AD LIB

The magazine of

Paphos Third Age

DON’T FORGET: AN EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING OF P3A WILL BE HELD ON MARCH 17 AT 10AM, AT DROUSHIA HEIGHTS HOTEL. IT’S TO DISCUSS REACTION TO THE NEW CYPRUS LAW ON CLUBS AND VOTE ON A CHANGE TO OUR CONSTITUTION

How we aim to shield P3A

from the blow of a

draconian law on clubs

Ros Sparrow sends her message from the chair

Here we are enjoying busy lives in our sunny island home, and we suddenly have to duck a government sledgehammer…. You can read below the bizarre back-story of the draconian new law on clubs, told by Wally Oppenheim, and an explanation of what we are doing about it, by our Treasurer John Harper. See pages 5 and 6. Please try to come to our EGM on Saturday 17 March – this single-issue meeting promises to be the shortest ever, but aims to keep our Constitution in line with reality. Immediately after the meeting we’ll have a lively talk by John Harper on Trusts, and some of his experiences over many years as Managing Director of Trust Companies in Jersey, Bermuda and Mauritius. Also in this edition:

Fascinating news of the latest archaeological discoveries in the Orkneys—pages 7-9.

A journey deep into the Earth’s mantle and back again, by the Geology Group—pages 11-17.

Plus cooking, play-reading and more. Full contents, page 2.

P3A group brings the world to Paphos

The work of the Dragonfly Study Group has secured a world conference for Paphos

Full story: page 4

www.paphos3rdage.org Editor: Nigel Harris March 2018

2

P3A committee members

Chair Ros Sparrow Vice Chair Keith Adair Secretary Wally Oppenheim Treasurer John Harper Membership Secretary Dale Ikin Groups Coordinator Keith Adair Magazine Editor Nigel Harris Website Officer Ros Sparrow Contact details: http://paphos3rdage.org/committee.htm

Contents

Message from the Chair......…1 Committee news.....….…..2,5,6

Saturday Events………….......3 Dragonflies world conference..4 New club law........................5,6 Archaeology............... 7-9 Food: baking, cookery...........10 Geology:Troodos visit......11-17 Play Reading.........................17

Now it’s never been easier to renew your subs Membership for 2017/2018 now stands at 750, writes Dale Ikin.

The membership year now runs from 1st September to 31st August.

Joining P3A or renewing your subscription has never been easier. The new P3A

website now has a ‘contact us’ page and applications to join can be done online.

There are now 4 mail boxes for members to deposit renewals or applications. These are located at:

Angelikas Restaurant in Paphos The Droushia Heights Hotel

The Olive Tree Taverna in Polemi Mailbox 275 at the Kamares Club

Help! P3A needs YOU

You may have noticed that in the committee list above

there is no Events Organiser. This is because

there have been no volunteers for this important role,

which involves choosing a monthly speaker, dealing with

admin and publicity, and sitting on the committee.

If you’d like to help, contact any committee member

IF NOBODY COMES FORWARD MONTHLY SATURDAY EVENTS

WILL HAVE TO CEASE AFTER THE JUNE SPEAKER

3

Saturday

morning

events:

dates

for your

diary

Maj-Gen Illingworth is sworn in as the Sovereign Bases Administrator

MARCH 17: TRUSTS, TRUSTEES, RICH FAMILIES AND MUCH MORE! John Harper FCA, FCIS, FCMI, F. Inst.TT, TEP spent most of his working life dealing with trusts and related off-shore structures as Managing Director of trust companies in Jersey, Bermuda and Mauritius. John will give a brief history of the genesis of trusts in England some 800 years ago; their development in so-called "common law" jurisdictions; the uses for trusts and related entities such as foundations; the respective rights and duties of trustees, settlors, beneficiaries and others; the impact of forced heirship (in civil law countries) and an overview of what goes on in the life of a professional trustee—including some of his most interesting and even terrifying experiences. At Droushia Heights Hotel, 10-12 (preceded by Extraordinary General Meeting).

