100 Years of Knowing the Age of the Earth Dynamic Topography a Key Surface Record of Deep Earth Processes
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LECTURE MEETINGS, TALKS and EVENTS
Geologists’ Association - South Wales Group Cymdeithas Y Daearegwyr - Grŵp De Cymru Registered Charity Number 1054303 50 YEAR ARCHIVES 1960-2010 - LECTURE MEETINGS, TALKS and EVENTS This section includes lectures, talks and events from 1960 to 2010. The compilation has been taken from the 1992 listing by Alun J Thomas (Secretary 1966-1989), then from various records up to 2010, all cross checked against annual reports and newsletters etc, and amended as necessary. As far as possible, it is the actual meetings that are included; these are not necessarily those given in programme listings as meetings were sometimes changed at the last minute (eg illness of the speaker, bad weather, change of title). The occasional discrepancy or omission from the records may mean that a few of the events have not been correctly listed, but it is believed that this number is small. Similarly, there are some discrepancies in the actual titles of some talks; the more significant are indicated. Session 1 1960 (Acting) Chairman : Dr Douglas A.Bassett (National Museum of Wales) 1960 23 January, Saturday, Cardiff (Medical College, Newport Road) Inaugural Meeting Prospecting for Minerals, Professor David Williams (Imperial College, University of London and President, Geologists' Association) 13 February, Saturday, Swansea The geology of south-east Wales with special reference to the Cardiff District, Professor J.G.C. Anderson (University College Cardiff) 3 March, Thursday, Cardiff The Rocky Mountains, Professor F.H.T Rhodes (University College of Swansea) 5 April, Tuesday, Swansea, First Annual General Meeting (including election of First Chairman) followed by the Chairman's Address: The History of Lower Palaeozoic research in Wales with particular reference to the Cambrian rocks of Merioneth, Dr Douglas A. -
PDF— Granite-Greenstone Belts Separated by Porcupine-Destor
C G E S NT N A ER S e B EC w o TIO ok N Vol. 8, No. 10 October 1998 es st t or INSIDE Rel e • 1999 Section Meetings ea GSA TODAY Rocky Mountain, p. 25 ses North-Central, p. 27 A Publication of the Geological Society of America • Honorary Fellows, p. 8 Lithoprobe Leads to New Perspectives on 70˚ -140˚ 70˚ Continental Evolution -40˚ Ron M. Clowes, Lithoprobe, University -120˚ of British Columbia, 6339 Stores Road, -60˚ -100˚ -80˚ Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada, 60˚ Wopmay 60˚ [email protected] Slave SNORCLE Fred A. Cook, Department of Geology & Thelon Rae Geophysics, University of Calgary, Calgary, Nain Province AB T2N 1N4, Canada 50˚ ECSOOT John N. Ludden, Centre de Recherches Hearne Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, Taltson Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, Cedex, France AB Trans-Hudson Orogen SC THOT LE WS Superior Province ABSTRACT Cordillera AG Lithoprobe, Canada’s national earth KSZ o MRS 40 40 science research project, was established o Grenville Province in 1984 to develop a comprehensive Wyoming Penokean GL -60˚ understanding of the evolution of the -120˚ Yavapai Province Orogen Appalachians northern North American continent. With rocks representing 4 b.y. of Earth -100˚ -80˚ history, the Canadian landmass and off- Phanerozoic Proterozoic Archean shore margins provide an exceptional 200 Ma - present 1100 Ma 3200 - 2650 Ma opportunity to gain new perspectives on continental evolution. Lithoprobe’s 470 - 275 Ma 1300 - 1000 Ma 3400 - 2600 Ma 10 study areas span the country and 1800 - 1600 Ma 3800 - 2800 Ma geological time. A pan-Lithoprobe syn- 1900 - 1800 Ma 4000 - 2500 Ma thesis will bring the project to a formal conclusion in 2003. -
Trouble with the Capital's Most Precious Resource
