REVIEWS
Mark Spray - “Earthbound” by Michael
Jay The Great Atlantic Galleries - March 2007.
Alongside these Moorland pieces are a series of more detailed explorations
of what Spray calls “Strata”. Now the word strata describes
layers of sedimentary rock that dominate areas like south Devon’s
Jurassic coast or the convoluted layers around Bude and Hartland
Point. But Spray has chosen to focus on more subtle instances of
layering. Beneath the surface of his “Moorlands” there
is indeed a layering of soil and rock caused by processes that
are poignant testaments to past climatic change in southern Britain. During
the many “Ice Ages” of the past 2 million years of
so, the surface mixture of spoil, peat and weathered rock fragments
would be frozen for most of the year (permafrost) becoming a mobile
slurry during the short summers, with layers of saturated debris
would “creeping” down slope creating the confused “strata” that
Mark Spray has identified in coastal cross-sections.
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