A Field Trip in Doncaster - Part 2

 

At Warmsworth Park

My trip to Locke Park in Barnsley was made all the better by a spell of good weekend weather but, by the following week, the rain had returned and this again affected the Sheffield U3A Geology Group field trip that had been planned for this week. 

 

Site locations on the field trip

Perhaps many of the group members who had turned up to the February meeting, which had to be abandoned due to the arrival of Storm Dudley, had been put off by the idea of visiting more old quarries or parking in a few places, but only seven of us turned up on the day - the worst attendance that I had experienced since I had joined the group in November 2015. 

 

The path from Conisbrough Viaduct to the riverside public footpath

 

With rain forecast for the afternoon, we started at our walk at the north end of Conisbrough Viaduct and quickly made our way down a path, which had been very muddy during the recce a couple of weeks earlier, to the main footpath towards Sprotbrough. 

 

Ornamental detailing of the brickwork at Conisbrough Viaduct

Stopping briefly to look at the ornamental detailing of the Staffordshire Blue brickwork, which I thought very surprising for such a utilitarian structure, we then headed along the path to the Nearcliff quarries to look at the spectacular slumps in the dolomitic limestone. 

 

At Nearcliff quarries

Many of the rifts seen here are filled with sandy material, which is very probably loose Quaternary glaciofluvial sand and gravel that has washed down into the voids and, in some places in the quarry, the uppermost beds of limestone are covered in similar loose material. 

 

Glaciofluvial sand and gravel on the top of the limestone

 

Returning to our cars, we then set off to the Church of St. John the Evangelist at Cadeby, where we had lunch and had a look at the various sedimentary and deformation structures, which are visible in the dolomitic limestone used for the walling. 

 

Lunch at the Church of St. John the Evangelist

 

For the afternoon session, we started at the old building sand quarry that was once used as the Cedar Road adventure playground, which has fine examples of Triassic sandstone from the Chester Formation, which has a channel deposit with mudstone clasts. 

 

The Chester Formation at Cedar Road quarry

 

Here I obtained a sample of the fine grained red sandstone, which does not contain an abundance of pebbles like the same rock formation further south in Nottinghamshire, together with small samples of brown mudstone. 

 

Sandstone and mudstone from Cedar Road quarry

 

With the rain starting to fall, we didn’t all venture up the slippery slopes to the deposit of glaciofluvial sand and gravel that overlays the sandstone, but I instead went to obtain a few pebbles that are typical of those found in Quaternary deposits like this in Doncaster. 

 

Glaciofluvial pebbles

By the time we reached Warmsworth Park, to look at the Sprotbrough Member of the Cadeby Formation, the rain was falling steadily but we were still able to examine the principal features that had been identified in the old quarry. 

 

The Sprotbrough Member at Warmsworth Park

 

Having spent so much time organising this and the abandoned field trip the previous month, it was worth enduring a bit of discomfort in the increasingly heavy rain and we managed to spend a good full day out, with it being nearly 4 o’clock in the afternoon before we finally finished.  

At Warmsworth Park