Taiwan

Geology of Bitou, Lailai and Beiguan, Taiwan

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Bitou – this small fishing village is about 70km north of Yilan City. Right next to it is the Bitou Geopark. Here you can take a clifftop walk above steep sandstone cliffs, or descend to the shore platform to see some strange mushroom like features at close quarters Here the shore platform is festooned with these strange mushroom shaped concretions. They really are unusual, and make this a famous geological location in Taiwan. As you can see it is also a popular spot for fishing. Due to storms and occasional freak waves there are many accidents all along this coast where people get swept into the sea. Our next stop was the well known shore platform at Lailai. Here the gently dipping sedimentary beds have been folded and faulted. with hard layers of sandstone being less easily eroded (and therefore sticking out more) than the more easily etched out softer mudstones. The shore platform is impressive, with the tilted sedimentary rocks folded into gentle curves, and a lot of faults cutting through the layers. It was a perfect area to use my drone to get these aerial images. A short distance away there is a dyke (an igneous intrusion that originally pushed into the sedimentary rocks as hot magma)  that can be soon cutting through the sedimentary layers of the shore platform. It stands out because it is made of harder rock than the surrounding sediments, and is therefore more resistant to being eroded. Here you can see the dyke is offset – sometimes by faults but also simply by the magma pushing up through slightly different pathways in the original country rock. You can see here how the dyke has baked the adjacent mudstone – giving it a darker colour for about 40cm  to either side of the once hot dyke. A closer view of the dyke standing up like a man-made wall on the shore platform. The baked sediments right next to it have also been hardened by the heating process, so they have also resisted erosion more than the softer surrounding rocks. This video shows a bit more detail of the rocks of Lailai ,which I think is an ideal place to run a geological field trip: Finally on our way back to Dongshan, we stopped in the small Beiguan Tidal Park where you can see these rocks with impressive joints forming a diamond checkerboard pattern. In the background is Turtle Island, another well known local feature.

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Geology on the Yilan Coast, Taiwan

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To find worthwhile locations that offer great learning opportunities in geology, you have to spend time exploring outcrops, trying to make sense of the geological features that are exposed and then think of ways that students can explore and make sense of them out of their own activity. This inquiry learning process can work well via guided questions that encourage careful exploration and observation and then the unfolding of ideas and understanding. however it doesn’t usually just happen by magic – it takes some working out to frame interesting learning activities at a given unique location. With a small group of teachers from CiXin School, we explored several locations along the coast north and south of Yilan. Heading South we went to a coastal fishing settlement called Feniaolin. Here there were some amphibolites (metamorphic rocks) that are part of a long outcrop extending further south. These are amongst the oldest rocks in Taiwan and have been exhumed from many kilometres deep in the earth’s crust. Just past the fishing wharf there is an area of sea stacks – classic coastal erosion features: We continued further south to the Nanao Valley where there is a mixture of rocks on the river bed including many huge boulders. Some of the boulders were granites (that were once molten magma deep in the earth). They had lumps of schist included in them – fragments of the crustal rocks (xenoliths) that must have been incorporated into the molten magma before it crystallised. – given them a very striking apprearence. All in all there is plenty here to discover – rocks and minerals that have been metamorphosed by intense pressure and heat a long way down in the earth’s crust. Here is a video I made about our trip:

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In the Snowy Mountains Forest, Taiwan

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The teachers of CuXin school in Yilan, Taiwan have been interested to find a location for a week-long wilderness camp for the year 9 class. We wanted to design a camp where students will have to rely on good survival skills and self management. We also want them to be able to learn the lore of the forest, such as how to identify and use the plants, now to build shelters, how to track animals, and how to understand the processes at work in a forest ecosystem. We set off on a 3 day trek into the Snowy Mountain Range, guided by two hunters of the local aboriginal Taiha tribe. After about 7 hours walk we arrived at a very simple tarp shelter which was  to be our base for the three days. The shelter was very simple. It kept us dry during some big rain showers and from it we went on several walks to explore the forest. During our walks we learnt about useful trees and medicinal plants, animal behaviours, fishing and hunting methods, and about the history of the aboriginal tribes through the years of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The tribe used to be head hunters and we were given vivid descriptions of how the heads of the enemy dead were collected and displayed. Achung taught us to recognise several animal prints including wild pigs, goats, barking deer, a type of wild cat and the crab-eating mongoose. He was able to estimate the size and weight of each of the animals and give a precise day and time for when the prints were made. It was a unique experience to wander through the dense temperate forest, realising that there was so much going on if only you have the eyes and awareness to see it. Epiphytic ferns decorated many of the trees. These colourful fungi are some of the decomposers that form a vital role in the life cycle of the forest, turning dead material back into fertile soil. I made this video that gives some more impressions of our experience on this trip:

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Jinguashi – Gold and Copper mining in Taiwan

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During my stay in Taiwan I have been invited by the teachers to visit several areas that they consider to have educational potential for school camps. Iron and Copper minerals have stained the famous “Golden Waterfall” The first area was on the NE coast around Keelung Mountain which is an old dacite volcano. This area is rich in minerals including copper and gold. Gold was first discovered here by some chinese workers who were washing their food bowls in a local stream. They happened to be experienced gold panners, having moved to Taiwan from California where they had been part of the famous 19th century gold rush some years earlier. Part of the Jinguashi Mine complex, now abandoned. We spent a couple of days exploring the area, including several the rock outcrops, a museum, and the Jinguashi mining buildings. Memorial, Jinguashi Mine There is a memorial at the site of the prison camp where prisoners of World War 2 were held by the Japanese and made to work in the gold mine in slave conditions. Gold miner at Jinguashi, Taiwan This local old timer has a huge collection of minerals and a practical knowledge of the geology of the area as well as methods for mining gold and other precious metals (see video below). Keelung Mountain We decided that the area had great potential for a camp for the year 11 students, with lots of opportunity to explore chemistry, mineralogy and mining methods along with the social, environmental, economic and historical aspects of how resources are used in an area.

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Developing a nature and outdoor education programme in Taiwan

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Stone circle art at Nanao River, NE Taiwan

I have been asked to work with a group of teachers and school administrators in Cu Xin school, Dongshan Township, Yilan, Taiwan, to help them develop and refine their nature and outdoor education programme in the high school. I will be there for the month of February 2020 and this will be the first visit, with possibly more to follow. The rationale for this initiative is that outdoor education can be designed to offer several benefits, including physical fitness, psychological challenge and resilience, aesthetic appreciation and scientific learning. One thing that interests me in particular is the relationship between being in or near to green spaces and natural environments; specific nature connectedness activities; psychological well-being and environmental action taking. These are topics that I will elaborate on at a later date. For now let me leave this video with you that is the way I see things in this space of education and nature:

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