Events & Courses

Date, time and location

This event will take place on Saturday 26 October 2024.

The group will meet at 9.30 am in the car park at Bardon Hill Quarry, Bardon Road (A511), Coalville, Leicestershire LE67 1TL.

There will be a prompt start at 10 am.

Please note: A prompt start is essential, as all members will require an induction by the quarry operations manager. The group will then be ferried by a bus to the two quarry pits.

Lunch will be at The Birch Tree, Bardon Road, Coalville LE67 1TD (0.2 miles southeast of Bardon Hill Quarry).

Event details

Join our Home Counties North Regional Group for a group visit to the fifth largest quarry in the UK – Bardon Hill Quarry, disused pit and working pit – led by by the group's Chair, John Wong FGS

The top of Bardon Hill is at 278 metres (912 metres) AOD, it is the highest elevation in Leicestershire. The hill is the remains of an extinct volcano on the western flank of the Charnwood Forest granite ridge.

Bardon Hill old quarry pit has 19 levels and is 790 feet deep; you can feel the temperature difference when you get to the floor of the old quarry pit. The new Bardon Hill Quarry pit started in 2016. Bardon Hill Quarry produces 3M tonnes of rock a year – 15% of UK output.

The basement geology of the quarry is Neoproterozoic ocean-arc andesitic volcanic complex; the Precambrian rocks were deformed by the Caledonian Orogeny large-scale faults and folds can be seen in the quarry; the rocks include dacite, hyaloclastic breccias, monomictic breccias, volcaniclastic breccias, phyllites in the fault zones, dioritic/granophyric dykes, and also rocks which have spherulitic textured glassy margin representing the chilled andesite. Deformation boudinage structures are common.

Younger Triassic arid mudstone and sandstone sediments lie unconformably on the pre-Pangea landscape of the Neoproterozoic volcanic complex, a large V-shaped incised valley filled with Triassic sediments is a geological locality of must-see picture-postcard quality.

The old Bardon Hill Quarry, 241 metres (790 feet) deep © Courtesy of AGGREGATE INDUSTRIES UK LIMITED

The new Bardon Hill Quarry pit, currently at 108 metres (354 feet) deep © Courtesy of AGGREGATE INDUSTRIES UK LIMITED

Registration

There is a limit of 15 places available for this field trip, which is the seat capacity of the bus. Places are strictly for the Fellows and Student Fellows of the Geological Society, who are members of the Home Counties North Regional Group, and are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

The trip is free of charge. To book your place, please email [email protected]

It is compulsory that every participant wears safety-wear items – hard hat, lace-up boots, gloves, safety glasses and a hi vis jacket (not high vis vest). Please confirm you have all the required safety-wear items when you register your place for this field meeting. You can bring a geological hammer.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

This Home Counties North Regional Group event qualifies for your CPD hours spent travelling to/from and attending the event. The content is intended to be suitable for early-career through to experienced geologists and related professionals.