Aberdeen Evening Lecture: October 2018

The recent economic collapse of the opencast coal mining industry in the Midland Valley of Scotland has left behind a number of abandoned voids that reveal large scale 3D exposures in strategically important strata. One of those is the former Spireslack Surface Coal Mine near the former mining village of Glenbuck in East Ayrshire. A strong case can be made for retaining such large-scale geological sections that might otherwise have been lost to science. While some might see the opencast workings at Spireslack as industrial scars on the Scottish landscape, they can instead become national assets for multidisciplinary Geoscience research and learning in general. Such opencast sites can also provide a rich visitor and/or learning experience for the wider public, showing coal geology and the working life of previous generations.