APRIL 21: WE WELCOME OUR TOP SOLDIER. Venue to be confirmed. Major-General James Illingworth, OBE, the Administrator of the Sovereign Base Areas and Commander British Forces Cyprus, will talk about his role in Cyprus and some of the current issues and challenges facing him. Although the talk will be of particular interest to British residents, we hope that it will also appeal to the wider community as the Sovereign Base Areas comprise over 250 square kilometres of land in Cyprus.

MAY 26: CARE IN THE COMMUNITY— CYPRUS STYLE Part 1: How to live a fuller life with mobility issues, and the financial assistance available from the Cyprus Gov-ernment. Presenters: Lorraine Thomson and Antonis Antoniou of Your Rehab Care. Part 2 (after refreshment break): What happens to our bodies as we get older and how to maintain and im-prove your fitness with simple exercises. Presenter: George Stylianou of GS PhysioMed. At Droushia Heights Hotel, 10-12.

JUNE 16: A RAY OF LIGHT ON THE DARKEST HOUR Wally Oppenheim writes: My talk will be called Darkest Hour. I will look at the truth behind the two recent

films, Darkest Hour and Dunkirk. Both made stunning cinema, but do they tell the truth about the key months

of May-June 1940? I will look at the key decisions that dictated the course of the war. How did Churchill be-

come Prime Minister in May 1940? Was there really a plot by Halifax and Chamberlain to overthrow him and

make peace with Hitler? Did Churchill ever seriously consider such a deal? Did the voices of the public encour-

aged him to fight on? Why did Hitler halt his tanks just outside Dunkirk? Who and what made possible the

successful evacuation of the BEF? How important were Churchill's speeches? Ultimately, how important were the

decisions taken by Churchill and Hitler in those few weeks of 1940? At Droushia Heights Hotel, 10-12.

4

P3A wins the day for Paphos The work of the Dragonfly Study Group over the past six years has

secured a world conference for Paphos, writes Ros Sparrow.

The World Dragonfly Conference – known as ICO for International Congress on Odonatology – is held every two years. In 2019 it

will be in Austin, Texas, and in 2021 the Congress will be organised by the Dragonfly Study Group, in Paphos. Group leader David

Sparrow and I had attended several previous conferences and were invited to bid for this event.

We were bidding against Rio, but Paphos won the day, due (we think) to a combination of location, value for money, suitable facili-

ties, and the presence of a team of dedicated volunteers. Our contribution of 18,000 dragonfly sighting records to the European data-

base has not gone unnoticed!

Another factor is that the status of Mediterranean dragonflies has started to attract attention from conservationists. Dragonfly larvae

are aquatic, making the insects particularly good indicators of healthy freshwater habitats. Across the Mediterranean these habitats are

deteriorating, due to land development, water pollution, construction of dams, increased demand for fresh water and lengthening peri-

ods of drought linked to climate change.

In the 1970s and 80s dragonfly populations across central and western Europe had greatly declined due to water pollution, but follow-

ing the enforcement of environmental laws, lakes and rivers have been cleaned and dragonfly numbers have recovered.

Now, increased information gathered from the Mediterranean region is revealing the problems here. A new paper published in Hy-

drobiologia, the top scientific journal on aquatic ecosystems, draws on data from all European countries (including our records) to

show that the most vulnerable species are now mainly found in the Mediterranean. The results of the study will aid those lobbying for

legally enforced protection of key freshwater habitats.

Three species present in Cyprus — the Odalisque, the Dark Spreadwing (pictured above) and the Eastern Spectre - are listed in the

published paper as particularly endangered.

The paper also acknowledges the role of citizen scientists; the “well-organised communities of volunteers” who have collected

the vast majority of data throughout Europe, recognising that their input is of as high quality as that of professionals.

The 2021 conference will be held in Neapolis University in Kato Paphos, spanning five days including a full day out on a mid-

congress field trip. We expect 100 – 120 participants, with large contingents from Europe and the US. It will be run quite separately

from the P3A, as a stand-alone not-for-profit event.

However, the P3A can ultimately claim credit for bringing this international event to Paphos.

5

How we

found

a fresh

home

for our

funds

P3A Treasurer John Harper on why the law sent us to a new bank (and a tin box) Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant some forty-five years ago, I had never seriously considered the possibility of

running the financial side of a business without being able to use a bank account.

However, that is effectively what the lawmakers in Cyprus are now forcing many clubs and associations to do. So much for pro-

gress!

The P3A committee has unanimously made the choice not to register under the recent 2017 legislation. This would have

cost around €2,000 in fees and expenses but more importantly, would have left us with an incorporated entity which would

have been entirely impractical, bureaucratic in the extreme and complete “overkill” for a group such as ours.

To have gone through the registration process would give us just one obvious advantage, and that would have been that we could

continue having a bank account at our disposal in the name of P3A.

In reality though, a survey of our recent banking practice showed up some interesting statistics. In the last three years, P3A has

written out a total of 16 cheques, has received over 90% of its subscription income in the form of cash and on average has had no

more than 26 banking transactions each year, the majority of which related to banking subscriptions received.

Given that all our expenses could be easily paid for in cash and that members could be persuaded to avoid giving us cheques, the

prospect of having no bank account was beginning to seem quite feasible.

There was one slight problem however. What do we do with the €7,000+ which was presently sitting in our existing account? We

knew that it could not stay there after the grace period given under the new law, as we have heard of one local bank at any rate,

freezing such an account.

Had we merely owned enough funds to cover say six months’ needs – perhaps no more than €2,000 (which is the norm for UK U3A

groups), then, at a push, a strong tin box (suitably insured) might have perfectly served the purpose. To an extent therefore we were

the victims of our own success.

What we have decided to do is to place the majority of our existing funds into a new account which we have opened at Alpha Bank.

The account is a “tri-partite” account in the personal names of the Chair, Treasurer and Secretary of P3A. Two of the three must

sign any payment instruction, there will be a cheque book but no debit or credit card.

In addition, due to the laws of succession in Cyprus, each of the three named account holders has executed a “Declaration of Trust"

certifying that they hold the funds purely as nominee for the benefit of P3A and not in any way for their personal use or estate.

Time will tell if this solution works. The door is never closed to go through the incorporation process at some future date if it is then

deemed more appropriate for our needs. Oh, and of course we will be keeping a tin box as well!

On the next page: Wally Oppenheim tells how the new law on clubs came to be passed

6

The Cyprus Parliament passed the new law by just a single vote after a few hours debate

A law for clubs - or a sledgehammer? Wally Oppenheim on the history of how a draconian law came to be passed

In Britain clubs and societies like ours are not required to register with the authorities in any way, but Cyprus has always required clubs to register, either with the Ministry of the Interior or with the local authority. In fact this requirement dates back to the 1930s when Britain ruled the island, and was continued when Cyprus became independent in 1960. The old Registration system was fairly straightforward. For a fee of around €30, we provided Paphos Municipality every year with a copy of our constitution and a list of names and addresses of our members. But then in 2017 the government decided to introduce a new law. It requires considerable expense and paperwork (all in Greek) to be submitted, lays down strict rules as to how clubs must be run, requires the documents to be notarised by a lawyer and requires an astonishing amount of information to be given to the registrar, even including the names of the members who attend general meetings. The Registrar is given extensive new powers over clubs, including the right to demand the dismissal of committee members in some circumstances. The law was passed by the Cyprus Parliament by a single vote after a few hours debate. But why was it passed? The reason is said to be that the authorities became aware that there was significant corruption in an organisation based in Nicosia, but lacked the power under existing law to do anything about it. Had the new law been imposed only on charities, clubs that served alcohol and those where gam-bling takes place, then that would have been reasonable - these kinds of groups are also quite rightly subject to legal restrictions and police approval in Britain as well. What was astonishing is that the government decided to extend the new strict laws to all clubs with more than 20 members. Fortunately it is not compulsory for clubs to register under the new rules. Those that choose not to Register are no longer legal entities and will not be able to hold a club bank account, but otherwise can operate as they have always done. That is the route that the committee recommends we take. Hopefully at some point in the future the government will realise that they have used the proverbial sledgehammer and change the rules so that it no longer applies to social and cultural groups like ours, but for now being an unregistered club is the best option.

7

Then: an artist’s impression of how the Brodgar site is thought to have looked when it was occupied

Why Britain is ‘upside down’

Members of the Archaeology Group are now the best-informed people in the world on one of the hottest archaeological discoveries of recent times

The Neolithic sites on Orkney such as the famous Skara Brae, Maeshowe, and the stone circles of Stenness and

Brodgar have been known for a long time, and are designated as a World Heritage Site. But the recent digs at the

Ness of Brodgar are now attracting huge public attention, writes Geoff Cosson.

So far, at least four BBC TV films have been made, and the site has been the main feature in National Geo-

graphic and several World Archaeology magazines.

Keith Brown, one of our members who is a World Heritage Ranger and an official guide at the site, gave our

members at January’s meeting a full account of the major sites on Orkney, and brought us all fully up to date on

the 2017 dig season.

He explained the ongoing re-appraisal of British history which The Ness of Brodgar, only discovered in 2003,

has led to. /continued

8

Now: a drone’s eye view of how the Ness of Brodgar site looks today. More pictures on page 9

/continued The site consists of the bases of a large number of stone buildings, too big to be houses,

and therefore some form of communal or religious/ritual sites. Using local flagstone to construct dry-stone

walls, with roofs originally also of stone tiles, these buildings are basically rectangular with rounded cor-

ners. The site is surrounded by a very wide wall. The mass of cattle bones is intriguing.

The dig is providing much information about these early inhabitants of the British Isles who also left ma-

jor monuments in Ireland, such as Newgrange.

Keith specifically showed us how the latest technology has provided the archaeologists there with not only

great techniques for recording the site, but especially the all-important ability to provide dates. They also

use 3D photography.

Drones of course are now used universally for photographing and recording big sites, but magnetometry

measurement, using the records of changes in the earth’s magnetic field over the centuries, provides a new

dating system.

X-Ray fluorescence tests can analyse the chemistry of pottery, ash, midden (rubbish) and even stone on

site, whilst a small amount of charcoal present can be analysed using Carbon-14 dating.

The results of this new technology have led the archaeologists to date Brodgar to about 3500 BC, which

makes it significantly older than Stonehenge. It now looks likely that the culture of creating these mas-

sive stone monuments started in Northern Scotland, and then spread south.

For more fascinating information, follow the link below:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ness_of_Brodgar

9

The start of it all...left, a

sample of the worldwide

attention which the

Ness of Brodgar is now

receiving

Below, the public face of

Orkney archaeology:

the Skara Brae village

10

Marian’s courses will trace the art of baking Encouraged by the popularity of tv programmes like Bake Off, Marian Richards has put together her own recipe to encour-age P3A members to try their skill at the art of baking. Beginning on 15th March, over four consecutive Thursday af-ternoons, Marian will run the first of a number of courses in which she will share her baking skills with beginners. In the kitchen of Marian’s home in Kato Paphos you will get a very much hands-on experience in the art of making bread, biscuits and cakes. Then, at the end of each session, there will be some great home bakes to indulge at home. If you have not previously contacted Marian and you wish for a place on a Baking for Beginners course, or you would like more information, please contact marianrichards@hotmail.com.

Home thoughts

from abroad

as worldwide

cookery group

has a British

Christmas The picture shows the Paphos Around the World in 80 Dishes group at the end of a 'Christmas around the British Isles' meal. Together we had shared English starters, Irish and Welsh main courses and ended with Scottish desserts - we had to have two because we couldn't decide between them which to have! How do you decide between Cloutie Dumpling and Tipsy Laird trifle?

It was the end of the year, but the group had reformed in October after a break and we had been sharing ideas for themes in 2018. By the time this edition comes out we will have touched down in Brazil and be looking up our cookery books for contributions to the Thai meal planned for 19th March. The group is not full and we can welcome one, possibly two new members, so do get in touch if you are interested. It is not competitive, just invites anyone interested in sharing food from various different countries to get together. Each person brings a contribution towards the buffet and we meet together once a month, usually on the 3rd Monday evening of the month.

