Sorry for the delay in this. The book I have is :

Structural Mechanics

Second Edition

Ray Hulse & Jack Cain

ISBN: 978-0-335-80457-5

palgrave.com

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by paulsutton
I typed --- instead of -0- in the ISBN Number, so edited to correct it.

Hi, Paul, thanks for the info.

I was not familiar with that book, but I have downloaded a pdf of what is probably the first edition.

It seems very similar to the approach in the Schaum's Outline Series, are you familiar with these ?

Definitely exam driven, each chapter consists of a few basic statements / governing principles / governing equations , without explanation.

Followed by plenty of specific worked examples using those statements.

Followed by some practise questions.

So designed to be used in conjunction with a teacher/ tutor / lecturer who explains the statements in the first place.

It is these explanations I am trying to provide for you, slanted to the fact that you have only basic maths.

The book gaily assumes you are happy with the resolution of forces into components and the combination of components, which is what I am working towards.

How did you get on with my catapault analogy ?

Just to finish of our Dorset discussion.

When looking back into the past it is common to draw outlines of present day land masses such as the British Isles onto the map of a previous time.

Indeed the ones I have post feature these.

There are a few things to remember about this.

Continental drift, faulting and other modes of earth movement means that the land that is there now ( at a given location) will not have been there is the past.

Parts of the land that is demarcated as containing the British Isles may have been land at the time on the presented map, but later submerged under water (fresh or salt) in part or in whole.

This is the case with Dorset and Somerset.

That is how the present sedimetary rocks were formed.

The difference between them is the timing of the formation, at least 200 million years, Somerset being the earlier formation.

The following pictures show this clearly.

The first one is around 100 million years ago and shows the parts of the British Isles that were actually land at the time.

The island of Cornubia is Mercator's original name for the SW peninsula (Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset) and is formed from earlier sediments, and intruded granite.

The second is after 35 million years of sedimentary deposition first the lias and limestone followed by the chalk in East Somerset and Dorset. 45, so about 65 million years go when there was also some uplift due to the start of the Alpine orogony.