Dr Joanna Wright has recently led a fieldtrip at the British ScienceFestival. She took British Science Association Members to look at the geology and for dinosaur footprints around Scarborough.
This
area of the coast has become famous for dinosaur footprints in the last couple of
decades. In addition to dinosaur footprints there are also many plant
fossils and burrows.
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| Footprint of a medium-sized meat eating dinosaur |
These rocks were deposited by a delta during the middle
Jurassic, about 165 million years ago. Maybe the plant-eating dinosaurs
browsed among the lush vegetation and the meat-eating theropods lay in wait for
them.
The group then went south of Scarborough to look at the Holbeck Hall Landslide, which happened in June 1993.
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| The Holbeck Hall Landslide - slope stabilisation solutions |
The landslide was a result of some very heavy rainfall
causing the slope underneath the hotel and its gardens to fail. It was
not due to cliff erosions. It destroyed the Holbeck Hall hotel but it has now
been landscaped and the toe of the landslide has been protected against the sea
to reduce the likelihood of more slipping. However, some holiday chalets
nearby (seen under tarpaulins on the right-hand side of the photo) were damaged
due to slope slippage and the failure of a retaining wall in March 2018, and
there are currently slope stabilisation operations between the funicular
railway and Scarborough Spa.
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| The Holbeck Hall Landslide |
