The Volcanos and Wildlife of Tenerife

The new season of indoor meetings got underway last night with Andy Kendall talking about ‘The Volcanos and Wildlife of Tenerife”.

The last eruption in Tenerife was in 1905 – a blink of the eye in geological time – and the island’s landscape is dominated by its volcanic past. Andy talked in particular about two caving trips, one with a surveying team and one with a group of artists (from the International Society of Spelaeological Art), to explore lava tubes on the island. In particular, they explored the extensive Cueva del Viento - Sobrado system in the north-west of the island. This is the fifth largest lava tube in the world; the top four being in Hawaii. Lava tubes are distinctive caves formed by lava flowing below the surface.

The lava inside the tubes is not all black as you might expect, but coloured, often yellow, by minerals and bacterial growth. Tree roots grow down from the roof of some of the caves, giving a surrealistic look to the photos. The rock is hard and jagged, with characteristic features including shelves, bubble bursts and, more rarely, stalactite forms.

The talk was illustrated with some spectacular photos, both above and below ground, with a few sequences set to music. Andy also showed sketches that the artists did underground, giving a different perspective to the caves.

On the second visit, Andy and his party got to the top of the 3,718m peak of Mount Teide. The photos looking down at the caldera wall and the distant coastline certainly made me want to revisit the otherworldly beauty of the volcanos of Tenerife.

Before the talk, the Cardiff Naturalists Society held its AGM.

The next indoor meeting, which is about Antarctica, is on Monday 14 October, is at the same place: The Cardiff School of Management building on Metropolitan University’s Llandaff Campus (Room 0023) at 7.30pm. The new program can be found elsewhere on this blog: http://cardiffnaturalists.blogspot.co.uk/p/programme.html

The Caves of Cefn Meiriadog, Denbighshire , a Bishop Darwin, a Chimney Sweep, Landmines and Science

Dr Elizabeth Walker enteretined us with the fascinating history of the Pontnewydd Cave and it's surrounding area, on the side of the Elwy Valley.

The history goes back to when the first human beings lived here. They were hunter gatherers who found warmth and shelter in the cave. There are a number of small remains (teeth)

By the 1530s, the caves of the Elwy valley were already famous, being noted by the antiquary John Leland in his itinerary of 1536–39, but their potential archaeological significance was not examined until 1830, when Cefn Old Cave was visited by the Reverend Edward Stanley (later Bishop of Norwich)

In more recent times Darwin visited the area along with Adam Sedgwick. Darwin considered this trip to North Wales to be one of his most important formative tours before he headed off for his most famous adventures.

More recently it was also used as an arms storage centre during the war.

Corals Caves and Caterpillars

And a few flowers of course

The trip on Sunday 16th May was a great success with a keen bunch of members, and some new fiends who will hopefully become members taking to the hills above Penwyllt in the Swansea valley. The walk was to take place in the Ogof Fynnon Ddu Nature reserve which was the first national nature reserve in the UK to be defined specifically because of it's caves. It does however contain a lot more than that as we were to see

After a brief introduction to the geology we headed up the tramway to the limestone pavement which was to be the feature of the day botanically.

Arriving there it was plain to see the difference botanically between the sheep grazed are outside the fencing, and the  area inside that was flourishing

But before we focused on that there was at least a moment to admire the superb corals in the limestone such as this colony which was nearly half a meter across

There were a number of plants we had come to see, but probably the most noteworthy for the site was the Hairly Greenweed (Genista pilosa)  which the society were asked to see whether it was still present on our last formal trip up some 15 years ago. Just as then we were able to find it and can report that there are a few patches so it looks healthy

As well as the plants we were able to find quite a few moth caterpillars, sunning themselves on the rocks. I believe this is some form of eggar Caterpillar and they were very common on the pavement   

We retreated from the top of the hill for our lunch because of some slight rain and took shelter in the entrance of Ogof Fynnon ddu which is the deepest ave in the UK when measured top to bottom .

As we were not fully equipped we were only able to shelter just inside the entrance and admire the scale of the passages

After this we descended to the old Silica brick works via the tram road and admired what man can achieve and how much of the landscape is not natural. Since returning home I have purchased the excellent Penwyllt book by Peter Burgess  which means I know a lot more about the site now and I should clearly have read it before I started

Oh well.. maybe next time

Regards

Andy

BCRA 22nd Cave Science Symposium - Cardiff



Craig y Ffynnon



Not a CNS event, but one that many of our members are already involved with that others may like to be aware of

The South Wales Geologists Association / British Cave Research Assocation event the 5^th and 6^th march.





On the 5th there will be a symposium of talks with an optional visit to the museum to see some of the cave related collections and exhibits in Geology, Archaeology and Zoology. The event starts at 9:00 and continues until 17:00 with the museum trip until 19:00 The symposium incudes a range of talks on cave science and there will also be a selection of poster presentations. The programme has been themed towards the geology and Archaeology of Welsh Caves, but some covering international sites as well.