Monday 27 August 2012

Compass experement with Basaltic andesite.

I recently experimented using a compass, firstly i placed a plastic wheelie bin well away from any metal objects, i then placed first a piece of rock taken from the great whinn sill at High force in upper teesdale on top of the bin. Then i approached the bin with the compass from about 3 metres, by the time i had placed the compass on top of the rock it had been deflected by 70-80 degrees.
Irepeated this proscess with similer sized pieces of rock my findings below.


Results
             Whinn sill  deflected 70-80 degrees   ( High force)
  
               Laverkiite  deflected  20 degrees  ( Staithes sea wall )

              Coldberry  ( Cleveland dyke )  40-60 degrees


               Stainton quarry  Middlesbrough  ( Cleveland dyke )  This i repeated 3 times  70- 180 degrees. 






Saturday 25 August 2012

Auroch-Ox skull

I visited Dormans museum today with my daughters, we took the skull found by one of them at fairy dell south Midlesbrough, to compare with a 10.000 years plus skull they have on display said to have been found in Middlesbrough .


The image above shows the skull on display in a secure glass box in Dorman museum in Middlesbrough, titled as a short faced Ox? dating between 10 to 200,000 years bp





Above is one of the skulls found at fairy dell Middlesbrough  by one of my daughters to the left being compared with the museum piece.


The skull my daughter found all them years ago still sits un viewed by the Cleveland public in my shed along side countless other ancient treasures , because of so called professional arrogance !

Sunday 19 August 2012

Stainton gravel beds excavated at yet another location

The first image shows the approach down the deep beck valley side of maltby beck to the excavation.







The second image shows the early stages of the excavation, even at this stage i was in no doubt that i had found yet another continuation of the Stainton gravel beds.

The third image shows the gravel bed becoming more apparent, as are the deposits both above and below identical in make up and thickness as at my main stainton excavation at Stainton beck just short of a mile east


The fourth image shows my first bone find embedded deep in the gravel bed.







 Image 6 shows the bone released and covered in a concretion.




The seventh image shows a horse upper molar, these gravel beds ime told must be over 20.000 years old, yet ive also been told by professionals in the past that there were no horses in this area around that time !!! well ive found plenty.



image 8 shows the end of the excavation for the day, the Stainton gravel bed can clearly be seen.



Image 9 shows either a Bos or Bison tooth.


The remaining images show the washed and dried bone found, the larger bone is a piece of a tibia but its to damaged to id.







Re: Tooth mineralization
August 24, 2012 08:06PM
Heath,
Teeth and bones start out as the mineral Hydroxylapatite (with some organic components too). During long burial in soil, some of the hydroxyl part (the "(OH)" in the chemical formula) can slowly get replaced by fluorine (F), and eventually the mineral part turns into the mineral Fluorapatite, which is a bit more resistant than the original Hydroxylapatite. There have been attempts to date old teeth and bones by the amount of fluorine they've absorbed, but I imagine there are so many variables involved that the results would be only a little bit superior to guesswork, although I haven't studied the method..
That's the reason that toothpaste contains "fluoride" - It's an attempt to speed up the replacement of the Hydroxylapatite in our teeth by Fluorapatite, making them more resistant to decay.
Depending on the soil chemistry in your area, other minerals could be entering the teeth too, like iron oxides, iron phosphates (vivianite, etc.), aluminium phosphates (variscite, etc.). The dark colour isn't necessarily from a mineral, however; it could be from the decomposition of the organic part of the tooth.
Cheers

Thanks for that Petrov






Update on this excavation 26,8,2012
I excavated another metre in today although i did not discover as many fossils as usual, i did uncover this lower jaw piece, i  also discovered a rich organic section below the tightly packed gravel bed. 

The first image shows the sit before i started  the second excavation.

Image two shows the upper jaw piece, i t was excavated about 2 metres into the packed gravel bed.


Image three shows the separate sequence of layers as at the main excavation at Stainton beck about a mile to the east.


Image four and five show the mandible after being washed.



Update on excavated fossils


This piece has coating  a of many different small crystals the main stone is full of small Ammonites and coral among other unidentified pieces

This piece was also excavated



The geological layers at this location are as follows-

Red - brown loamy friable almost stoneless clay.

Blue grey sandy clay containing organic material average thickness 100mm

Stainton gravel bed containing fossils and preserved mammall bones.

Mixture of sandy clay deposits and plastic almost stoneless red clay.


               

Thursday 16 August 2012

Ironstone hematite fossil dug from the Stainton gravel beds




I excavated this piece of what i think is hematite containing the fossil shell that can be seen to the top middle of the image. The piece attracts a rare earth magnet.


           
                                                                

                                                     

Wednesday 15 August 2012

Minerals recently found in upper Teesdale .



 
 
 
 
I found these minerals recently i find them fascinating, the first two images show crystals found in split geodes found in upper Teesdale,   The third image shows what seems to be some kind of melicaria commonly found in Mexico, this piece was found in upper Teesdale .

The two images above show a split rock found in the centre of an egg shaped geode, its coated in crystals.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The first image's show  split geode's containing what i think are quartz crystals both large and very small.
The last image shows the inside of the rock found in the egg shaped geode.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

Yorks magnetic curb stones

On a recent visit to York i found that the curb stones appear to be Whin stone, and ide bet they originate from one of the Cleveland Dyke quarries between Stainton and Cliff rigg.  The image shows a rare earth magnet stuck to a curb stone not far from the Shambles,in York city centre.

The second image is the boothem area of york the curb stones tested here were also magnetic.
 

