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Tuesday, 21 June 2016

Severn Estuary heavy minerals


 Severn Estuary mudflats.  Image: Andy Hay (RSPB)

 
Some things come right out of the blue and hit you between the eyes.  I was checking something on the Amazon web site and came across this review of The Bluestone Enigma by somebody called Elwyn Griffiths:

Back in the 1970's, I did a study of the sediments of the Severn Estuary, not too far from Stonehenge. A small section of the study focused on their heavy mineral content which indicated the primary provenance of this saturated, immature and exotic mineral suite came from metamorphic and igneous rocks of N.W. Scotland and the Mona Complex of Anglesey of North Wales. Reading Kellaway's paper of 1971, I too suggested Irish Sea ice may have been the transport method for these sediments and left it at that. This was not the main thrust of my research, but it does lend support to the theory on the Bluestone Enigma authored by Brian John.

Does anybody out there know anything about Elwyn Griffiths and his research?  I have done some searching, and have drawn a blank..... but let us hope there is something in print, somewhere.....

3 comments:

  1. Wonder how things are progressing with that Severn Estuary Study you mentioned here sometime within the last couple of years.....wasn't it a piece of research linked to Cambridge University, and potentially involving materials within the Estuary i.e. rocks? Do you recall?

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  2. Quite right you are. I did ask them a few months ago how things were coming along, but got no reply from Phil Gibbard. I'll ask him again.......

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  3. I have tracked Elwyn down -- he had a first degree in Swansea and completed his doctorate in Bristol Univ. Then he had a long career in Exxon in the USA, and retired not long ago. He's now a trustee of the American Geosciences Institute. I'm trying to contact him there.

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