SCIENTIST GEO VOLUME 25 NO 3 u APRIL 2015 u WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST The Fellowship Magazine of the Geological Society of London UK / Overseas where sold to individuals: £3.95

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Tambora, t wo centuries on Bill McGuire looks back at the legacy of 1815

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FEATURES

16 Red for danger? IN THIS ISSUE... Ian Randall reports on research into how the representation of volcanic hazards affects perception and usefulness REGULARS

05 Welcome Ted Nield contemplates some very nasty ways to go at the whim of Mother Earth 06 Society news What your Society is doing at home and abroad, in London and the regions 09 Soapbox Evaluation metrics: Greg Shellnutt takes a ON THE COVER: controversial view from East Asia 10 Tambora - two centuries on 20 Letters We welcome your thoughts Bill McGuire examines the historical and cultural 22 Books and arts Four new books reviewed by Peter legacy of the greatest volcanic eruption in historic Worsley, James Montgomery, Arthur Tingley and Mark Griffin time and the ensuing ‘Year Without a Summer’ 24 People Geoscientists in the news and on the move 26 Obituary Gordon Younger Craig 1925-2014

ONLINE SPECIALS Making your 27 Calendar Society activities this month own luck: Paul Cleverley and Simon Burnett recount ‘Tales of the unexpected’ 28 Obituary David Roger Oldroyd 1936-2014 from the search user interface 29 Crossword Win a special publication of your choice

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 03 04 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST

GEOSCIENTIST WELCOME Geoscientist is the ADVERTISING SALES ~ Fellowship magazine of Ollie Kirkman VIEW FROM THE CRATER the Geological Society T 01727 739 184 of London E ollie@centuryone RIM OF MOUNT TAMBORA TODAY publishing.uk Cover: Adam Majendie / Bloomberg via Getty Images The Geological Society, ~ Burlington House, Piccadilly, ART EDITOR London W1J 0BG Heena Gudka T +44 (0)20 7434 9944 F +44 (0)20 7439 8975 DESIGN & PRODUCTION E [email protected] Sarah Astington (Not for Editorial - Please contact the Editor) PRINTED BY Century One Publishing House Publishing Ltd. The Geological Society Publishing House, Unit 7, Copyright Brassmill Enterprise Centre, The Geological Society of Brassmill Lane, Bath London is a Registered BA1 3JN Charity, number 210161. FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK: T 01225 445046 ISSN (print) 0961-5628 F 01225 442836 ISSN (online) 2045-1784

