Geological stop at Ramså, Andøya

Day 22/Saturday 3rd of August. Geological stop at the Mesozoic sedimentary strata at Ramså on Andøya.
For geologist Ramså is a special place. It contains the youngest sedimentary rocks exposed in Norway, the upper Jurassic to Cretaceous Ramså to Skarstein formations.
In between is the uppermost Jurassic Dragneset formation, in which a huge and well preserved specimen of a fish lizard were found. Also in this formation is the only onshore coal mine in Norway. Not very successful, and last exploited by the Germans during the Second World War occupation of Norway. Now drowned in a small pond.
Later the firm Norminol explored for oil here, from 1971 to 1974, hot on the heals of the Ekofisk discovery. And old casing pipe can still be found on tbe shore south of Skarstein.
More on this geology follow this and associated links https://geo365.no/norminol-boret-tort/ describing the work and insights of Erling’s retired colleague and friend Peter
Midbøe and co workers.
More in Norminol here https://no.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norminol.
Geology is mostly easier on a well drawn map, and without a hammer distinguishing algal grown rocks may be a challenge. And even a hammer would have been small compared to the tool Arne Dalland, the first geologist to map these starta in detail,
used: An hydraulic excavator!
Anyway, having found some conglomeration clasts Erling convinced himself that the basal conglomerate was localized and charged up river along the upward fining starta to look for the Dragneset formation and the coal mine.
A good location for Dragneset is difficult to come by. The river banks have become overgrown. Time for a new round with an hydraulic excavator?
The pond that has drowned the old coal mine was easier to find, and that ended the day’s geological excursion.
Or almost ended: As we were preparing to leave Erling discovered some finer grained sediment within the basal conglomerate (?). This was a puzzle, maybe unwise to leave without further exploration for an explanation?
Fearing for the progress of the whole trip, Karianne and Stein gently pointed out that the tide was what was leaving and unless we wanted to carry the boats a hundred meters it was time to get going…., maybe Erling could come back another time with Peter? Surely he could explain all if this.
So in the end this scientific conundrum was left behind for later studies..

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