Rock Doctors went Wild About Aden
(All photo credits: Hannah Milne)
On Tuesday 09 July the sun was out for the Wild About Aden festival at Aden Country Park, but so were the dinosaurs, sea monsters and asteroids from the Rock Doctor’s geological journey!
The action-packed event involved a 2.8km journey covering 145 million years of geological history, exploring how rocks buried deep below the North Sea seabed off the North East Coast of Scotland could help Britain’s top Geo-Scientists (Rock Doctors) meet the urgent global climate challenge.
Families from across the Buchan area were guided back through geological time by an expert ‘Rock Doctor’ working on the Acorn CO2 Transport and Storage Project. They were encouraged to take part in ‘RockStar Challenges’, learn fascinating facts and handle genuine rock and fossil samples along the way.
In the beginning: setting the Rock Doctors journey in context by exploring the 4.6 billion year timeline of our planet.
This intense geological journey started with a look at the 4.6-billion-year history of our planet to try to get to grips with the big numbers that Rock Doctors need to deal with! The trainee Rock Doctors then jumped back a mere 145 million years to start their journey in a layer of rock known as the Kimmeridge Clay, located just below the Acorn CO2 Storage Site.
MileStone 1 – 145 million years before present day. Our trainee Rock Doctors were dared to taste some ancient geological slime that would eventually turn to oil or gas.
MileStone 2 – 115 million years before present day. The hand lenses were out to spot the tiny grains of sand that make up the Captain Sandstone.
MileStone 4 – 97 million years before present day. Our Rock Doctors faced up to some scary sea creatures in a very deep layer of chalk, there were fossils and some pretty sharp teeth all lurking in the mystery chalk challenge!
MileStone 6 – 57 million years before present day. The trainee Rock Doctors blind taste test the fluid in a saline aquifer!
MileStone 7 – 54 million years before present day. There were some pretty weird looking animals around, as well as cool fossils to find in our lump of swampy lignite.
MileStone 8 – A mere 1 Million Years before present day, but a whole lot colder! The ice age challenge was definitely cool!
MileStone 9 – Present day. Our exhausted recruits complete their final RockStar Challenge as they finally reach the seabed of the Central North Sea.
At the journey’s end, the trainee Rock Doctors had to put all their geological training to the test to identify the different layers of sealing and buffer rocks above the Acorn CO2 Storage Site, before collecting their Rock Star prizes and having the chance to talk to representatives from both Acorn and the Scottish Cluster.