Recommended web sites for writing up the report
The follow up to the fieldwork is to produce a fieldwork report. This is due to be handed in during the second week after half term. Mr. Stone or myself will provide you with a deadline to meet.
It is essential that the work is completed as this will be your main resource for revising unit 1.3.3 of the syllabus, and for the AGS (Advanced Geographical Skills) paper. This is the major piece of work for this term.
The report needs to be between 10 and 20 pages in length overall and should contain a range of information which is set out in the instructions below. Read them carefully, and follow them.
Need to have a location map which fairly precisely shows the areas that were studied. This is essential, as the fieldwork day will form the basis for one of the questions on the skills exam you will be taking at the end of the year.
You will find a location map by using MULTIMAP or some other such mapping software, or by using the OS 1:50 000 or 1: 25 000 map as a basis for the map. It needs to have a rough shape of the coastline, high tide mark and the approach roads and nearest settlements. Add a scale, and north arrow.
Each session had an aim. Need to remember this for the exam. This will be needed for the SKILLS exam, and there is a 50% chance that you will be required to talk about the Physical field day. There is always a chance that it could be the Human field day which will be held in April or May next year with Mr. Kyd.
Remember that both landscape features are essentially similar in that they are formed by the accretion of material which has been transported to the area, but that the method of transport and material are different. In the case of the salt marsh it was brought by water during high tide, and with the dunes it was brought there by the wind saltating material across the huge expanse of beach. I think you'll agree that Holkham was a BIG beach!
Vegetation is important in both environments. In the salt marsh the pattern of vegetation we considered was one of zonation; in the sand dunes it was a pattern determined by succession. The first was a spatial variation, the second was temporal (ie: over a period of time - measured in years)
Need to explain the difference between Spring Tides and Neap Tides. You need to have a brief explanation of how this: relating to the phases of the moon. The key details on how this affects the marsh was included in your handout from the field day, and you need to consider the length of time that the marsh is exposed to the open air and not inundated by seawater.
Remember that succession is also a feature of salt marsh. As one goes towards the back of the marsh, the vegetation is more established, more woody and has taken longer to develop. We could see distinct zones in the marsh: the sea rush zone at the back of the first section near the ridge, and the shrubby seablite zone near the car park.
You may wish to use some of the photos on the site: whether from the 2001 TRIP or the 2002 TRIP to illustrate your report.
At each location, we also decided on a number of hypotheses or ideas to be tested once we had collected the data. These will need to be included in your report.
These included statements of this type:
The __________ of vegetation changes with distance from the sea
The __________ of species changes from the front of the dune to the back etc.
In order to determine whether our hypothesis was correct, we undertook data collection.
This could have involved:
plant enumeration: the different numbers of species within the quadrat - using the ACFOR scale (see BELOW for more details - need to add this to your report...)
percentage of ground cover / bare ground - this needed to be recorded.
identification of dominant plant species
The ACFOR SCALE is explained below: In the quadrats, which can be up to a square metre (we had a quarter that size) you had to decide on the extent to which each plant appeared, and make a note according to how abundance the vegetation type was: an abundance scale. This could be done by working out rough percentages, but we used a scale whose name is an acronym of the various levels.
This involved a transect – a straight line following a bearing. Why did we use this method: what type of sampling is this ? - although we used a linear transect, we built up a grid by following the same bearing (20 degrees in the morning, and 150 degrees in the afternoon)
At each known interval, a quadrat was used to assess vegetation cover. What is this, and why is it used ? How big was our quadrat ?
A key and illustrated guide was used to identify the plants which were found along the line of the transect. Bear in mind that different zones are inundated for different lengths of time, with different intervals. Which particular species did we discover, and what were the key methods used to distinguish between species ?
You could try typing the name of some of the species into GOOGLE to find pictures and more details.
Used ranging poles, 20m tapes, gun clinometers and compass to keep on bearing. How was bearing worked out ? Which bearing was used ? Problems in keeping in a straight line ?
How did we decide where to place our quadrat ? Where to start our quadrat ?
At the dunes, we also took samples of the soil, and tried to determine pH using indicator strips and organic content by using colour and visible signs of organic build up. We will be doing this in the lessons. How would you expect the pH to change, and how ?
There were also 2 data loggers to measure temperature and moisture, and an anemometer to measure wind speed. Why are these factors important ?
Need to get a copy of the DATALOGGER results.
Transect at salt marsh was from the slob zone through to the sward zone. Plants developed from halophytic algae through to shrubs in the area above the normal high-tide level, some such as Suaeda Vera were nationally rare species.
We saw also the very well developed creek system, and the presence of pans. What are these features ? Why are they important to the salt marsh ?
How did plants survive not only the salty conditions, but the anaerobic conditions in the areas near the toe of the salt marsh ? (evidence of which was the black mud produced by Wellingtons sinking in)
Salicornia (or samphire – however your pronounce it…) were pioneer species. What are these ?
Transect at the dunes was inland from the top of the beach (fore dunes) through to ‘climax’ vegetation in the pine-wood of Holkham Meals. There was an embryo dune, a small yellow dune, and several grey dunes.
Remember that dunes develop in stages. There is an embryo dune to begin with. This can be produced by sand accumulating around a small area of vegetation (or even rabbit droppings, as they apparently prefer to defacate on raised ground...)
Data needs to be tabulated: set out neatly, so that it can be used to produce diagrams.
One of the things we didn’t measure but which would be valuable to find out along the salt marsh transect in particular is soil salinity. How would we be able to determine this ?
Kite diagrams: help to illustrate zonation by showing how the amount of different vegetation types and amount of bare ground change as one moves along the transect.