GeoscientistThe Fellowship magazine of The Geological Society of London | www.geolsoc.org.uk | Volume 23 No 4 | May 2013 RUBISLAW QUARRY Europe’s deepest hole finds new purpose ELECTION RESULTS Who’s on the Society’s new Council? society on facebook] [www.facebook.com/geolsoc LONDON’S WATER Trouble with the capital’s most precious resource CONTENTS GEOSCIENTIST Image: Ambernectar 13 via Flickr.com FEATURES 16 RUBISLAW REBORN Ted Nield visits the new owners of Rubislaw granite quarry, Europe’s deepest open pit and asks – why? REGULARS 05 WELCOME Ted Nield on vanishing and redundant IN THIS ISSUE holes in the ground, and how we can preserve them MAY 2013 06 SOCIETY NEWS What your Society is doing at home and abroad, in London and the regions 10 COVER FEATURE: LONDON’S WATER 09 SOAPBOX Peter Styles thinks Edinburgh University has crossed the line Jonathan Paul explores the relationship between London and its most precious resource 21 LETTERS We welcome your thoughts 22 BOOK & ARTS An exhibition and three books reviewed by Sarah Day, Mike Hambrey, Mike Winter and James Powell 24 PEOPLE Geoscientists in the news and on the move 26 OBITUARY Two distinguished Fellows remembered 27 CALENDAR Society activities this month 29 CROSSWORD Win a special publication of your choice ONLINE SPECIALS n TREASURES OF THE ABYSS As the announcement is made that deep-sea nodules are finally to be exploited, 09 16 Geoff Glasby explores a great untapped resource... MAY 2013 03 04 MAY 2013 ~ EDITOR’S COMMENT GEOSCIENTIST LONDON HAS ALWAYS HAD A STORMY RELATIONSHIP WITH WATER - JONATHAN PAUL Cover image: Getty Images~ NEEDED HOLES ne of the wittiest responses to an Geoscientist is the T 01727 893 894 Fellowship magazine of F 01727 893 895 author, hoping to impress with his the Geological Society E enquiries@centuryone latest volume, was: “Thank you for of London publishing.ltd.uk W www.centuryone your latest book. -
When the Earth Moves Seafloor Spreading and Plate Tectonics
This article was published in 1999 and has not been updated or revised. BEYONDBEYOND DISCOVERYDISCOVERYTM THE PATH FROM RESEARCH TO HUMAN BENEFIT WHEN THE EARTH MOVES SEAFLOOR SPREADING AND PLATE TECTONICS arly on the morning of Wednesday, April 18, the fault had moved, spanning nearly 300 miles, from 1906, people in a 700-mile stretch of the West San Juan Bautista in San Benito County to the south E Coast of the United States—from Coos Bay, of San Francisco to the Upper Mattole River in Oregon, to Los Angeles, California—were wakened by Humboldt County to the north, as well as westward the ground shaking. But in San Francisco the ground some distance out to sea. The scale of this movement did more than shake. A police officer on patrol in the was unheard of. The explanation would take some six city’s produce district heard a low rumble and saw the decades to emerge, coming only with the advent of the street undulate in front of him, “as if the waves of the theory of plate tectonics. ocean were coming toward me, billowing as they came.” One of the great achievements of modern science, Although the Richter Scale of magnitude was not plate tectonics describes the surface of Earth as being devised until 1935, scientists have since estimated that divided into huge plates whose slow movements carry the the 1906 San Francisco earthquake would have had a continents on a slow drift around the globe. Where the 7.8 Richter reading. Later that morning the disaster plates come in contact with one another, they may cause of crushed and crumbled buildings was compounded by catastrophic events, such as volcanic eruptions and earth- fires that broke out all over the shattered city. -
Th E Age of the Earth
EDITORIAL TH E AGE OF THE EARTH PRINCIPAL EDITORS JAMES I. DREVER, University of Wyoming, USA ([email protected]) The “Age of the Earth” is of 200 students, “Have you had a discussion with GEORGES CALAS, IMPMC, France one of the most common someone who thinks the Earth is much younger ([email protected]) JOHN W. VALLEY, University of Wisconsin, USA titles in the geological than 4500 million years?”, and about 50% say ([email protected]) literature, and with good “yes.” I then have 50 minutes to talk about how PATRICIA M. DOVE, Virginia Tech ([email protected]) reason. The scientific rocks are dated and to compare 4500 Ma with ADVISORY BOARD 2012 and philosophical impli- earlier estimates. I explain that geochronology is JOHN BRODHOLT, University College London, UK cations are immense. based on observable