Article ID: CBB001422087

British Pioneers of the Geology of Gibraltar, Part 3: E. B. Bailey and Royal Engineers 1943 to 1953 (2014)

unapi

Edward Battersby Bailey (1881-1965), Director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, visited the 6-km2 Gibraltar peninsula twice in 1943, in transit from/to England and the Mediterranean island of Malta. He spent only five days in total on Gibraltar, but submitted two influential reports to its Fortress Headquarters, guided by rock features exposed by recent quarrying. On his recommendation, a deep borehole was drilled below the northern isthmus in an attempt to locate a supposed aquifer in Cenozoic sandstones believed to extend south from Spain, and A. L. Greig (a graduate of Imperial College, London, serving locally in the ranks of the Royal Engineers) prepared a new geological map (at 1:5,280) and a report to help guide tunnel excavation within the bedrock. Between 1945 and 1948, Lieutenant (later Captain) G. B. Alexander (a graduate of the University of Cambridge also serving in the Royal Engineers) generated a much more detailed map (at 1:2,500) of the bedrock plus superficial deposits, together with associated diagrams and geotechnical reports. These unpublished documents, and fossils collected during their preparation, influenced a re-interpretation of Gibraltar (as the remnant of an overturned limb of a klippe of Early Jurassic dolomitic limestone thrust into position during the Betic-Rif Orogeny), published by Bailey in 1953. A report to accompany Alexander's map was never completed, but documents constituting the most complete record known of his Gibraltar work are now preserved within the archives of the British Geological Survey. Reserve army officers later compiled a geological map of Gibraltar (at 1:10,000) published by the Royal Engineers in 1991. Thereafter, as garrison strength became greatly reduced, work under military auspices was increasingly superseded by civilian research. Keywords carbonates, Gibraltar, Jurassic, Quaternary, structure

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001422087/

Similar Citations

Article Veneer, Leucha; (2006)
Provincial Geology and the Industrial Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB000771694/)

Article Secord, James A.; (1986)
The Geological Survey of Great Britain as a research school, 1839-1855 (/isis/citation/CBB000047730/)

Chapter Naylor, Simon; (2011)
Geological Mapping and the Geographies of Proprietorship in Nineteenth-Century Cornwall (/isis/citation/CBB001231566/)

Article Davis, Robert V.; (2011)
Inventing the Present: Historical Roots of the Anthropocene (/isis/citation/CBB001232532/)

Article Toland, Christopher; Ryder, Kevin; Torrens, Hugh; (2013)
The Life and Works of James Alexander Knipe (?1803--1882), British Itinerant Geological Map Maker (/isis/citation/CBB001213606/)

Article Berneking, Carolyn Bailey; (2000)
The Contributions of E. H. S. Bailey to the Development of Pure Food and Water Laws in Kansas (/isis/citation/CBB000112000/)

Article Martin S. Brook; Susanna Ferrar; (2019)
Hartley Travers Ferrar (1879-1932) and his geological legacy in antarctica, Egypt and New Zealand (/isis/citation/CBB081481552/)

Article Lino Camprubí; (2018)
Experiencing Deep and Global Currents at a ‘prototypical Strait’, 1870s and 1980s (/isis/citation/CBB157169284/)

Book Hewitt, Rachel; (2010)
Map of a Nation: A Biography of the Ordnance Survey (/isis/citation/CBB001210136/)

Book Daniel Foliard; (2017)
Dislocating the Orient: British Maps and the Making of the Middle East, 1854-1921 (/isis/citation/CBB192403503/)

Article Tawadros, Edward; (2012)
History of Geology in Egypt (/isis/citation/CBB001251733/)

Book Richard D. G. Irvine; (2020)
An Anthropology of Deep Time: Geological Temporality and Social Life (/isis/citation/CBB205554969/)

Book Wilson, Harold E.; (1985)
Down to earth: One hundred and fifty years of the British Geological Survey (/isis/citation/CBB000032724/)

Authors & Contributors
Rose, Edward P. F.
Richard D. G. Irvine
Foliard, Daniel
Nick Davidson
Susanna Ferrar
Wilson, Harold E.
Concepts
Geology
Maps; atlases
Earth sciences
Geological ages
Geological surveys
Cartography
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
18th century
Paleozoic era
21st century
Places
Great Britain
Gibraltar
British Isles
Middle and Near East
Antarctica
United States
Institutions
Great Britain. Geological Survey
Great Britain. Ordnance Survey
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment