To promote a wider interest in the science of geology through organised lectures, field excursions and social activities.
To provide a link between the amateur, the student, the teacher and the professional geologist.
To foster interest in geological sites within the area with a view to their study and wise conservation.
To establish and maintain good relations with organisations that have common interests.

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

 
 Have you ever wondered what happens to slate if it is suddenly heated to very high temperatures? At the solar furnace of Font-Romeu in the eastern Pyrenees of France, I discovered it doesn't shatter or explode, but simply melts into a black, obsidian-like glass. Which is not surprising, really, considering its sedimentary origins before metamorphosis.


There is only a small exhibition hall here, below the 8-storey-high furnace, but live demonstrations of high-temperature solar energy effects are held nearby at the smaller experimental furnace of Mont-Louis. This parabolic mirror is only about 20 feet in diameter, but by focusing the mid-day sun, it can melt a 3-inch hole in a sheet of steel in less than a minute, as well as melting roofing slates.

 

 

 The eastern French Pyrenees are mostly mica schist, but inland there are large granite formations, and pink marble is still quarried for architectural purposes. Vast quantities of iron ore were extracted here until the 1950s, not by open-cast methods but by tunnelling. The village of Arles-sur-Tech has a small "Museum of Iron" but their mineral specimens are deteriorating and sadly neglected.


This is in sharp contrast to an excellent museum of minerals and fossils at Vernet-les-Bains, which is beautifully displayed by its founder and curator, who collected most of the specimens himself.


The Mediterranean coastal sand here is surprisingly coarse, unlike the sands at the western end of the Pyrenees which have been ground fine by the more vigorous breakers of the Atlantic.


Inland, around Isle-sur-Tet a plain of sands and gravels came from a mountain range, which aeons ago lay to the north of the present Pyrenees. At Les Orgues the scarce rainfall has weathered this into striking "Badlands" formations.

 

 

 Perhaps WEGA could arrange a field trip to this fascinatingly varied region.