data and that the hypotheses NORBERT CLAUER, CNRS/UdS, Université de Strasbourg, France This issue of Elements is are testable, and I encourage students to at least WILL P. GATES, SmecTech Research Consulting, devoted to measuring look through the windows of clean-labs to see Australia th GEORGE E. HARLOW, American Museum geologic time on the 100 people running mass spectrometers. The serious of Natural History, USA John Valley anniversary of a book students may read this issue of Elements and get JANUSZ JANECZEK, University of Silesia, Poland HANS KEPPLER, Bayerisches Geoinstitut, with this title (Holmes an appreciation for the depth and complexity of Germany 1913). The book is a good read—a clear historical determining age, but no fi rst-year student, and DAVID R. -
Parting Shots
PARTING SHOTS A RECORD BRIMFUL OF PROMISE Arthur Holmes is mentioned in several articles tifi c work at what we now call Imperial College, in this issue, by John Valley in his editorial, in London, and Cherry Lewis gives a detailed by Condon and Schmitz in their introductory account of his troubled work with the minerals article, and by Mattinson in his review of the industry in Mozambique and the petroleum U–Pb method. Google ‘Arthur Holmes’ and industry in Burma. His main academic career you will fi nd a lot of articles about his scien- began in 1924 when he was given the job of tifi c work, and there is a very readable biog- starting a department of geology at Durham raphy by Cherry Lewis which strikes a nice University, where 40 years later I obtained both balance between his scientifi c and personal my degrees. The student geological society in life. There is no question that he was a giant Durham is still called ‘The Arthur Holmes of 20th-century Earth science. The U–Pb age of Geological Society’. In 1943 he took up the 370 Ma that he obtained for accessory minerals Chair of Geology at Edinburgh where I’m Diagrammatic section across the “FIGURE 744: separated from a nepheline syenite from the writing now. I pass his picture every time I Andesite Line and a typical island arc Christiania region of Norway (Holmes 1911) is go up the main stairs in the Grant Institute (e.g. Japan or Kamchatka) to illustrate a speculative arrangement of convection currents which might a milestone not just for geology but for other (my fi rst picture). -
I5 Wegener's Geological Evidence for Pangea < Holmes >
WEGENER AND CONTINENTAL DRIFT 493 i5 Wegener’s geological evidence for Pangea < Holmes > The term Pangea (or Pangaea) comes from the Greek ‘pan’=all, entire + ‘gaea’=land, Earth. The name is frequently stated to have been coined by Alfred Wegener (1914) in Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (The Origin of the Continents and Oceans), but it has not been found in the 1st edition of that book.—Georoots.1 The first use of the word [Pangea] comes in a 1924 translation of Wagener’s book, by the man named Skerl.—Winchester.2 And in fact the word is used in Wegener’s book but not as a proper noun (and so it cannot be found in the book’s index) in the sentence ‘Schon die Pangäa [the pangæa] der Karbonzeit hatte so einen Vorderrand (Amerika) ...’ once in the 1920 edition, p. 120, and again so once in the 1922 edition, p. 131. Pangea is first used as a proper noun by J. W. Evans in his introduction to the 1924 book.—HR. The geological evidence that Wegener marshaled to support his reconstruction of a primordial continent (Pangea) was vast in scope. A deduction would be that fossils of closely related land animals and plants should be now separated by wide oceans if Pangea had existed. Wegener, at first, was not able to give examples and this could be construed to negate the once existence of Pangea. But later, Wegener did find some examples and Arthur Holmes favorably observed: “Negative evidence may be destroyed at any moment by fresh discoveries, whereas genuine positive evidence can never be explained away.” 3 However, landbridges could be evoked to explain the fossil data. -
The Historical Background