Library The Geological Society of London accepts no responsibility for the Not nice ways to go T +44 (0)20 7432 0999 F +44 (0)20 7439 3470 views expressed in any article in this publication. All views expressed, E [email protected] except where explicitly stated otherwise, represent those of the EDITOR-IN-CHIEF author, and not The Geological his month marks the 200th ‘Future bad global governance’ Professor Peter Styles Society of London. All rights reserved. No paragraph of anniversary of the 1815 (vacillating politicians fail to face up to this publication may be reproduced, EDITOR copied or transmitted save with Tambora eruption (see p.10), the above). A final category is reserved Dr Ted Nield written permission. Users registered the only historic eruption to for what Donald Rumsfeld might have E [email protected] with Copyright Clearance Center: the Journal is registered with CCC, 27 merit at a Volcanic Explosivity termed ‘Unknown unknowns’, or EDITORIAL BOARD Congress Street, Salem, MA 01970, T USA. 0961-5628/02/$15.00. Every Index (VEI) of 7, and which produced a anything not previously mentioned. Dr Sue Bowler effort has been made to trace staggering 100km3 of debris - enough to All in all, it’s a cheery read. Mr Steve Branch copyright holders of material in Dr Robin Cocks this publication. If any rights have bury the whole of central London to a No, seriously. T S Eliot famously been omitted, the publishers offer Prof. Tony Harris depth of a kilometre. predicted in The Hollow Men that the Dr Howard Falcon-Lang their apologies. Dr Jonathan Turner No responsibility is assumed by the Among other things, the resulting world ends with a whimper; but Dr Jan Zalasiewicz Publisher for any injury and/or ‘year without a summer’ spawned humanity’s low-key demise could damage to persons or property as a Trustees of the matter of products liability, Mary Shelley’s nightmarish indeed be precipitated by a very large negligence or otherwise, or from any Geological Society use or operation of any methods, Frankenstein, so it seems fitting that, as ‘natural’ bang. Some, like supervolcano of London products, instructions or ideas Prof David Manning contained in the material herein. well as thinking carefully about hazard eruptions, we can do little or nothing (President); Although all advertising material is zoning in threatened regions (p. 16), about, except prepare; but as the report Mrs Natalyn Ala (Secretary, expected to conform to ethical (medical) standards, inclusion in this some scientists (quite a few – it makes clear, even the most threatening Professional Matters); publication does not constitute a Dr Mike Armitage (Vice guarantee or endorsement of the acknowledges about 30 contributors) natural threats lie squarely within our president); Dr Nigel quality or value of such product or of should choose this year to publish a control because we are to blame for Cassidy; Prof Neil the claims made by its manufacturer. report* listing 12 ghastly ways in which them in the first place. Chapman; Dr Angela Coe; Subscriptions: All correspondence Mr Jim Coppard; relating to non-member human civilisation might come to an I continue to find this encouraging. Mr David Cragg (Vice subscriptions should be addresses president); Mrs Jane to the Journals Subscription end. Many of these are natural – and Who, in their right mind, would prefer Dottridge; Mr Chris Eccles; Department, Geological Society Publishing House, Unit 7 Brassmill frequent: VEI7s come along about once global climate catastrophe to come at us Dr Marie Edmonds; Enterprise Centre, Brassmill Lane, every 500 years, and VEI8s about once thanks to ineluctable changes in solar Professor Alastair Fraser Bath, BA1 3JN, UK. Tel: 01225 (Secretary, Science); 445046. Fax: 01225 442836. every 100 millennia. Either would be luminosity or orbital wobbles? Mr David Hopkins; Email: [email protected]. The completely devastating. Well, OK - climate-change denyers Mr David Jones (Vice subscription price for Volume 25, 2015 (11 issues) to institutions and president); Dr Adam Law non-members is £132 (UK) or The report lists both natural and would. So, still nobody then. (Treasurer); Prof Alan Lord £151/$302 (Rest of World). anthropogenic threats - some being Those who deny AGW do not, (Secretary Foreign & External Affairs); Dr Brian © 2015 The Geological Society both, like the lead threat, ‘Extreme however, do so out of pessimism - Marker OBE; Dr Gary of London Climate Change’. After ‘Nuclear War’, quite the reverse: a misplaced optimism Nichols; Prof David Geoscientist is printed on FSC mixed Norbury; Dr Colin North credit - Mixed source products are a comes ‘Global Pandemic’, followed by that we can all get on with business as (Secretary, Publications); blend of FSC 100%, Recycled and/or ‘Major Asteroid Impact’ and usual (while the climate goes to hell all Mr Keith Seymour; Dr Lucy Controlled fibre. Accredited by the Slater; Mr Michael Young Forestry Stewardship Council. ‘Supervolcano’. ‘Ecological by itself). No – the truly good news is, Catastrophe’ (ecosystem collapse) is the biggest threat to our existence is Published on behalf of the undeniably anthropogenic, and all the not in space, or even Indonesia. Geological Society of London by rest are squarely down to us: ‘Global Perhaps Sartre got it right after all. Century One Publishing System Catastrophe’ (economic L’enfer, c’est les autres. Alban Row, 27–31 Verulam Road, St Albans, Herts, collapse), Synthetic Biology (engineered * Reference Global Challenges 12 - Risks that AL3 4DG superbug), ‘Nanotechnology’ (better, T 01727 893 894 threaten human civilisation, by Denis Pamlin and F 01727 893 895 smaller weapons), ‘Artificial Stuart Armstrong. Global Challenges Foundation 2015. E enquiries@centuryone Intelligence’ (Terminator & co.), and Available as a PDF from http://globalchallenges.org. publishing.uk W www.centuryone DR TED NIELD, EDITOR - [email protected] @TedNield @geoscientistmag publishing.uk

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 05 GEOSCIENTIST SOCIETY NEWS

What your society is doing SOCIETYNEWS at home and abroad, in London and the regions

