Last day of fieldwork on Filey Brigg in Yorkshire

SCARBOROUGH, ENGLAND (June 14, 2015) — It was a drizzly, breezy, cold day on the outcrops, but Team Yorkshire finished measuring and collecting for Meredith Mann’s project on the Passage Beds Member of the Coralline Oolite Formation (Upper Jurassic, Oxfordian) exposed on the north side of Filey Brigg, a spit of rock between Scarborough and Filey. In the posed but useful image above, Meredith stands at the base of the Passage Beds, and Mae holds a meter stick pointing to the top, with the cross-bar on the Thalassinoides unit at the base of the Hambleton Oolite.

We designated five subsidiary units within the Passage Beds, as shown above. The rocks below belong to the Saintoft Member of the Lower Calcareous Grit Formation; the rocks above are the Hambleton Oolite (Lower Leaf) Member of the Coralline Oolite. Note how more ragged this exposure is because it directly faces the sea. The erosion better exposes the stratigraphy and fossils. It also means when we work here we are more subject to the elements.

This location on the north side of Filey Brigg is only accessible at low tide across slick algal-encrusted rocks. The angry sea looms to the right.

We have to climb over these boulders which are piled against a cliff face.

Since this area is flooded at high tide, if you wait too long to hike back the only escape from the raging North Sea is up this emergency ladder. I kept my eye on the ocean behind us!

The remorseless sea pounding away at Filey Brigg during a rising tide. I hate rising tides.

Meredith and Mae at work collecting rock samples and fossils. We are somewhat protected here from the rain by the overhanging Hambleton Oolite. The wind still blew in plenty of water from sea and sky.

An alcove in Unit 1 of the Passage Beds with galleries of the trace fossil Thalassinoides.

Unit 3 of the Passage Beds shows cross-bedding, which is consistent with its origin as sediments washed shoreward during storms.

A cluster of oysters and pectinid bivalves in Unit 1 of the Passage Beds.

We celebrated completion of our fieldwork by walking as far out on Filey Brigg as we could! Miserable weather, but a dramatic setting! And no one broke a leg on the boulders or was trapped by the high tide.