Home to some very corrosive sulphur crags. The Sintra volcanic complex, comprised mainly of granites and syenites, forms impressive, jagged sea cliffs that extend for several kilometres both north and south of the Cabo da Roca. Syenite is a low-silica form of granite, and looks very similar. Unlike typical granitic intrusions with their massive, sparsely-jointed […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 1st April 2020 Being locked down is not so bad if you can keep working in your lab. I’ve finally caught up with some wall-wash samples sent to me by Rodrigo Castelan Carlson from the beautiful granite slab sea cliffs of Campo Escola da Barra […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 10th March 2020 Warning: This gets a bit geekey, but I’ll simplify as much as possible. For the past few years I have concentrated on providing sufficient evidence for the theory that all marine crags showing SCC of 304SS are associated with high sulphate levels. […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 7 March 2020 Everyone knows and loves those huge lower-off rings we find at the top of climbs at Railay/Tonsai.However, some of us began to love them a whole lot less when it became clear that they too were subject to the dreaded SCC. If […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 29 January 2020 The hero of this piece is Martin Roberts who burnt countless hours of quality time, when he could have been climbing, installing a large range of anchor types in a whole pile of locations across Railay/Tonsai. My motto is to “measure more and […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 27 January 2020 I promise this is the last “distance from the sea” post ….. for a little while at any rate I say extra, because here I’m talking about Heuco Wall (just 50m beyond Low Tide Wall), and this is one of a number […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 21 January 2020 Bit of a back story here…. When I first visited Railay, some 12 years ago, I had heard stories about perfectly good-looking SS bolts snapping under body-weight, but being ever the scientific skeptic, I thought I’ll believe that when I see it […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 16 January 2020 Today I measured spot sulphates at three points on the set of cliffs containing Diamond Cave, ending with a sample from Diamond Cave North climbing area itself. All showed zero levels as I would expect for a crag 300m from the sea. […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 16 January 2020 A consistent feature of the “sulphur crag” story, especially at Railay/Tonsai is that sulphate is not found any distance more than 100m or so from the sea. Thus it is no surprise that the white deposit found at Wee’s Present Wall shown […]
This note was posted to the Titanium Bolting FB Group 14 January 2020 The large cave at the Pra Nang side of Klao Luk Choee is home to the classic Todd Skinner route Best Route in Minnesota. At the base of that route there is a white powdery material in great abundance. Analysis shows it […]