Honorary Fellowships Image: Creative Travel Projects / Shutterstock.com

Following a proposal from the External Relations Committee, Council recommends the following candidates for election to Honorary Fellowship at a future Ordinary General Meeting. Prof Maureen E Raymo Maureen Raymo was the first female recipient of the Wollaston Medal, the Society’s most senior medal (picture, in 2014 with President David Shilston). She is an outstandingly creative scientist who has been setting the agenda in the study of the history of the ocean, and the Earth as a whole. She is a world-class palaeoceanographer and one of the foremost and influential figures in the last 30 years during time which she has had a profound impact on Earth system science. Prof Raymo’s reputation is based on three themes: development of the controversial uplift weathering hypothesis to explain Cenozoic cooling/onset of Antarctic glaciation; seminal stratigraphic research based on the deep sea oxygen isotope record, including production of the LR04 benthic stack, internationally LONDON LECTURE SERIES regarded as the fundamental global stratigraphic template for the last five million years, and groundbreaking work on Plio-Pleistocene sea-levels, integrating Earth’s Climate Evolution geological observations with glacio-isostatic adjustment model predictions. Speaker: Colin Summerhayes (Scott Polar Research Prof John Walsh Inst., Cambridge University) Date: 15 April John Walsh founded the Fault Analysis Group with Prof Juan Watterson at the Department of Earth & Ocean Sciences in the Programme University of Liverpool, in 1985. He became Director in 1996 and u Afternoon talk: 1430 Tea & Coffee: 1500 Lecture oversaw the relocation of the Group to University College Dublin in begins: 1600 Event ends. 2000. It has published more than 120 articles in leading international u Evening talk: 1730 Tea & Coffee: 1800 Lecture journals and special publications, and is one of the most cited structural geology begins: 1900 Reception. research groups in the world. The Group is recognised as a leading international team in the study of the Further Information geometry, growth and hydraulic properties of faults and in applying its research Please visit www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsllondon outputs to solve practical problems encountered in hydrocarbon and mineral lectures15. Entry to each lecture is by ticket only. exploration and production activities. They have strategic research links with many To obtain a ticket please contact the Society around key industrial companies and Prof Walsh has been Distinguished Lecturer for EAGE four weeks before the talk. Due to the popularity of this (2004) and AAPG (2007). lecture series, tickets are allocated in a monthly ballot Prof Walsh takes a prominent role in Irish geosciences. He is a member of the and cannot be guaranteed. Geosciences Committee of the Royal Irish Academy (although not himself a MRIA), a past Board Member of the Institute of Geologists of Ireland (which is linked to ➤ Contact: Annie Sewell, The Geological Society, GSL) and is Director of the newly formed Irish Centre for Research in Applied Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG, T: +44 Geosciences (iCRAG). He actively collaborates with and supports the work of the (0)20 7432 0981 E: [email protected] Geological Survey of Ireland and the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland. President’s Day 2015

Stephanie Jones writes: Last month the Society announced the Fund); Sebastian Watt (Murchison Fund). The President’s Awards winners of its medals and funds for 2015. for 2015 will be announced in May. James Jackson (Wollaston Medal); Colin Ballantyne (Lyell Medal); President’s Day: 3 June 2015 (see May issue) with talks by: Colin Geoffrey Wadge (Murchison Medal); Anthony Doré (William Smith Ballantyne (St Andrews): Catastrophic landslides in Scotland and Medal); Sarah Davies (Coke Medal); Rory Mortimore (Coke Medal); Ireland; Geoffrey Wadge (Reading); Anthony Doré (Statoil): The Arctic, Daniel Parsons (Bigsby Medal); Alastair Robertson (Prestwich and the dark art of regional geology; and James Jackson (Cambridge) Medal); Stuart Archer (Aberconway Medal); David Branagan (Sue on Probing the continents. Tyler Friedman Medal); John Catt (Distinguished Service Award); All Fellows may attend President’s Day, though lunch will incur a Peter Loader (R H Worth Prize); Stefanie Hautmann (Wollaston charge. Full details of charges and instructions for registration: see Fund); Sarah Bradley (William Smith Fund); Esther Sumner (Lyell May Issue, which will be accompanied by the Annual Review 2014.

