A GRANT of £68,000 will help protect some of the most important geological features in Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

The money from the government's Environmental Action Fund will help pay for a 12-month project to record and designate 300 sites in the West Midlands.

These would then be given some measure of protection in the planning process.

The Malvern Hills is likely to feature prominently in the study by the Regionally Important Geomorphic Sites (RIGS) group for the two counties.

Group director Dr Peter Oliver said: "I expect we would end up with 10 to 12 sites in the Malvern Hills. The rocks in the Malvern Hills are a thousand million years old and are among the oldest in the UK."

Areas like Colwall and Gullet Quarry also have fossil-bearing Silurian rocks, making them an important record in their own right. The group is already running a local study with the help of a £17,000 grant from the Countryside Agency. Part of it includes producing a collection of various types of rocks, to be housed in museums in Hereford and Worcester.

Another important element of the project is in the field of education and the group is targeting Key Stage II pupils.

On April 30, it is holding Rockwatch Roadshow in association with the Royal Society for Nature Conservation at University College, Worcester.

The following day, it will be held at Hereford Museum and schools have been invited. The chance to make plaster fossils, see the landscape as the dinosaurs did and play with remote controlled trilobites are among the attractions.