Plutonic lunch: new understandings of Shap granite

Recently, we ate lunch at the Honest Lawyer pub outside Durham – an oxymoron for sure. Staring at me from the table was the belly of a possible volcano: a granite tabletop! It looked suspiciously like Shap granite from Cumbria, but unfortunately the quarry provenience was not known to the waitress.

As any volcanologist (but who else?) knows, granite is mainly formed in volcanic arcs where magma rises through the Earth's crust in 'diapirs';  most of these diapirs solidify as plutons 5 to 20km deep in the crust, but some make it to the surface where magma is extruded through volcanoes as lava or volcanic ash. The magma that doesn't make it out cools slowly in the chamber or pluton, allowing very large mineral crystals to grow. In this kind of pink granite, the large pink rectangular crystals are potassium (K-)feldspar, also known as orthoclase. Regular feldspar (plagioclase) forms the white crystals surrounding the large pink ones, while the grey bubble-like crystals are quartz, and the black grains may be biotite or amphibole.

Shap granite is featured as the Rock of the Month for December 2011 by the Open University. The Shap granite outcrop in the Lake District is intrusive into the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, which was once an island arc off the micro-continent of Avalonia in the Iapetus Ocean between 460 and 444 million years ago [1]. However, Shap dates later via processes quite different from the subduction zone granite emplacement described above. After Avalonia was accreted to Laurentia (North America), the area of the Iapetus suture in northern England (demarcated by the Solway tectonic line) was subject to magmatism on both north and south sides of the suture. It is thought that a period extensional tectonics, creating a pull-apart basin 21km wide, was able to generate higher temperatures that caused both mantle and crustal melts to rise into the upper crust [2]. These were emplaced in the subsequent period of Acadian Deformation between 400 and 390 million years ago. Shap granite, therefore, stands as the representative of a newly understood source of magma generation that is totally divorced from subduction tectonics.

Many buildings around England feature Shap granite floors or columns. So you can also walk on it  or bump into it as well as eat off it. Just keep those sharp eyes open for Shap and you will be rewarded by a trip to the center of the Earth (or at least 5 kilometers down where granite forms).

Oh yes, and the Honest Lawyer has great Eggs Benedict. Did I say lunch? Maybe it was brunch...

[1] Huff, WD; Bergström, & Kolata, DR (2010) "Ordovician explosive volcanism," pp. 13-28 in The Ordovician Earth System, ed. by FC Finney & WBM Berry. Geological Society of America Special Paper 466.

[2] Brown, PE; Ryan, PD; Soper, NJ & Woodcock, NH (2008) "The newer granite problem revisited: a trans-tensional origin for the early Devonian trans-suture suite". Geological Magazine 145.2:235-256.

How to play "Pub Cricket" in a car

This is a car game that is disappearing in England. It used to be that one drove narrow A-roads winding through multiple villages to get where you wanted to go. Along the way were lots (and I mean lots!) of pubs. So somewhat like spotting out-of-state license plates (English: car registrations) on American roads, English kids instead played pub cricket...

The pub sign for the Market Tavern is a market
stall selling veggies – the man counts for 2 legs.
The Durham Indoor Market sign in red and gold
behind it has 8 legs – but it counts for nothing
as it is not a pub sign.

Every pub sign passed that has an animal on it (including human animals) has a value for how many legs it contains. The King's Head or The Shakespeare only give two legs each, while Coach & Horses or Fox & Hounds are real mother loads. Pubs like The Market Tavern, whose names don't refer specifically to animals but the pub sign contains animals (photo) do count for legs. When one meets a pub sign that doesn't have any legs, like the Elm Tree, then not only do you get zero points for that one but it becomes someone else's turn to count.*

These days, of course, everyone takes the M-roads (motorways) which don't have any pubs on them a'tall (American: adall). And besides,
the kids have screens to watch, either embedded in the backs of seats or held in their grubby little hands.

* Despite going to the Elm Tree every week, I couldn't think off hand of a legless pub (ha, ha: that's what you call someone in England when they've drunk too much – legless). So I got out the Durham phone book and the separate Yellow Pages. I was astounded to find only one (1) pub listed in each under the classifieds for 'pubic houses'.  Our old Cambridge phone book (1993-4) has seven (7) columns of public houses listed. What's become of this country? Ads too expensive? Too many pub closures? Pubs reclassifying themselves as restraurants??

