Leeds Geological Association -
Shifting Sands and Devil’s Toenails: Jurassic Stratigraphy at Redcar
by Dr Jed Atkinson, University of Leeds
Hidden beneath the sands of Redcar are outcrops of the oldest Jurassic rocks on the Yorkshire-Cleveland Coast. The usually poor exposure quality of this succession has led to it being largely overlooked despite representing an interval of time significant to the recovery from the end-Triassic mass extinction event. In 2018 the Beast from the East parted the veil of sand providing a rare opportunity to study the section in detail. These rocks belong to the Redcar Mudstone Formation, a mudstone and siltstone-dominated sequence with cycles of shell beds containing high numbers of the bivalve Grphyaea. Redcar Rocks provides a complementary section to the famous Blue Lias of SW Britain and the Scunthorpe Mudstone Formation of the Midlands and allows themes of marine oxygenation and recovery from mass extinction to be explored in a new setting.
This talk will be delivered via Microsoft Teams. Joining instructions will be circulated to members of the Leeds Geological Association nearer the date. Non-members are welcome to attend and should email their Secretary at lga.sec@btinternet.com no later than 24 hours before the scheduled start time, to request joining instructions.