A Level Geology at Blencathra (Small Group Course)

This course provides an opportunity for schools with low student numbers to prepare and plan for their A Level Geology.

Blencathra Field Centre is situated 300m up, on the south facing slopes of Blencathra in the Lake District National Park. It sits just one mile outside the Lakeland village of Threlkeld, with panoramic views of the Lake District fells. This impressive setting has a true sense of space, giving the site a unique quality, which many visitors enjoy year after year.

Small Group or Individual Student Days are designed to bring together individual students, home educated students, schools with small cohorts, or students who were unable to attend a residential or alternative trip. By bringing groups together you do not have to pay for a minimum number of students.

These courses are for groups of 9 or fewer students from any one school.

To ensure the safety of all participants on our day and residential small groups courses, any child, or group of children from an individual school or home-education group, aged under 18 years must be accompanied by a responsible adult, eg teacher or parent. Other adult learners eg mature students or those who have recently turned 18 are welcome to join the course.

The price of the course includes

Accommodation in shared rooms (single rooms for adults where available but cannot be guaranteed
Food from dinner on day 1 to packed lunch on day 5
In-course transport to fieldwork sites during the course
All course teaching
Equipment, wellies and waterproofs if required.
Accompanying staff and adults are charged at half the student rate plus VAT.

Example Timetable

Groups arrive around 12:30.
Introduction to the centre.
(Please bring your own packed lunch on the first day.)

Day 1

Morning

Borrowdale Volcanics
Geological Investigations

Students will visit the stunning Borrowdale valley and make basic observations at a range of outcrops.
As students first field excursion the aim is to develop their core notebook keeping, observational and quantitative skills.
Outcrops include two of, Castlehead Dolerite near Keswick, the Seathwaite Slabs (with distinctive ripples and cross bedding), and Derwent water lake shore outcrops, volcaniclastic rocks.

Follow up

An interactive session using videos, card sorts and hand specimens will explore the geological history of Cumbria to provide an overall framework for the course.

Day 2

Shap: Crystalline and Orogenic Processes

Students will visit the working Shap Pink granite quarry, with kind permission of Armstrong Ltd. Students will capture macro-observations of the site with field sketches and photographs; and conduct detailed observations of the mineralogy and texture of the granite. From this the students will be able to make basic conclusions regarding the evolution of an igneous intrusion.

Students will visit a road cutting of folded turbidites from the Windermere Supergroup. Students complete field sketches and collect a large set of dip and strike data that will be used in the GIS follow up session.
There will also be time to visit the Shap Wells unconformity, or Great Asby Scar, an outstanding limestone outcrop near Orton.

Follow up

Students will use the Mann Whitney U test to evaluate changes in megacryst abundance from the margin to the centre of the intrusion.
Students plot their orientation data collected in the field, together with a secondary dataset from the BGS 1:50 map sheet in ArcGIS online to assess if the outcrop fits into the regional pattern of the Windermere Supergroup.

Day 3

Contact Metamorphism
Geological investigation: Investigating contact metamorphism

Immediately behind the Blencathra centre is one of the UK’s best examples of a contact metamorphic aureole.
The investigation will be based along a transect from the centre towards the Skiddaw granite. As we walk towards the granite students will observe changes in the mineralogy and texture of the rocks, including andalusite slate and hornfels.
Upon reaching the granite, students will be able to locate the contact outcrop.

Follow up

Students will use their field observations to draw isolines of metamorphic grade. They can then construct a cross section and use trigonometry to calculate the true orthogonal thickness of the aureole and explain why the aureole trace is so large in proportion to the granite outcrop.

Day 4

Sedimentary Processes and Geological Sequences
Geological investigation: palaeoenvironmental change in the Palaeozoic

This itinerary takes in a range of sedimentary rocks towards the Eden valley, including the Devonian Mell Fell Conglomerate, and Penrith Aeolian Sandstone. At the conglomerate we will observe palaeocurrent indicators and measure the orientation of a range of clasts.
We will then travel to a river section near Armathwaite, to study the Brockram Facies section: fluvial red sandstone and flash flood breccio-conglomerates. Students will produce a sedimentary log of the section to make interpretations of depositional processes and palaeoenvironment.

Follow up

Students will use rose diagrams and Chi2 analysis to investigate if any palaeocurrent can be interpreted from the Mell Fell Conglomerate.
They will then summarise the palaeoenvironmental changes they have interpreted.

Day 5

Relative Dating
Geological investigation: reconstruct a geochronology of a complex outcrop at School House Quarry, Mungrisdale

Students will conduct a site investigation of the School House Quarry area to identify what geochronologies are supported by the available field relationships and evidence. Field sketches of cross cutting relationships and orientation data will be used to work out the geological history.

Course finishes at 12:30

A typical day at Blencathra.

We make the most of your time whilst at the centre. Your course will include up to 8 hours 45 minutes of contact time with your tutor. Whilst exact timings will vary depending on weather, pace, individual, a typical day would normally involve activities starting at 9.15am. On return to the centre in the afternoon, students will have a break and complete fieldwork follow up.