Merry Christmas and here’s to a Happy New Year 2016

Hello All

As I haven’t been on to post fancy pictures of late, mainly due to an inordinate amount of shopping and the visiting of people around this time of year, I thought I’d pop on to wish you all best wishes for the Season.

Not particularly snowy here in West Wales. Well, not snowy at all, it’s been on and off rain for the past few weeks now…the local weather forecasts with their silly “warnings” of rain, as if people wouldn’t react if they saw rain?! Actually, judging by their driving of late, maybe they wouldn’t!

Anyway, here is a seasonal picture to tide you all over… Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. See you in 2016.

In the words of Grumpy Cat…Ho, Ho, No

Never underestimate the power of the sea…and a lot of rain

Hello Readers!

I hope that you are all well. December already eh? I hope that we have all been making in-roads to our Christmas present buying? I have asked a few of the guys at work and the consensus seems to be that it is best to go out on Christmas Eve. Whilst, I’m usually quite organised, I am loathed to do any before the month begins with a “D” but I got some last weekend, so there goes that precedent….

Anyway, I arrive to yet another update on WordPress so I am hoping that all the buttons are in roughly the same place and this doesn’t get complicated. Seems straight forward so far.

Before I forget, I must pass on some sad news. The Temposcope didn’t make it 😦 Seems that although quite a few thousand people believed in the gadget, they weren’t rich enough to pull it off and the fund fell short by around $100,000, which is no small margin I will admit. I was quite disappointed as I was promised some feedback by Weathernet as to their involvement but never got any….which reminds me, it’s been awfully quiet regards my winnings. Hmmm.

Anyway, less of my finances and more of the pictures. This week, I find my search landing at a trip I took to Newgale beach at low tide following the storms I wrote about a few post back, hence the title. The first picture tells quite a story showing what angry wave can do to a walkway on a beach…

Er…might need a few more planks now

Actually, the reeeeal reason of my visit to this beach after the storm was due to the fact that the erosion and backwash (is it called backwash when referred to in a geological manner?) by the waves had revealed a rarely seen treat. A submerged forest. Sweet. I shall try to explain in my very no geological manner as much as possible, starting with this picture, which shows a preserved peat bed..

The exposed peat layer on Newgale beach….look closely

If you look closer, you can see traces of roots and ferns. Quite a jumble, so I expect that the plants that used to live on top would have been thick and lush. I used Google to look into the type of plants that were here and when and it seems that Newgale peat and the fragments scattered around contain remains of preserved stumps of willow, hazel, oak, pine and birch. The site I found refers to such wood remains as ‘Noah’s Trees’ from an earlier belief, before their true nature was understood, that they were believed to be the result of the biblical flood which gave birth to numerous myths and legends of cities and countries swept away by the sea.

In the foreground is a fair chunk of wood, exposed to the air after thousands of years

It goes on to explain that as well as wood, the remains of animals have been excavated from the deposits around the tree stumps, including red deer and brown bear from Whitesands and pig from Lydstep, both in Pembrokeshire. How fascinating! The tree stumps are rooted in peat levels lying below the marine sand (see the pictures earlier where they were exposed) and have been preserved by the continuous waterlogged conditions…in fact the council in some instances attended to cover large logs with pebbles to preserve and prevent them drying too much. The sites around the Welsh coast do not represent a single flood, apparently fancy technical dating techniques give dates showing that most sites have trees that died around 3 to 5,000 years ago….

Some debris was more obviously wood than other bits

Isn’t it mad to that that the stick poking from the sand above could be that old? If you think about it hard enough, it gives you a headache. To reiterate, this is how wet it was. I went into a small cave at the high tide mark and the water was running down the rocks where it is usually dry…

Could this be described as a weeping rock?!

Once I had got home and it was dark, as we hadn’t had enough, there were more showers appearing over the Preseli Hills in the distance. Apologies for the blue tinge, no sun to give this image any warmth, such is the danger of pictures at night!

An evening of showers as the sun sets over the Preseli Hills

Well, there we have it once more. Now you can impress your friends and/or co-worker about the effect of an erosive wave action on a submerged forest. Say, “marine sand” or “underlying peat layer” on occasion, you are golden. Instant IQ increase. Have a beard? You’re a scientist. Thank me later.

Thanks for dropping in..come back soon for more of my fave local landmarks and holiday snaps with scintillating explanations or artistic insight. Coming soon is a petrolhead experience to Germany with a long detour via the Eifel National Park.