Sir Edgeworth David Quarry

Sir Edgeworth David Quarry

Sir Edgeworth David, 1858-1934

This ‘fine scholar and great scientist’ from Wales, served some time as Assistant Geological Surveyor with the NSW Government, and was Professor of Geology at the University of Sydney from 1891 until 1924.

Among his many great achievements were his discovery and mapping of the Greta Coal Measures and several expeditions to Antarctica. He journeyed there with Ernest Shackleton and Douglas Mawson in 1909 on the ‘Nimrod’. Along with Alistair MacKay they spent a gruelling four months in search of the South Magnetic Pole. They thought they had reached their goal, but later calculations indicated they had reached ‘an outlier of the main magnetic pole.’ The First World War saw the 58yr old enlist as a Major, and he served on the Western Front in France with the Mining Battalion from 1916-1918. His mapping of the geology and water supplies allowed tunnelling which was instrumental in explosions under enemy mine systems.

He was awarded the DSO (Distinguished Service Order).

Professor David and the Seaham Quarry

Glacial activity had always been his ‘favourite geological problem’.

During his work in the Maitland area he had found evidence of glaciation. In 1914 he visited Seaham with distinguished international scientists of The British Association for the Advancement of Science. By chance he discovered ‘a missing piece of evidence which linked local glaciation with an ice age in South Africa and Brazil’. ‘It was quite a dramatic moment’.

The Glacial Beds

‘The evidence of glaciation’ found by Professor David was the varved shale at a small quarry near the Williams River. These shales are well banded or layered, the layers appearing in pairs. A thicker course layer represents summer deposits when the ice melts, and a thinner fine layer represents the winter deposit when most of the sediment is ‘locked’ in the ice. Each pair, or varve represents a seasonal deposit. Hundreds of paired layers of sediment were deposited in a glacial lake approximately 300 million years ago in the Late Carboniferous Period when this area lay further south towards the South Pole. The thickness of each season’s deposit is variable, but the total thickness of shales in the Seaham district indicates they would have been deposited over approximately 3,000 years. The shales contained many interesting structures such as contortions due to the dragging of the glacier over soft material, slumping, ripple marks and dropped pebbles which were freed from icebergs floating across the lakes.

The preservation of the Quarry

So having his interests stirred, Edgeworth David made several return visits to Seaham. As Chairman of The Pan Pacific Congress in 1923 he brought other geologists – ‘All visiting scientists were agreed that it was greatly in the interest of science that the structures at this quarry should be preserved… and I desire respectfully, making this quarry a reserve. The particular kinds of folds… among the most perfect of their kind in the world. There is little doubt that the glacier ice which made them came from a vast ice sheet which covered nearly half of the whole area of Australia.’ (Extract from letter to L.B. Fisher, Brandon from Professor David in 1923)

Professor David and other scientists often stayed at the Seaham Hotel or with local residents such as the Fishers of Brandon.

The Seaham Quarry was dedicated to science by G.D. Osborne of Sydney University on 26 August 1925.

‘Science trusts that the people of Seaham will kindly preserve this quarry intact for the benefit of future generations’.