Report on visit to teesdale to test the magnetic properties of both the Cleveland Dyke and Great Whinn Sill

http://youtu.be/srZsAaVGukA

http://youtu.be/9SIDRbMaOYY


The two links above show video's taken boy Roger Curry a good friend who is helping me into both the Magnetic qualities of the Cleveland Dyke and the Stainton newly discovered Gravel beds. The video's are not great but the conditions where very bad at one point we had a visit from a Tornado!

They basically show me and Roger testing both the Cleveland Dyke and the Great Whinn sill at Coldberry (Cleveland Dyke outcrop) and Great Whinn Sill at High force, Teesdale, we tested both with rare earth magnets and lesser powered magnets, our conclusion was this - The outcrop of Cleveland Dyke at Coldberry although magnetic was in no way as magnetic as the Stainton quarry whin stone ( Basaltic andesite)  - The Great whinn sill  at High force again although magnetic showed a far lower magnetic attraction than that of the Whin stone from the Stainton quarry samples tested over the last year.

I have now tested a fifty mile stretch of the Cleveland Dyke from Teesdale to the east coast and have found in all cases that the Stainton Quarry Whinnstone is by far the most magnetic. 


                             For more info and images regarding my research into magnetic minerals please click the link below
                                              The magnetic properties of the Cleveland dyke in t...           

 

Magnetic sea wall at Staithes

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I visited Staithes today on a day out with the kids and was surprised to find out from a local lad that the sea defence was made up of Larvikite from Norway.  I  was impelled to test its magnetic properties and found it to have equal attraction as the Stainton basaltic andesite, i believe the ingredient that links these two different rocks along with others is either Titan augite or Titonomagnatite.





















Mesolithic human tibia shaft excavated from the Stainton gravel beds






 1

 2


The tibia shaft shown in images 1 and 2 above i excavated from over two metres into the packed  Stainton gravel beds.
This tibia shaft has today 13,9,12 been identified as an ancient human tibia shaft by anthropologists from a local university.


The tibia's below belonged to a long dead Viking's from the yorvik excavations at york
__________________

 3

 4




 5



The Dorman museum in Middlesbrough now the only place i know of that could help, since Middlesbrough council removed all funding to Tees Archaeology, have been contacted and informed both of my discoveries ie the magnetic anomalies of the Stainton Quarry  basaltic andesite, and the Stainton gravel beds and there rich fossil content, dated by Geologists who have visited as probably 12 - 16000ybp as yet ive had no response.
 6
 
HISTORY OF A BECK: The Stainton gravel beds                                                                                                                                                                             Locations of excavations of the Stainton gravel beds - Google Maps
 
 

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Cleveland dyke( basaltic andesite) v Great whin sill ( Dolorite )

Towards the close of Carboniferous Period some 295 million years ago (Ma), crustal extension caused by movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates allowed the emplacement of igneous intrusions of magma across much of northern England of a suite of tholeiitic dolerite intrusions. These were largely concordant with the strata of the existing country rock. On cooling, these crystallised and solidified to form the Great Whin Sill.
It underlies much of south and east Northumberland and the Durham Coalfield. Its maximum known thickness of around 70 metres occurs in the North Pennines.
Surface and subsurface records of the Great Whin reveal it is not always concordant over wide areas and often rises and falls in the stratigraphical succession in marked leaps and gentle transgressions different levels.
Studies of the petrology of the dolerites of the Whin Sill complex have revealed significant differences between the Little Whin and the Great Whin. The Little Whin Sill is olivine-bearing and believed to be composed of an early differentiate of the Whin dolerite magma. On the other hand, the Great Whin, non-olivine-bearing and slightly density graded, is a later differentiate of the Whin magma.
Two separate periods of Whin dolerite injection are confirmed by studies of vitrinite reflectance over the Alston Block where two periods of Whin contact metamorphism have been recognized. The two periods of Whin dolerite emplacement form part of the end-Carboniferous earth movements in northern England. They can be shown to have occurred between a period of compression from a W-SW direction and later gentle doming of the Alston Block near the Westphalian-Stephanian boundary, dated about 300-295 Ma.
The lithology is notable in many respects, including well developed pegmatite segregations which can be found in Upper Teesdale. Late stage hydrothermal mineralisation has filled the joints with pectolite. The dolerite has been carbonated as metasomatic selvages into veins and joints and other flaws to produce 'White Whin'. Thermal metamorphism of the country rock in the contact zone produced coarse grained marbles within the aureole in a small number of places in Teesdale.
Disused roadstone quarries along the course of the sill offer sections for its interpretation.


Tertiary
During the Tertiary, the British land mass drifted northwards from 40°N to its present latitude. It was also moved eastwards by the widening of the Atlantic Ocean and there was violent volcanic activity over north west Britain. It was in this period that the Cleveland dyke was formed, originating from volcanic activity near the Scottish island of Mull. The highlands and lowlands of Britain assumed their present relative positions by the late Tertiary period, about 2 million years ago.[4][2]

The eastern termination of the Cleveland Dyke on Fylingdales Moor, North Yorkshire, has been mapped by ground magnetic surveys. Two distinct anomalies have been identified, one of which is directly along strike from known outcrops of the dyke. The other, not yet fully defined, lies about 100 m farther south. In contrast to the well-known and commonly surveyed outcrop on nearby Goathland Moor, but in common with perhaps most British members of the Palaeogene Hebridean dyke swarms, the anomalies on Fylingdales Moor are caused by reversely magnetized bodies. The nature of the transition between the magnetization directions, which presumably represent differences in age, could be investigated by magnetic surveys in the forested area between the Fylingdales Moor and Goathland Moor.