Stylolites and sandstone statues

Saturday 29th Jan was the local OUGS branch AGM at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff
I've always had a special interest in this building and the others in the complex - City Hall etc - as my Grandad worked on them. He was a stonemason who did the fancy sculpture bits on buildings and I'd love to know which bits he did! It is built of Portland stone and opened in 1906.
One of my favourite bits here though is the limestone paving inside which displays beautiful stylolites:

Stylolites in limestone floor slabs at the NMW in Cardiff

These form by pressure solution between beds of limestone.

In between times we had our AGM, saw some good pics of where we had been in the last 12 months, and elected a new Newsletter Editor - unanimous - there was only 1 candidate!

Janet kicks off the AGM with her powerpoint of the year's trips

 Lunch at the Wig and Pen and then back for Prof Brian Williams talk on oil reservoirs in the river gravels deposited off shore as Pangaea split open.

Brian Williams

The importance of these reservoirs is that they are very extensive - the mid-Pangaea split was very long - and they are mainly low sinuosity braided rivers so that the pods of gravel are not only good porosity and permeability but they are well linked up.
While we were there I took the opportunity to look at the new exhibition of Chinese carvings - first time out of China, this exhibition only opened 3 days earlier - and they are stunning - very fresh despite their age (9th to 13th C). They come from the World Heritage site at Dazu in SW China. Some of them give lovely insights into daily life - the one that took my fancy was a row of musicians on a balcony - see it at this link - but there are other lovely ones too. The carvings are only being shown here, then go back to China. They originate from a horseshoe shaped vertical cliff that has been carved into thousands of statues. The only reason they are able to send some to be displayed is that a few have toppled/become detached over the centuries. Most are still in place!