Field Trip to Clarke Head – Postponed to May 9th
Posted in 2010 on May 1st, 2010 by deanhirtle – Be the first to commentThe date has been changed to Sunday May 9th due to Saturday’s weather forecast. All times and meeting places remain the same.
AGS-PGNS Field Trip to Clarke Head, near Parrsboro
Date 8th May 2010, rain date 9th May 2010
Meet at Fundy Geological Museum parking lot at 12.00 noon (for directions go to http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fgm/en/home/visitus/locationmaps.aspx)
Please bring packed lunch or be otherwise already sustained.
Some parts of the beach are a little rough but not impassable to a moderately fit person — please bring hiking boots or similarly sturdy foot wear — rubber “wellington” boots will not be appropriate. There will be moderately steep steps to the beach, but otherwise terrane will be flat.
Note: the Museum is currently closed for renovations and we won’t be able to use the washrooms there, The washrooms at Tim Hortons’s in town are probably the nearest. Be warned, washroom availability may be a problem for some on this excursion.
Some details:
Timings for this field trip may seem a bit odd, but they are designed so that we can take maximum benefit of the low tide (around 3.15 pm on the 8th) and afternoon light (the sun starts to go behind the cliffs at about 5.00). If people want to arrive in the Parrsboro area in the morning and are looking for something to do for a couple of hours, they might consider the trail on Partridge Island, just outside town. This trail is a shorter equivalent of the Cape Split trail (which is almost directly across the Bay from Partridge Island).
For the official start of the AGS field trip, we will meet at 12.00 pm at the Fundy Geological Museum parking lot. We’ll have a brief orientation there and people can munch on packed lunches while that’s in progress. There is a Tim Horton’s on Main Street in Parrsboro in case participants prefer Tim’s to a packed lunch. It’s less that a 5 minute drive from Tim’s to the Museum. Masstown Market, as you come off Highway 104 beyond Parrsboro, is another favourite stop to pick up lunch foods.
We will leave the Museum no later than 12.30 and make a short trip along Two Islands Road. Please be prepared to carpool for this brief leg of our journey; there will be limited parking at our destination. The access to Clarke Head is via Parrsboro’s municipal Glooscap Campground, which unfortunately doesn’t open until the Victoria Day weekend. So we will have to leave the cars on Two Islands Road and walk 5-10 minutes to get to the beach steps. Once on the beach we will head east past Triassic sediments and volcanics to a spectacular fault, past which are some very unusual and visual rocks. I will try to explain what we see in terms of moving continents and opening oceans. If rocks are not your thing, the coastal scenery and seascapes are lovely.
For more information, please contact Rob Fensome at 902-426-2732 (day — best place to leave a message, but not after 5.pm on Friday 7th May) or 902-434-3392 (home — messages reach me on a hit or miss basis).
