Sunday, September 2, 2012

Save Siccar Point!

For once I feel a need to be serious, and raise awareness for a case that I recently discovered.
I just found out that a company called Drysdales is planning to put up some kind of a factory for processing vegetables very near a world famous geological site called Siccar Point in Scotland where Hutton's Uncomformity can be seen.

Hutton's Unconformity, pic from http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/

An unconformity is a geological phenomenon where a hiatus can be seen. That means, that for a period of time no deposition was being made, or erosion took place, so the strata contains no informations for a shorter or longer period of time (in geology that's mainly measured in millions of years).

Hutton's Unconformity (an angular unconformity), notice the geohammer for scale.
See how there are two different kinds of "directions" of the rock - the lower part is vertical and the higher part is closer to being horizontal? The change is close to the shaft of the hammer, which is also where the unconformity is.

So now you may, rightly, be saying something along the lines of "vegetables? That's not so bad, is it?" And at first I agree with you. The problem is that they're leading their agricultural waste directly into the ocean, and also that they will dig a trench across the area which they will fill up with concrete. From what I understand that is the plan for now, but who's to say that they won't expand and perhaps build a factory later on?

My point is, I think it would suck majorly to ruin a beautiful piece of nature by sticking ugly, noisy, polluting industry in the middle of it.

If you want to read more and perhaps take some kind of action or just raise awareness of this case like I do, you can read a lot more on the site http://www.savesiccarpoint.co.uk/#help

Thanks a bunch, guys.
- Charlotte.

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