Day 1, Locality 9

Kato Amiandos, with abandoned mineworkings and hillside exposures.

With the cars parked beside some derelict office buildings, there is a short walk down the road to the entrance of an abandoned mine.  On the way past, it is interesting to note that the neglected building is roofed in corrugated asbestos and is still in perfect condition.  Whereas the outbuildings are roofed in corrugated iron which is rusting and leaking.

The path leads up to the main ridge.

Closest to the road, exposures on the low ridge are of grey-green, foliated, mantle harzburgite. Further southeast along the ridge, banded wehrlite, a black and green rock, can be found. Within these wehrlites the clinopyroxenes reach many centimetres in size, and are termed oikocrysts when enclosing smaller olivine crystals. These are the layered cumulates of the Lower Plutonic Intrusives, at the base of the oceanic crustal sequence. Layered dunites may also be seen, together with clinopyroxenites, also showing oikocrystic texture.

Towards the low hill along the ridge the ultramafics give way to plagioclase-bearing layered gabbros. The arrival of plagioclase indicates that the seismic Moho has been reached.

Note size of 2 Euro coin.