01 orestes part 1 10/24/01 3:40 PM Page 1 Part I The Historical Background The idea that continents move was first seriously considered in the early 20th century, but it took scientists 40 years to decide that it was true. Part I describes the historical background to this question: how scientists first pondered the question of crustal mobility, why they rejected the idea the first time around, and how they ultimately came back to it with new evidence, new ideas, and a global model of how it works. 01 orestes part 1 10/24/01 3:40 PM Page 2 01 orestes part 1 10/24/01 3:40 PM Page 3 Chapter 1 From Continental Drift to Plate Tectonics Naomi Oreskes Since the 16th century, cartographers have noticed the jigsaw-puzzle fit of the continental edges.1 Since the 19th century, geol- ogists have known that some fossil plants and animals are extraordinar- ily similar across the globe, and some sequences of rock formations in distant continents are also strikingly alike. At the turn of the 20th cen- tury, Austrian geologist Eduard Suess proposed the theory of Gond- wanaland to account for these similarities: that a giant supercontinent had once covered much or all of Earth’s surface before breaking apart to form continents and ocean basins. A few years later, German meteo- rologist Alfred Wegener suggested an alternative explanation: conti- nental drift. The paleontological patterns and jigsaw-puzzle fit could be explained if the continents had migrated across the earth’s surface, sometimes joining together, sometimes breaking apart. -
GSA TODAY North-Central, P
Vol. 9, No. 10 October 1999 INSIDE • 1999 Honorary Fellows, p. 16 • Awards Nominations, p. 18, 20 • 2000 Section Meetings GSA TODAY North-Central, p. 27 A Publication of the Geological Society of America Rocky Mountain, p. 28 Cordilleran, p. 30 Refining Rodinia: Geologic Evidence for the Australia–Western U.S. connection in the Proterozoic Karl E. Karlstrom, [email protected], Stephen S. Harlan*, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131 Michael L. Williams, Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003-5820, [email protected] James McLelland, Department of Geology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346, [email protected] John W. Geissman, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131, [email protected] Karl-Inge Åhäll, Earth Sciences Centre, Göteborg University, Box 460, SE-405 30 Göteborg, Sweden, [email protected] ABSTRACT BALTICA Prior to the Grenvillian continent- continent collision at about 1.0 Ga, the southern margin of Laurentia was a long-lived convergent margin that SWEAT TRANSSCANDINAVIAN extended from Greenland to southern W. GOTHIAM California. The truncation of these 1.8–1.0 Ga orogenic belts in southwest- ern and northeastern Laurentia suggests KETILIDEAN that they once extended farther. We propose that Australia contains the con- tinuation of these belts to the southwest LABRADORIAN and that Baltica was the continuation to the northeast. The combined orogenic LAURENTIA system was comparable in -
Arthur Holmes with Maggie, Born
RROCKOCK STARS STARS great synthesis, The Face of the Earth, had recently been trans- lated into English. Holmes later remarked how the inspirational Mr. McIntosh and these two works were largely responsible for the direction his life took, for it was at school that his interests in physics and geology were Arthur Holmes with Maggie, born. At 17, he won a scholar- his first wife, and Geoffrey, his ship to study physics at the Royal second son, in Durham, ca. 1930. College of Science (later Imperial College) in London where, in his second year, he took a course in geology. Against the advice of his physics tutors, he decided to become a geologist. Radioactivity had been discovered in 1896 and was causing much excitement. By 1904, Ernest Rutherford had determined the first radiometric date, utilizing the discovery that helium was gen- erated in the decay process. Unfortunately, owing to the problem of helium leakage, these early dates were only minimum values, so Holmes decided to combine his interest in physics and geol- ogy in the search for an alternative technique. Building on Bertram Boltwood’s work, which indicated that lead might be the Arthur Holmes as a young man in his early 20s. This photo was final decay product of uranium, Holmes performed the very first probably taken in 1912 when Holmes joined the Geological Society uranium-lead analysis specifically determined for age-dating pur- of London. poses. It yielded 370 Ma for a Devonian rock. Aged only 21, he had embarked on his lifetime’s quest “to graduate the geological column with an ever-increasingly accurate time scale.” In April Arthur Holmes: 1911, the paper was read to members of the Royal Society while An Ingenious Geoscientist Holmes was in Mozambique. -
