Holy Island is a small island off the coast of Anglesey which is a small island off the coast of north Wales, Britain which is itself a small island. We spent 5 days there over the Easter holidays mapping the world renowned structural geology of Anglesey. Structural geology is the part of geology that deals with folding, faulting and general tectonic movement of rocks from the micro scale to the global scale. It is, in my opinion, by far the best aspect of geology and hopefully something that I will eventually go into when I leave university (scary!). So the Anglesey field trip was right up my street. We mapped along the coast, measuring the orientations of folds and plotting their data into a special type of graph called a stereonet (if you plan to do geology at some point you will end up loving these). With this graph we are able to use the data from the little folds to see the huge regional scale folds that can’t be seen by eye. It told us a lot about the stress and strain that these rocks have been through since they were deposited a long time ago.
Besides the brilliant geology, there was the weather… with wind speeds of 25 mph and a wind chill of -7oC some days; it was a freezing cold field trip – we even encountered snow! Here are a few pictures to illustrate the geology and the weather:
Say cheese!
Some of the smallest folds I’ve ever seen!
Us wrapped up in 6-8 layers!
Some beautiful Z folds
More beautiful folds
We had sun on the last day – typical!
If you have any questions regarding the trip or structural geology I’d love to hear from you.
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