May News Update

Oh, we’re looking forward to running another Zechstein field excursion together with the irrepressible Maurice Tucker in a couple of weeks. The Durham coast really is pretty spectacular, and the ubiquitous Zechstein outcrops are fascinating and enigmatic in equal measure. As part of our prep for the upcoming trip, this week we’ve been back to some of the key sections with another indubitable legend of UK Permian geology, Michael Mawson. We very much shared Michael’s enthusiasm for the awe-inspiring collapse breccias and breccia pipes, large-scale submarine slide, evaporite weld, stromatolitic domes over 10m in diameter, fine nautiloid assemblages, coarse boulder breccia storm deposit coated in microbial laminites, spherulitic concretions, and much more, all within the Zechstein sequence stratigraphic framework. And we also got excited about these beautiful faults that cut a sequence of fine carbonate sands…

Small-scale contemporaneous conjugate faults