Burlington House Fire Safety Information
Arthur Holmes Meeting 2016 Contents Page 2 Sponsors Acknowledgement Page 3 Oral Presentation Programme Page 8 Oral Presentation Abstracts Page 124 Posters Page 127 Poster Presentation Abstracts Page 153 Burlington House Fire Safety Information Page 154 Ground Floor Plan of The Geological Society Burlington House Page 155 2016 Geological Society Conferences 23-25 May 2016 Page 1 #ahwilson16 Arthur Holmes Meeting 2016 We gratefully acknowledge the support of the sponsors for making this meeting possible. 23-25 May 2016 Page 2 #ahwilson16 Arthur Holmes Meeting 2016 Oral Presentation Programme Monday 23 May 2016 08.30 Registration & tea & coffee (Main foyer and Lower Library) 09.00 Introduction The Wilson & Supercontinent Cycles 09.10 KEYNOTE: The Wilson Cycle Of the Opening and the Closing of the Ocean Basins Kevin Burke (University of Houston, Texas, USA) 09.40 Geo-Constraints on and confirmation of the operation of the Wilson Cycle since the Neoarchaean Brian Windley (University of Leicester, UK) 10.00 Mesoproterozoic terrane collision in the Namaqua belt of south-western Africa - Time for revision of deeply entrenched views? Steffen Büttner (Rhodes University, South Africa) 10.20 The Classic Wilson Cycle Revisited Ian W.D Dalziel (The University of Texas at Austin, Texas, USA) 10.40 Tea, coffee, refreshments and posters (Lower Library) Record of the Wilson Cycle 11.00 KEYNOTE: Dyke Swarms of the Canadian Shield: Initial Stages of Precambrian Wilson Cycles? Henry C. Halls (University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada) 11.30 A revised 300 Ma geodynamic history for the Iapetian Wilson cycle, based on Hf isotope arrays. Bill Collins (The University of Newcastle, Australia) 11.50 Sea level reconstruction from Strontium isotopes; a record of the Wilson Cycle back to the Neoproterozoic Douwe van der Meer 12.10 Natural Resource Evaluation within a Global Tectonic Framework: The Past is the Key to the Future G.R. -
Meteorite Iron in Egyptian Artefacts
SCIENTISTu u GEO VOLUME 24 NO 3 APRIL 2014 WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST The Fellowship Magazine of the Geological Society of London UK / Overseas where sold to individuals: £3.95 READ GEOLSOC BLOG! [geolsoc.wordpress.com] Iron from the sky Meteorite iron in Egyptian artefacts FISH MERCHANT WOMEN GEOLOGISTS BUMS ON SEATS Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, Tales of everyday sexism If universities think fieldwork king of the NHM fishes - an Online Special sells geology, they’re mistaken GEOSCIENTIST CONTENTS 06 22 10 16 FEATURES IN THIS ISSUE... 16 King of the fishes Sir Arthur Smith Woodward should be remembered for more than being caught by the Piltdown Hoax, says Mike Smith REGULARS 05 Welcome Ted Nield has a feeling that some eternal verities have become - unsellable 06 Society news What your Society is doing at home and abroad, in London and the regions 09 Soapbox Jonathan Paul says universities need to beef up their industrial links to attract students ON THE COVER: 21 Letters Geoscientist’s Editor in Chief sets the record straight 10 Iron from the sky 22 Books and arts Four new books reviewed by Catherine Meteoritics and Egyptology, two very different Kenny, Mark Griffin, John Milsom and Jason Harvey disciplines, recently collided in the laboratory, 25 People Geoscientists in the news and on the move write Diane Johnson and Joyce Tyldesley 26 Obituary Duncan George Murchison 1928-2013 27 Calendar Society activities this month ONLINE SPECIALS Tales of a woman geologist Susan Treagus recalls her experiences in the male-dominated groves of