Hi Paul,
I live about 20 miles from the Fauld crater and have visited many
times...quite a sight and quite a story behind it. There was recently a
memorial set up for those who died at the site. The fields around are
strewn with the gypsum blown from the mine under the crater....many with
shatter cones visible.
I have an extra chilling tale about the crater and one of the reasons I
visit with my friend. My best friend from school and now my brother in
law belongs to a farming family who go back for many generations. His
father's cousins and relatives farmed the land on and around the crater.
On the day of the explosion the children from the farm left and went to
school as usual. At 11:11 on that Nov 27th 1944 the whole school shook
and the children hid under tables as windows blew in and tiles few
everywhere. Some children then ran outside dispite warnings from
teachers that it might be an air raid. Stones where falling from the sky
and they were lucky not to be injured. The children where sent home.
When the children returned home to their farm it had disappeared. The
farm was on or very near the crater and had been completely wiped of the
beautiful fields it once cared for. Their parents and farm hands were
never found. My father and mother remember hearing/feeling the explosion.
Graham Ensor, Nr Barwell UK
Paul wrote:
Dear Friends,
While looking around, a friend found something, which
looked like an impact crater at:
Latidue 52.847117N, Longitude 1.730608W
After a quick search, I found that it although it was
indeed a crater, it was not the result of a meteorite
impact and had more earthly origins. It was the site
of the Fauld explosion, which occurred when in 1944,
some 3,670 tons of RAF bombs exploded being stored
underground exploded. A paper about thsi event is:
Waltham, T., 2001, The Fauld Crater. Mercian Geologist.
vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 123-125.
A 536Kb PDF file can be obtained from:
http://www.emgs.org.uk/files/local_geology/15(2)_fauld_crater.pdf
The “Fauld Explosion” web page is at:
http://www.carolyn.topmum.net/tutbury/fauld/fauldcrater.htm
and “The world's largest-ever explosion (almost) - in
Staffordshire 60 years ago” at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/features/history/2004/fauld.shtml
Yours,
Paul H.
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