Snowdonia

Leader: Simon Cuthbert

Field days: Friday/ Saturday/ Sunday/ Monday

The landscape of Snowdonia National Park, “Parc Cenedlaethol Eryri” in Welsh (Eryri means place of the eagles) is dramatic and varied, with mountains, craggy peaks, precipices and cascading waterfalls. Snowdon – Yr Wyddfa – is the highest peak at 3,560ft. The geology includes sedimentary, volcanic and intrusive rocks of late Proterozoic to Silurian age. The rugged mountain scenery is dominated by the Ordovician volcanics, including spectacular pyroclastic rocks from giant ash-flow eruptions seen in the extensive ignimbrites. All these are related to the subduction of the Iapetus Ocean crust and formed as part of the back arc basin in a volcanic arc system. These, and the famous Cambrian slates that “roofed the world”, were intensely faulted, folded and subjected to low-grade metamorphism during the Caledonian Orogeny. The region was uplifted as the North Atlantic opened during the Cenozoic while the current mountainous landscape and its cwms (corries) have resulted from repeated late Cenozoic glaciations, as recognised by Charles Darwin during his travels in the area. The trip will focus on the Ordovician volcanics and will examine the large-scale Caledonian folding, all set in Eryri’s wonderful glacier-carved mountain scenery. We may also manage a trip on the Snowdonia Mountain railway!

Accommodation will be B&B; transport by shared car, or by train (Glasgow to Betws-y-Coed), then hire of a local coach/minibus. We will travel to Snowdonia on Thursday 8 September and travel home on Tuesday 13 September.

There are still places available on this excursion.

If you are interested, please contact the residential excursions secretary, Maggie Donnelly, at restrips@gsocg.org.