'Morning Doves' Duo

The 'Morning Doves' at the
Shakespeare's Head, Islington

Two young women are making the rounds of pubs and clubs in London, singing guitar-accompanied harmony in beautiful, interesting voices. They visited the Shakespeare's Head in Islington Sunday night and sang a couple of songs in the Old Timey music session. I asked if they were singing professionally and they said they're just starting out, calling themselves the Morning Doves. This is a duo to keep your eyes and ears out for!

I should have asked them more questions about who they are because when I got home to google them, I couldn't find them anywhere online (definitely spelling themselves 'morning', not 'mourning'). If anyone has more information, please let me know!

Sessions at two Shakespeare pubs

I've heard "The Swan" is the most popular name for a pub, but there are a lot of Shakespeares around, too. We've just been to a session at The Shakespeare's Head, across from Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Nice old timey American session populated by seven geezers, two young men, a lad and two beautiful women (myself included, of course...but which category?). Or another way to look at it: 5 guitars, 2 mandolins, 2 fiddles, 2 banjos, 1 mouth harp and spoons. Unfortunately pennywhistles aren't allowed to accompany American old timey – only if an Irish tune is played.

American Old Timey Session at the Shakespeare's Head,
1 Arlington Way, Islington, London
Sessions every Sunday night from 8pm

The session was open and welcoming, both to newcomers and to those with less experience, shall we say. But as I learned from another American session at the Blue Lion pub on Gray's Inn Road, London, last Wednesday (why is it Gray when the English spelling is 'grey'?), the session etiquette is different from an Irish session, as at The Shakespeare Tavern in Durham.

In an American session, the session boss calls out for people to start a tune, or even goes around the circle for different people to start a tune, and they often name it first. At an Irish session, whoever wants just digs in and everyone follows without naming the tune. Again, an American tune is played by itself but several times, whereas Irish tunes are played two or three times in sets of three, usually. In an Irish session, the session boss often calls out the change of tunes, either just by yelling "Change!" or stating the key in which the new tune has to be played; then at the end, they might yell "Out". But in an American session, there is no changing tunes and 'Out' is often indicated by a raised foot – not unknown in Irish/English sessions. Gotta keep a watch out there. Finally, there is more singing in an American session, which raises the problem  of whether one tries to sing with an old timey American accent/voice (some English do it surprisingly well; others don't...).

Irish/English session at The Shakespeare Tavern
63 Saddler Street, Durham
Sessions on 1st & 3rd Wednesdays from about 8.30pm

Not only is the way the session run different but so is the drinking. At the American sessions (on a sample of two), everyone buys their own drinks, no questions asked (this is very American – every man, woman, and child for themself). But in an Irish/English session, a person who wants to renew their drink usually asks around if anyone else wants one, too (or maybe this is just in the north). It can get very expensive, buying rounds, and I know people who have managed their entire music career sloping off when it's their turn to buy a round but always being there to receive a drink. And if you don't drink beer (but only one rum & coke or Baileys rather than three pints a night), it's really hard to participate in buying rounds because of the scorn of the beer drinkers.

Music at Ye Old Elm Tree

The Elm Tree pub has been listed as the "best pub in Durham" – why, we don't know. This was in the advertising booklet published for Newcastle tourism and handed out to Durham University students last week as they all arrived back in town for the new term.

It is one of a few pubs in Durham offering sessions in traditional folk music. It's British-Irish at the Elm Tree on Monday and Tuesday nights. On Wednesdays there is the DUFS student group' practicing its tunebook repertoire at the Market Tavern, and a different session at the Shakespeare, while Thursdays have Northumbrian music at the Dun Cow and a singing session at the Tap & Spile. So entertainment is never hard to find on week nights here in Durham. And I finally understand the attraction of going down to the pub and seeing friends – without prior arrangement.
While Monday night at the Elm Tree is pretty high-powered and difficult to join in, the Tuesday night session is very flexible and welcoming, especially to us relative beginners. There are some regulars who come in to hear us play, while foreign guests of musicians are occasional visitors. Last night a group of five Japanese professors were there to listen in. So although rather isolated here in the North of England, and Durham being too small a town for some, you can't say it isn't connected and interesting!