Our Year 10 Geography student went on an educational three-day field trip to Cornwall which took them through some of the UK’s most fascinating geological and industrial landscapes. From climbing ancient granite tors on Dartmoor to investigating spectacular folded cliffs in Bude, and exploring Cornwall’s rich mining history at Geevor and Wheal Martyn, we combined hands-on fieldwork with expert insights.

Some of our Year 10 students have each written an account of the trip, highlighting what they learned and the memorable moments from each day.

Day 1 – Bellever Tor:

On day one we walked from The YHA to Bellever Tor, on Dartmoor. We submitted the 500m peak and drew field sketches of some of the features of the formation of the Tor. The Tor formed 300 million years ago. The Dartmoor area included multiple intrusions which had been uplifted and mechanically weathered. After this we headed back to YHA and began an evening session planning for day two fieldwork in  Bude  to study the town’s rich geological past and to understand how certain features have occurred over a very long Geological period of time. By Fin S

My roommates and I perched ourselves on top of a granite Tor and completed our field sketches of the surrounding environment.  The amazing granite batholith has been uplifted and chemically eroded over millions of years mainly due to tectonic plates colliding together and later through the weathering process of hydrolysis. Because granite is an igneous rock it has got cooling joints,  and  Bellever Tor has large cooling joints that have been made larger by erosion. By Nathan B

Day 2 – Bude Basin and Millock

We traveled to Bude to meet Dr Higgs, who was an expert on the Bude Formation and had studied for a PhD at Oxford on the subject. He told us all about Bude’s geological history. We learned that a new type of fish lived in Bude in the Carboniferous Period (350 million years ago) as Bude was probably a massive lake back then – only twenty eight specimens have been found in the world, all found only in Bude. By James M

Budes creation, the crackington formation has a series of anticlines and synclines as the beds alternate between sandstone and shale rock. These are the only sediments in Budes formation as they pile up on top of one another, which may indicate that Bude 300 million years ago may have been closer to the equator.

We set off on a journey towards Bude, on the way stopping to look at Milliock’s amazing and very unique pattern of folding which we would field sketch.  This occurred with immense pressure compressing the cliffs to fold over on each other making a wonderful chevron pattern. Once we arrived in Bude, we met with a renowned geologist named Dr Higgs, who promptly took us to the Bude Museum to look at an ancient fish only found in certain places in Bude. We then walked down to Summerleaze beach and  took dip and strike measurements along a section of the the cliff face, and measured how much the rock had been compressed. We measure crustal shortening of the ‘whale back’, a periclinal landform that  looks like an ancient whale back .The beach at bude is well known for its geological folding. By Riley T

Day 3 – Cornwall’s mining history

After a long journey we arrived at Geevor tin, in St Just at the tip of Cornwall. We were travelling  to learn about its history and to understand how metals were processed at the site for many hundreds of years. We also met some of the people who used to work the mine while it was still active, which was interesting to hear what it was like to work in a mine and what promotions were on offer down in the mine. 

We learnt that Geevor was a Copper and Tin mine, that used to employed 400 people 

whilst it was active. Most of these people worked in the process of extracting the ore and processing it,  with every 5 tonnes of tin costing 1000 tonnes of waste rock. The miners would move more than 300 tonnes of rock per day, but would only be paid for the tin they extracted. More than 2 square miles of tunnel down were sunk using things like dynamite, jackhammers and sledge hammers horizontally under the Atlantic Ocean. By Luke C

After lunch we travelled up to St Austell to visit Wheal Martyn, which was a China Clay open cast pit. We learnt it was once one of the largest man made holes on the planet and we took field sketches of the current active mine and gathered information about its past history. Mike, a retired geologist of the site, explained what was happening at the pit, where they were mining the pit and then explaining the process of site restoration by revegetating and restoring life back to the mined parts which were no longer active. By Fred H