One axis needs to be distance along the transect. Look at the handouts that you were given on the day for some examples.
Dune profile: remember that there will be a certain amount of vertical exaggeration in the profile, as you are altering the horizontal scale.
Dunes should grow in size up to a point, and then diminish in size inland as the amount of sediment available is reduced.
Data tabulation / relevant graphs – sketch maps.
Include a neat copy of your fieldwork notes. We used a table to record the species along the lines of the format below:
| Species | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | etc |
Bear in mind that there is an expected or ‘model’ way in which each of these ecosystems would be expected to behave. We should expect our salt marsh to conform to that model.
Waugh: pp. 141-3; 268-9 has details on the succession across a sand dune system and saltmarsh: important terms, which you will need to use in your report, and in the exams, are psammosere and halosere.
Need to bring in the aspect of management: human impact on the marshes and the dune systems. A lot of this is to do with the impact of trampling. Rabbits etc can also lead to blow-outs: deflation of large quantities of sand. Their droppings can however lead to increased accumulations of sand in certain areas. Why is this ?
Remember the fences used to manage humans: boardwalks are put down to prevent the damage to the dunes by the large number of people - including royalty - who pass that way to the beach.
Need to consider the limitations of the methods that were used. Time was one factor which had a bearing on the afternoon session.
Remember also that we were on the marsh in October, when a lot of the plants had finished flowering, which is one of the main ways of identifying them. We could still see the leaves, and these were useful diagnostic features. There were a series of plants which were common on the dunes, which were called the 'yellow composites': we identified a series of plants including:
Mouse ear hawkweed
Dandelion
Common cat's ear
Rough hawkbit
Rough hawkbit
Lesser hawkbit
Smooth cat's ear
Great lettuce
Smooth hawk's beard
These plants all had rosette leaves, which help hold the sand dune down.
Mention also safety considerations. We made sure that we were off the salt marsh well before the tide turned (the sirens which are sounded at Wells are the warning that the tide was on its way back in…) It's a good idea to get off the marsh at least 3 hours before high tide, as the tide can come in faster than a person can walk, and there are very few high spots to head for.
Field Sketches: an important technique for capturing the place. These are a technique which you may have used in your GCSE.
Camera: I saw a few people with these – they are very useful: close up photos of the plants could have been very useful, although these can be obtained via Internet searches.
Cord Grass (Spartina anglica)
Saltmarsh Grass (Puccinellia maritime)
Glasswort / Samphire (Salicornia europaea)
Sea Aster and Sea Lavender – very similar - identified by leaves and hair on the tip
Sea Purslane – silvery grey leaves
Annual and Shrubby Seablite
Sea Spurry and Scurvy Grass were found higher up the marsh.
Sea Rush near the pile of glacial moraine which guarded the second area of marsh behind.
These need to be related back to the aims and the hypothesis.
Extra research:
As with all the work you are given, you need to ‘flesh out’ the basics with additional reading and Internet searches. The Biology section of the library will contain books which may be more related to the plant identification etc than some of the Geography texts as this is one area where this a bit of overlap between the subjects.
Coastal Management: coastal ecosystems are damaged by people as well as animals. When visitors come to areas like Holkham they need to be managed. Dune systems are notorious for developing 'desire line' paths, and boardwalks or chicken wire trails need to be used to guide people to particular areas, perhaps with a viewing area and an interpretive board.
People are also prevented from continuing to produce damage to an area by fencing off the area with simple picket fences: stakes and wire - as can be seen on the photos page.. These can be moved around, so that as areas recover the fences can move to protect a different area.
One of the problems of managing large areas of coastline is that there may be lots of people involved, so that any change needs to be considered by a large number of agencies and organisations. These could include some (or all) of the following:
Local councils
Environment Agency
National Trust - Project Neptune led to them purchasing large areas of the British coastline
English Nature - sites may have SSSI or AONB designation
National Nature Reserves (NNR)
National Park authorities e.g Pembrokeshire Coast
Countryside Commission
DEFRA
and of course, private landowners... e.g the Earl of Leicester
Anyone who is serious about completing AS will show evidence of a lot of effort on this piece of work !
This will be provided to you by myself or Mr. Stone.
http://water.dnr.state.sc.us/marine/pub/seascience/dynamic.html
http://www.field-guides.com/salt/salttr.htm - a good resource
http://www.tip.net.au/~sef/amanda/saltmars.htm
http://linnaeus.nrm.se/flora/di/chenopodia/salic/salieur3.jpg - pictures of Salicornia: an important pioneer species
http://www.geo.msu.edu/geo333/dunes.html
http://members.aol.com/WellsMaps/Maps/Walkers/nature2.JPG - a useful map of the Holkham area
http://members.aol.com/Wellsnextthesea/Harbour/Holkham.html
http://www.southend.rspb.btinternet.co.uk/reports/holkham.htm - birds site, but some useful photos of the area around the dunes
http://www.defendthedunes.org.uk - advice on coastal management
http://www.sandsoftime.hope.ac.uk/succession/model - this is a diagram showing a model of dry sand dune succession - click on any of the boxes in the model for more information on that particular aspect of the succession - a very useful diagram which should feature
http://www.norfolk-skyview.fsnet.co.uk/stiffkey.jpg - an aerial photo of Stiffkey with the car park and marsh in the background - other images of the Norfolk coast are also available from this site, and will be useful to illustrate some of the features we have mentioned
http://www.sandsoftime.hope.ac.uk/succession/blowout.htm - useful diagrams of blowouts of various sizes on Sefton Dunes
http://www.sandsoftime.hope.ac.uk - YOU NEED TO SEE THIS SITE for the background notes
