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Issue 58 of the Rockwatch Magazine – published July 2011

Special days out with Rockwatch
Some of our amazing field trips are highlighted in this section, along with school visits.

HOT WATER IN THE WORLD’S COLDEST OCEAN

From the research ship RRS James Cook, Cathy Cole and colleagues discover some startling things about life in the deep, dark Antarctic Ocean. Discover how cold sea water can reach temperatures of up to 4000C in the ocean crust before it bursts out into the sea, forming huge “black smokers” on the sea bed.

COOK UP SOME PANCAKE ROCKS

Try Kate Salmon’s yummy recipe for making your own replica Punakaiki pancakes! Kate explains how these pancake rocks formed in New Zealand some 33 million years ago.

GOING MOULDY

Sometimes it’s not possible to remove fossils from their site of origin, so rubber moulds have to be made which can then be used to cast accurate replicas of the fossil. These can then be studied in the laboratory. Seabury Salmon follows geologists on recent trips to see how it’s done and explains where you might see some amazing replicas in museums around the country.

SEA-FLOOR SPREADING MARMALADE

Susanna van Rose, shares with us the magic of playing with words and how bizarre associations of words can lead to some amazingly creative thinking. Susanna explains how she got a Christmas card with a sea-floor spreading marmalade label in it from a friend who’d illustrated a book she’d written many years ago.

MY CHARMOUTH FOSSIL HUNTING DIARY

Follow Freya Carter, Rockstar winner in 2010 and 2011, on her recent holiday to Charmouth. Her fossil collecting did not always go as smoothly as she hoped, but she did manage to find some rather splendid fossils and learnt much about collecting in the process!

CRYSTAL-CLEAR PATTERNS

Ian Mercer shares his enthusiasm for the wonderful crystal structures that he knows so well. He explains how we can use patterns we see in the world about us to help us understand the highly ordered internal structure of crystals.

TREE FOSSILS ON “TREASURE ISLAND”

The Isle of Bute in Scotland was the unexpected place where Elsa Henderson discovered bits of fossil wood on the beach near her home. This surprising find (non had been found here before) led her to discover more about the fossil and the ancient environment where it lived, as she explained to Hannah Falcon-Lang.

EXPLORING MARS

Follow Jane Robb, Rockstar winner a number of times and now a geology graduate, as she explores the Martian surface and finds some extraordinary images. She muses on their formation and the role they may have played in the geological history of the planet.

SCULPTING MOUNTAINS OF GRANITE

In the Black Hills of South Dakota, USA, Peter Doyle visits two amazing sculptures cut into the granite rocks. Mount Rushmore, where the huge heads of four U. S. presidents – Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Jefferson form the first one carved out of the granite. And, these sculptures formed the backdrop to the climax of a famous Alfred Hitchcock film! The other, even bigger one, Crazy Horse, yet to be completed, is sited on a nearby granite mountain, selected by the elders of the Lakota Indians as a special memorial site to this famous Indian warrior.

HORSETAILS – REAL SURVIVORS

A Rockstar 2011 prize-winner and longtime Rockwatch member, Emily Frankish, explains how horsetails have survived through geological time since the Devonian period to the present day. Her article was part of the much longer version she submitted on evolution for the 2011 Rockstar competition.