Westward Ho! revisited

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"'A brief history of Westward Ho!

Until 1863 Westward Ho! was just pastureland with a few farmhouses and ploughed fields. However the beach holds the earliest evidence of life in this area. An ancient forest and stone age remains are exposed at low tide .......

For the next 2 days the group was to study the coastal exposures of Carboniferous strata along the coast from Westward Ho! through to Hartland Point, and then south to beyond Bude at Milhook. A brief outline of the geological history of this area is given below.

Before the super continents of Laurasia and Gondwanaland came together to form Pangea in Carboniferous times around 300 Ma the area now known as North Devon was on the southern margin of Laurasia. To the north were the Old Red Devonian Mountains and it was the erosion of the mountains that provided most of the material that flowed south to fill the huge Culm Basin located on the continental shelves of the two converging super continents. The particular part of this synclinorium of relevance to the study of the North Devon cliffs has been named Lake Bude. During late Devonian and early Carboniferous times this basin was filled with deep water sediments in the centre and thick shallower water sediments of sands and muds at the margins. The various stages of basin fill are highly complex but in essence a series of sediment wedges pro-grading southwards, were formed from the erosion of the Welsh mountains.'

In recent years winter storms have exposed old clay beds several feet beneath the sand and the remains of a petrified prehistoric forest. Pieces of metalwork from World War II have also been exposed, near the slipway and the Pebble Ridge Bridge access points

Like frozen froth from the top of a root beer, this up close and personal look at a volcanic rock from near the SW Rift Zone of Haleakala on Maui, Hawaii gives the observer some insight into the processes which brought this piece of a volcano to light. The small holes, or vesicles, though only a few millimeters across, are the frozen shells of carbon dioxide and water vapor gas bubbles that helped to propel the molten rock to the surface at Haleakala. Under extreme pressure deep beneath the volcanic islands, water and carbon dioxide remains dissolved in the liquid basalt. But as the magma moves towards the surface, pressure is released, allowing gas bubbles to form and expand (like opening a can of soda), further propelling the 1000+ degree C mixture of rock and gas to an explosive exit from rift or crater. Rather than a quiet river of lava flowing to the sea, the exploding gas-filled cinders cool quickly in the air, and the propelling bubbles are frozen in place, compelling evidence of their fiery heritage"
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Rozrr's avatar
Only been there once when I was 15... Sounds marvellous...