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Thursday 25 September 2014

Interesting encounter at Rhosyfelin


Update from Rhosyfelin:  The area in front of the tent has been partly filled, with some soil and many boulders thrown in on top of a protective sheet.  The steep exposures to the left have been degraded and converted into more gentle slopes -- no doubt to prevent accidents.  But some parts of the exposures are still visible.   A lot of grass seed has also been scattered. (The photo shows the dig as it looked while work was still going on.)


I called in at Rhosyfelin today, to check it out.

The good news is that the pit has NOT been filled in -- the lower part of the dig (where the work was going on this year) has been covered with a sheet, and lots of big boulders have been thrown in on top of it to keep it in place.  But quite a few of the new exposures are still visible, and can easily be freshened up if any geologists or geomorphologists want to look at them.

The bad news is that I met a fellow there with two or three others who were looking around.  His wife told me that he was Head of the Geology Department at a well-known university which will remain nameless;  I think I was supposed to be impressed.  He was holding forth about the characteristics of the "quarry" -- so I asked, ever so politely, as one does, what it was that made him think it was a quarry.  "Of course this is a quarry!" he said with disdain.  "This is very quarryable material, so it's a quarry!"  I tried, ever so gently to talk a little about glaciers and meltwater, but he was entirely disinterested, and seemed not to know what I was talking about.  And so we went our separate ways......... 

12 comments:

TonyH said...

Alas, not a meeting of minds, then. His mind appears to have been already made up.

TonyH said...

SONG FOR THE UNKOWN GEOLOGIST
[AND ARCHAEOLOGIST - ADHERENTS TO THEIR RULING HYPOTHESIS, EVERYWHERE]

Please open your eyes
Try to realise
I found out today we're going wrong

Please open your mind
See what you can find
I found out today we're going
wrong
We're going wrong

Written by Jack Bruce of Cream, 1967

BRIAN JOHN said...

I think that is quite a reasonable assumption!!

BRIAN JOHN said...

A song for every occasion, Tony! What would we all do without you?

TonyH said...

I just hope, on this occasion, that this choice of song will make a few of those University College London - linked archaeologists with closed minds think again and broaden their outlook. What was the point of going to University, if not to broaden one's outlook??
At least Myris (who seems to know a thing or two about Archaeology and Geology) shows us he will listen to others' points of view, even if he insists on hiding behind that curious pseudonym!!

Myris of Alexandria said...

Of more significance than stray HoDs have any geomorphologists, glacial people been.
That is where you should be keeping up the pressure to get the section sectioned.
Sometimes this all seems like a sinister plot played out in Perfidious Albion.
M

BRIAN JOHN said...

I'm working on it, Myris. Very hopeful that we will have quite a few geomorphologists and geologists looking at this site in the coming months, with or without permission from MMP........ after all, there is no access problem, since the site is on a public footpath.

BRIAN JOHN said...

The sad thing is that all these people will be talking to me rather than to MPP, who will presumably therefore still not encounter anybody prepared to challenge his particular understanding of the universe.....

TonyH said...

Presumably Universe may be construed as the root of the word University?!?

Brian has recently mentioned the need for a multi - disciplinary approach to all things Bluestone. I used to have to work with a variety of disciplines as an information worker in an environmental planning context in SE Wales, so I fail to understand why MPP and his coherts ignore contact with the acknowledged academic subjects of geomorphology and glaciology, particularly as they frequently remind us of how they interact with their finite variety of other disciplines.

TonyH said...

My mention, above, of Cream's "We're Going Wrong" was not intended to be taken as a flippant comment.
Not everyone will be aware of Cream on this Blog. It is a profound song, sung and performed with great sincerity and depth. If you're not aware of Cream, I suggest you take a look at one of their versions of "We're Going Wrong" on u-tube. e.g.:-

Cream at the Royal Albert Hall, 2005.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFGcnZITEKw

BRIAN JOHN said...

A pity -- the powers of darkness won't let me look at the video.......

TonyH said...

Alternatively, I recommend people put into their Search Engine:-

CREAM WE'RE GOING WRONG YOUTUBE

and several choices should become available.