For more information contact Jill Dare on 26 911489 or email andjill@tesco.net

11

Members of the Geology Group listen to wise words from Professor John Malpas (seated, centre)

Our travels in the Troodos Rob Harris on a memorable visit to the Cyprus uplands

On your travels around the island you will occasionally spot a gaggle of eager young students, notebooks and selfie

sticks to hand, intently studying a road cutting. There's nothing wrong with them, they're geologists!

Cyprus is a geology Mecca for two very important reasons:

1. The hospitality, the climate, the food and the wine.

2. There are very few other places on the planet where you can study ocean floor geology at the top of a

mountain.

In the past those groups of students may have been tutored by Professor John Malpas, an internationally recognised

expert on the geology of Cyprus and specifically, the genesis, composition and structure of an assemblage of rocks

collectively known as Ophiolites.

John recently retired from his position at Hong Kong University and their loss has most definitely been our gain,

because he has joined the P3A geology group.

Before he could change his mind, he was dragooned into taking yet another group of eager students (this time more

mature, a bit slower, and without the selfie sticks) on a memorable three day excursion up the Troodos.

Before getting you on the bus and heading for the hills, here's a quick refresher on the geological history of our

corner of the planet over the last 100 million years or so. It should bring you up to speed:

The island of Cyprus would probably have remained beneath the ocean had our corner of the Mediterranean not

become a battleground between converging land masses in a process known as 'Continental Drift' or plate tectonics,

if you want to score some Brownie points.

Plate tectonics has resulted in the continental blocks of African, Eurasian and Arabian all jockeying for position in

the eastern Mediterranean. The Arabian plate is moving north at 18 mm per year. The Anatolian block is being

'squirted' out westwards at 25 mm per year and Africa meanwhile, is slowly but inexorably closing in from the south.

Cutting a long story short, the island of Cyprus - well and truly caught between 'a rock and a hard place' and with

nowhere else to go - was heaved above sea level. about 6 million years ago and it is still rising. For geologists the

good fortune has been that the upheaval brought a chunk of ocean floor with it.

A 'chunk' we now know as the Troodos mountains. . /continued

12

Travels in the Troodos /continued

The rocks of the Troodos were created about 90 million years ago when the crust beneath the ocean was torn apart (as is happening

today along the mid Atlantic ridge). This fracturing and faulting allowed viscous, or molten, crustal and upper mantle material to surge

into the gap and create a suite of rocks that, taken together, are referred to as Ophiolites. Ophiolites intrigue geologists because they are

primitive and elemental 'genesis' rocks created in the netherworld where crust meets mantle.

There is one last thing to clear up before we set off::

.

Why are the oldest rocks of the Troodos, the Mantle section, at the very top of the mountains? The answer is relatively straight

forward.

The picture left is of a small anticline - a geological fold where

the oldest rocks form the core of the structure and younger layers

cover the core. If the old (core) rock has a greater resistance to

erosion than those on the flanks, then the flanks will be weathered

away at a faster rate, leaving the core rock prominent in the

middle. So it has been with the Troodos.

The three major sequences comprising the Troodos Ophiolite are

currently interpreted as::

A Mantle section (the oldest rocks in the core of the anticlinal

structure) ,

The lower crustal section containing igneous rocks that cooled

and solidified within the crust.

The upper crustal section comprising rocks that solidified from

magma after it had spewed out onto the ocean floor..

DAY ONE: OF HARZBURGITE, CHROMITE AND ASBESTOS The Troodos visit started with the oldest Mantle rocks at the top of the mountain and then worked its way up the

sequence and down the mountain - a statement that should now make sense!

Truth to tell, the mantle rocks are not particularly photogenic and their appeal is not enhanced when they are given names like

Harzburgite, Lherzolite, Wehrlite and Dunite. For the record, the photo below right is of Dunite veins cutting Harzburgite.

