During the Easter vacation, multiple groups of 1A Natural Sciences students head to the Isle of Arran, off the coast of south-west Scotland. It is a location unparallelled in the world for the diversity and number of different geological features.
While the island is small, it contains a lot of evidence of the geological history of Britain. We investigate the sediments that document Britain's northwards drift across the equator over the last 400 million years, from the Carboniferous forests to the deserts of the Permian and the volcanism of the last sixty million years. We go to Hutton's unconformity, which is a site of historical significance as the geological observation gave James Hutton an understanding of 'deep time'. We see evidence of large scale deformation, both in rocks and in the Highland boundary fault. Some fossil highlights include well-deformed brachiopods, a fulgerite, giant millipede tracks, and a footprint from a large reptile.
Students learn to make observations in the field and think about the underlying processes, keep a field notebook, make structural measurements, and create geological sketches. The students also spend a day independently mapping a valley. The days are packed and the evenings are filled with recaps and student presentations.
Quotes from 1A students:
"A fantastic trip - really well organised and fun as well as very educational."
"It really helped consolidate material which is much easier to learn in the field than in lectures."
Check out this blog post about a 2022 trip (although don't be fooled by the nice weather as due to COVID this trip happened later in the year).