An inspiring and engaging weekend; these programmes are the perfect way for pupils and students to cover essential aspects of the Geography and Geology National curriculum, whilst at the same time being able to benefit from experiencing fun and challenging teambuilding activities.
In addition to the National curriculum requirements, it is also ideal for other geography and geology coursework and projects.
Richard Gill (the Centre Manager) is a keen geologist and through his 27 years of sea kayaking and coastal walking has attained a high degree of knowledge in the local geography and Geology.
- 5 minutes from the Centre you will find spectacular rock and landscape features - many of which appear in reference books, as the classic example in the UK - even on the front cover!
You will be basing your trip right in the middle of a remote and rugged stretch of the North Cornwall Coastline regarded as a treasure trove for Geography and Geology fieldwork. We are surrounded by countless features within easy walking distance or a short minibus ride away.
- The Centre has 10 acres of grounds which have been designated as a European AONB (Area of outstanding natural beauty) as well as SSSI (Site of special scientific interest) by English Nature due to its maritime scrub and orchids.
- 100 metres from its own private beach your bedroom overlooks its own stunning wave cut platform! Due to its remarkable wealth of Geology, the Cornwall AONB partnership has now even designed two publications – The Bude and The Crackington Haven Geology Trails to cover this unique landscape.
Programmes of Study
Below, in the programmes of study, I have included the most relevant aspects to our location.
Key stage 1- 4 plus GCSE, GCE (the new IGCSE), and AS/A level which address geomorphic processes, the features that result from them and environmental management.
Geography - school field trip
Entry level
Physical environments – Coasts
- Recognising landforms (cliff, headland, cave, arch, stack, spit, beach) Weathering, erosion and its management
GCSE - The Physical World
Coastal Landscapes
- Coastal processes produce landforms: Cliffs, wave cut platforms, headlands, bays, caves, arches, stacks, stumps, beaches, spits, bars.
- Coastal landforms are subject to change: Cliff and coastal recession and its effects
- Coastal management: How it is managed at a named location
River landscapes
- River processes produce landforms: River mouths, waterfalls, meanders, river cliffs, flood plains.
- Flooding and flood prevention: Physical and human causes of flooding, effects of river flooding on people and the environment, hard and soft engineering
AS/A Level
Physical topics
- Extreme weather: Flood impacts and management
- Crowded Coasts: Increasing development and management and effects of flooding and coastal retreat.
Geology school field trip
GCSE
Rock exposures contain evidence of how rocks were formed and subsequently deformed
- Sedimentary rocks: Shallow and deep marine environments of deposition – Sandstones, turbidites, shales
- Recognise folds, faults, unconformities
- Horizontal, dipping and folded beds
- Measure strike and dip
Character of landscape contains evidence of past and present processes
- Weathering, erosion and transportation: Water, ice and wind
AS/A Level
Geological structures
- Dip and strike in rocks
- How rocks are deformed by stress
- Recognise and identify geological structures
- Faults and features associated with them: Fault characteristics, types of fault, slickenslides and fault breccias.
- Folds and outcrop patterns associated with them: Fold characteristics, types of folds, slaty cleavage.
A Brief Geological history
Outdoor Adventure is situated 500 metres from the major wrench fault that separates the Crackington formation (a closely interbedded sequence of shales with thin turbidite sandstones) and the Bude formation (thickly bedded and massive sandstones with siltstones and shales). The sediments which made these rocks were laid down in shallow waters, similar to the Mississippi delta of today, when the area lay just north of the equator during the Carboniferous period (345 – 290 million years ago).
Approximately 290 million years ago, the earth’s plates collided with each other and huge pressures forced this seabed upwards forming giant mountain ranges. These were eventually eroded away and 145 million years ago, the area was once more dominated by the sea. 2 million years ago the Ice age impacted on the region, bringing with it, its tundra climate and permafrost. After the great thaw, a further 12,000 years of erosion by the elements has formed the dramatic coastal landscape we see today, complete with evidence of its many stages of evolvement.
Your programme can be fully tailored to suit your needs and can include the following:
1. Our geographical and geological coastal walk
A spectacular half day coastal walk along the North Cornwall Coat path. From the Centre we descend past Wanson water, a tiny stream which during the Boscastle floods of 2004 turned into a raging torrent carving out a 10 foot deep gulley through the rocks within 2 hours!
We then walk across a classic wave cut platform and then on past a huge wrench fault separating the 2 different rock formations of the Upper Carboniferous period. Within a couple of minutes we see the famous Black Rock sea stack and your journey then continues over a raised beach, beneath which are recent examples of coastal management methods including rock armour.
Along this whole stretch the eroded cliff faces display stunning examples of strata with bedding planes inclined from horizontal to vertical. We walk past the Salthouse, a property on the cliff edge, where up until the 1950’s had the coast road to Bude on its seaward side! Continuing over the spectacular Longbeak headland we see a very recent occurrence of huge cliff failure and slumping.
As we approach Bude we look down onto the spectacular rock fins of steep sandstone bedding at Compass point. At this point we descend back down onto the beach where we take you to see Whale rock, a classic example of an unusual type of folding known as a Pericline. Next to this is an example of a strange feature called a sole structure, which is displayed on the underside of the exposed rocks which show the direction of the currents of the ancient sea which laid down these sediments.
Nearly at the end of our walk, we make our way passed the extensive dunes and river mouth at Bude. Here the Outdoor Adventure minibuses are a welcome and take us back to the Centre for lunch – So much to see during a breathtaking 4 mile walk!
2. Trips on foot and minibus to examine any of the following features:
- Strata with bedding planes inclined from Horizontal to vertical including Downside-up strata Folding (Anticlines, Synclines, Periclines, Recumbent, Listric and zig-zag folding)
- Faulting
- Wave cut platform
- Raised beach
- Sand dunes
- Quartz veins
- Caves
- Natural Arches
- Hanging valleys
- Liesegang rings
- Jointing
- Load casts
- Ripple marks
- Flute casts
- Fossils (fish, solitary and colonial corals, Crinoids and trace fossils)
- Worm burrows
- Honeycomb weathering
- Pre-historic Forest
- Turbidites
- Glacial head
- River terraces
- Alluvial planes
- Cliff failure and slumping
- Coastal management issues
The granite boss of Bodmin moor with its spectacular tors showing onion skin weathering, vertical and horizontal jointing and clitters is also within a 20 minute drive of the Centre
Publications available at the Centre
- The Geology of Cornwall
- British Regional Geology SW England
- Geology of the coast between Tintagel and Bude
- Cornwall’s Geology and Scenery