The significance of the rocks in the Mantle sequence is the insight they give geologists into the 'feedstock' for all other crustal rocks, not

to mention the modest satisfaction gained by knowing you have 'seen' into the Earth's mantle.

It will probably not have escaped your notice that Cyprus is (or was) very well

endowed with valuable minerals, principally copper, but also chromite,

asbestos and gold.

We have the Troodos Ophiolites to thank for this bounty. It is therefore fitting

that our next destination was a derelict chromite mine—pictured on page 13..

The chromite occurs sporadically in lenses and pods of varying shapes and

sizes, the mine at Kannoures was difficult to mine economically and the

industry faded away in the 1980's.

It was also here that the group was introduced to a new distance measure - the

Malpas mile.

A trifling distance for someone who has done as much field work as John but,

depending on who you talk to, anything up to 3 kilometres for a senior citizen!

/continued

13

ABOVE: the derelict copper mine at Kannoures

RIGHT: a thin seam of asbestos at the Amiantos mine site

Travels in the Troodos /continued The next visit was to another bit of mining history, the giant

Amiantos asbestos mine. Prodigious amounts of rock and overburden were stripped from the flanks of the Troodos to

get at the thin (never much more than 15 mm) veins of asbestos, a product of the serpentinisation of the mantle rocks.

At its peak in the 1970's the mine produced about 40,000 tonnes of asbestos per year, but it went into swift decline

when the health hazards of asbestos became apparent. It closed in 1988 and the extensive environmental works are now

starting to cover the scars..

Leaving the Mantle rocks behind, we crossed into the plutonic rocks of the lower crustal section but (and it's a big but)

there is no clear demarcation. Earth tectonics have had ample time to fold, fracture, fault, distort and disguise what, in

theory, should be clearly evident. Just to be on the safe side geologists therefore refer to the TZ - the Transition Zone!

/continued

14

Travels in the Troodos /continued The afternoon of the first day took us to a fascinating sequence of rocks to the east of Chandria village - a magma

chamber frozen in time.

Definitions vary, but a magma chamber is essentially a space created in a host rock by the high pressure intrusion of

a molten magma. In this particular magma chamber fresh pulses of new molten material have created a layering ef-

fect.

The darker bands in the picture below are approximately 5m apart and were the first rock to crystallize out of the

cooling magma.

Then rocks with fewer heavy elements and therefore capable of crystallizing at lower temperatures form the lighter

layers Then, just as everything was settling down, another pulse of molten magma would enter the chamber and re-

peat the process.

Just around the corner from the 'magma chamber' another road cutting (what would geologist do without road mak-

ers?) once again high-

lights the tectonic turmoil

that gave birth to the

Troodos (pictured left).

Here it is quite clear that

several phases of dike

intrusion have taken

place where younger

liquid magma has in-

vaded, and cuts across,

older cooled magma. Not

once, but a number of

times.

/continued

15

Travels in the Troodos /continued

DAY TWO: OF DONKEYS, DIKES AND DRILLING

Our first stop on day 2, just to the north of Chan-

dria, once again emphasised the multiple phases of

intrusion in the plutonic sequence, not only over

time, but also in the composition of successive

magma intrusions.

You are spared yet another photo of rocks and

instead, treated to a shot of the passing traffic.

Moving up the Ophiolite sequence to younger plutonic rocks, those in the group that had not before seen the extraordi-

nary sheeted dikes. at Tichia tis Madaris (picture on page 16) were taken on a short diversion to enjoy a wonderful

view of serried ranks of sheer, vertical dike walls marching across the landscape.

Then, for a close up look at dikes, we stopped on the outskirts of Palekhori village.

Like those at Madaris the Palekhori dikes are near vertical and trend roughly N-S. The individual intrusions have thick-

nesses ranging from a few centimetres to several metres. You will also note a fault cutting through the dike sequence.

In the 1980's a borehole was drilled at Palekhori as part of the Cyprus Crustal Study Project. The expectation was to

quickly drill through the sheeted dikes and into the lower plutonic sequence. The reality was a 700 metre drilled thick-

ness of sheeted dikes! Quoting John Malpas: "Detailed studies have shown that there are at least two magma chambers

represented and that the sheeted dike complex at this site (Palekhori) is made up of multiple phases of dike injection,

each episode with a distinct composition and probably from a different magma chamber".

