready to get out of the wind. We went back to Bangor. I think it was a good day! And this is the last trip of 2025. In the new year we will pick it up again…
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