Author

Giles David

Date

2008-onwards

Project Type

Undergraduate Tutorial Programme

Subject

Applied Geology

Datasets

OS County Series; OS National Grid; Land-Line.Plus; DoE Industry Profiles; Papers from The Lyell Collection; BRITICE: Map and GIS database of glacial landforms and features related to the last British Ice Sheet

Sources: Digimap, Historic Digimap, Geology Digimap, Department of Environment, Shropshire Geological Society, The Geological Society of London, Sheffield University

Dates/Editions: 1st Edition, First Revision, 2nd Revision, 3rd Revision, First Impression, First Metric

Scales: 1:10,560 & 1:10,000

Related Subjects

Geology, History, Climate Change Studies

Key Words

Teaching; Undergraduate; Geology

Publishing Institution

Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth

Summary

A week by week series of tutorial exercises to examine the geological setting, historical development, contamination and geological hazards associated with Ironbridge Gorge, Telford.

Aims & Objectives

The project aims to develop a guided tutorial programme to introduce students to desk study, historical, geological and topographic maps together with other data sources to examine the applied geological development of a complex area.

Methodology

Each week students are provided with a variety of themed data sets together with a worksheet exercise to consider various applied geological aspects of the Ironbridge Gorge area.

They start by considering the geological setting (solid, drift, structure, mineralization) using the Geology Digimap collections supplemented with other papers, memoirs and geological maps.

Next they consider the historical development of the Gorge with specific reference to contaminated land and geological hazard issues (mining, subsidence, landslide etc) that can be gleaned from the Historic Digimap collection, considering landuse/site change over a timeline series of the maps.

This historical development of the industries discovered on the historical maps is then linked to the Department of Environment Industry Profiles to consider the contaminated land legacy left behind by these various industries.

The programme continues to look at the mining in detail and also considers the land stability issues in the Gorge. This work culminates in considering ground behaviour models and how thematic mapping can be used to visualise these models.

The programme will finish with a short field course to interrelate the data sourced from the map collections to the remaining evidence to be found in the Gorge.

Results/Outcome

Students will have a greater appreciation of the data sets available to them for desk study exercises as well as developing the skills to access and interpret these data sets.

References & Acknowledgements

This work was inspired by the Geological Society Engineering Group field visit to Ironbridge Gorge in July 2007. The meeting was led by Neal Rushton, Telford and Wrekin Council.