In the afternoon we left the Plutonic (cooled from magma within the crust) rocks behind and finally reached the Upper

Crustal Section of Volcanic (cooled from magma that made it to the ocean floor) rocks. It was fitting that we did so at

the most visited geological site in Cyprus - Klirou bridge on the Akaki river.

Just upstream of the bridge, and on the north wall of the canyon, are two dike swarms bracketing a layer of pillow lavas

(Figure 10). Pillow lavas are ubiquitous in the Upper Crustal Section and are easily recognised by their distinctive

'blobby' shape, a shape caused by the rapid cooling of a lava when it comes into contact with the cold water of the ocean

(confusingly, magma is called lava from the moment it breaks surface, whether that be beneath the ocean or on land).

The dikes obviously post date the lava layer because they cut through it on their way to a new, elevated, sea floor above

the one on which these pillows were first extruded. There are indeed two lava sequences in the succession - the lower

lavas that we see here, and the upper lavas - that were probably fed by these dikes - and that have since been eroded

away. /continued

16

The next visit was to another bit of mining history, the giant Amiantos asbestos mine. Prodigious amounts of rock and

overburden were stripped from the flanks of the Troodos to get at the thin (never much more than 15 mm) veins of

asbestos (Figure 4), a product of the serpentinisation of the host mantle rocks.

RIGHT: the amazing walls of sheeted dykes at Tichia tis Madaris BELOW: dykes right and left bracket a layer of pillow lavas near the Klirou Bridge on the Akaki river

17

Travels in the Troodos /continued

DAY THREE: OF BLOBBY PILLOWS AND A FINAL MYSTERY

A broad fault zone cuts through the rocks of the Troodos and

forms an 'outlier' to the south of the main body known as the

Arakapas Sequence.

The sequence contains all the rock types typical of the Troodos

but, as you may expect in a major fault zone, highly disturbed

and deformed.

On the outskirts of Arakapas village a stop was made to examine

pillow lavas that had erupted within the fault zone. Their 'blobby'

pillow structure is clearly evident in the picture left.

The Troodos Ophiolites are igneous rocks i.e.

"formed through the cooling and solidification

of magma or lava". The last stop of the trip

therefore came as something of a surprise;

Sedimentary rocks!

Still within the fault zone, and west of Lageia,

is a remarkable exposure of sedimentary brec-

cias, sands, silts and mudstones, pictured

right. The lowest unit contains blocks and

boulders of rocks eroded off the Troodos but

also, and surprisingly, blocks of sandstones.

Then, lying unconformably above the base unit,

is a sequence of alternating layers of red mud-

stone and grey sandstone which, in turn, are

blanketed by what appears to be a lava flow

(not visible in the photo). The sequence of

events leading to the presence of these deposits

remain something of a mystery.

So the trip appropriately concluded with a question. There will be many more as geologists continue to

research into the mysteries of the Troodos Ophiolites and the 70% of Earth's surface hidden under the seas.

...and now for something completely different... The Play Reading Group continues to meet monthly on the second Thursday of each month at the Coral Star Restaurant in

Coral Bay, writes Simon Welch.

Over recent months we have enjoyed reading a variety of different plays together, including the Francis Durbridge thriller

“Suddenly At Home”, the classic comedy “When We Are Married”, the dark thriller “Gaslight” and the comic tale of too

many murderers “Anybody For Murder?”

Our choice of play is always dictated by the number of members who will be joining us, though we hope over the next few

months to be reading plays such as the 1936 Abdication Crisis play “Crown Matrimonial”, the touching Thomas Hardy story

“The Day After the Fair” and that perennial favourite “Blithe Spirit”.

We read plays purely for enjoyment and not as an “intellectual exercise”, and several of our members have not seen a play

script since they were at school, so absolutely no acting experience is needed. If you feel like joining us, you’ll be very wel-

come. Contact the group at simonwelch@gmx.com