06 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST GEOSCIENTIST SOCIETY NEWS

NEWS

Image: Pavel L Photo and Video / Shutterstock.com Image: Pavel L Photo and Video IN BRIEF

Future meetings The dates for meetings of Council and Ordinary General Meetings until June 2016 will be as follows: ➤ Council/OGMs: 2015: 8 April, 17 June, 22 September, 25 November; 2016: 3 February, Don’t be glum folks. Now is the 6 April. time for a really good conference ➤ AGM: 3 June 2015

Investing in a downturn Geological Society Club The Geological Society Club, successor to the body that gave Bruce Levell thinks now might be just the important technological breakthroughs - 3D right sort of time to consider attending a seismic, horizontal drilling, fracking - are the birth to the Society in 1807, really good conference, like PGC-8. result not of killer technologies but rather of meets monthly (except over the Resource industries struggle with the cocktails of technology that, through field season!) at 18.30 for 19.00 commodity price cycle. This one is structural, evolutionary development, mix to deliver in the Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, not psychological; companies have few intoxicating success. Development of these or at another venue, to be alternatives in response. The immediate priority, technologies and the emergence of the confirmed nearer the date. Once as with hypothermia, is to withdraw fluid (cash) to associated new operating paradigms are no a year there is also a buffet protect vital organs. Options in the short term respecters of commodity cycles. They march to dinner at Burlington House. New are few; hence, alongside substantive changes, their own drums - in the case of geophysics and diners are always welcome, the relatively less impactful travel bans, training geochemistry, for example, often controlled by especially from among younger budget cuts, and exhortations to ‘spend developments in completely unrelated Fellows. Dinner costs £57 for a company money as if it were your own have to industries. There is money to be made by those four-course meal, including be deployed. Colleagues of a certain age begin who can keep their heads and capitalise on the coffee and port. (The Founders' to mumble about having seen it all before (1986, trending technology, even if they didn't invent it. Dinner, in November, has its own 1998, 2008) and the industry may lose price structure.) There is a cash experienced staff. Reflection bar for the purchase of aperitifs Downturns can also provide a pause for and wine. ➤ Portfolio reflection, and consideration of strategies both 2015: 8 April (Venue tbc); 6 However, for the ever-optimistic explorer, corporate and personal - a time for investing in May (Athenaeum) periodic downturns are creative opportunities. skills and thinking. They are also not bad times Fellows wishing to dine or Of course there is Schumpeter’s creative to attend a conference or two, ideally one close requesting further information destruction: the bloated, newly ‘re-loaded’ to home to avoid that pesky travel restriction, about the Geological Society prospect portfolio can be trimmed and the dross and ideally, one with authoritative summaries Club, please email Cally removed, commitments allowing. Well-plans can and opportunities to handle real rocks. Time to Oldershaw (Hon Sec) at be thoroughly reviewed and through the reflect, based on the accumulated experience of [email protected] application of yet more science the probabilities colleagues in the industry on which of those m or T: 07796 942361. DR of success better polarised into sheep and plays is truly likely to work. Oh yes, and to goats. (Which is better?). Obviously you can’t meet, talk to, and extract information from, make discoveries without drilling but success those of a certain age who are mumbling about From the Library rates also correlate (to a degree) with periods of cottages in the dales and that ‘package’. Not enough time or struggling to reduced drilling rates, reflecting , in the jargon, So, see you at PGC 8- September 28-30 find the information you need? the ‘value-add’ of actually thinking. Operators at Queen Elizabeth 2 Conference Centre London We can search a wide range of least can also look forward to that best time of all (see advert p.8 for details)! Oh yes, and do resources on your behalf and in the resource-price cycle - the period of the remember to use the company’s money as if it send you the results directly to early upturn when equipment and service costs, were your own, and sign up for the early bird your inbox. To find out more reduced in the trough, have not yet risen, but discount before the end of April. about this service, please email investment is picking up and hence data [email protected] collection and risk-taking are (momentarily at * Bruce Levell formerly of Shell, is The library is open Monday- least) relatively cheap. Visiting Professor at Department of Earth Friday 9.30am-5.30pm Research organisations know that the really Sciences, Oxford University www.geolsoc.org.uk/library

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 07

GEOSCIENTIST SOAPBOX

Living with metrics

Greg Shellnutt* gives a personal view of evaluation metrics as they appear from East Asia. While we argue over details, are we not perhaps missing the bigger picture?

utside the graduate student office Quality I occupied many years ago at The I do not advocate the use of IF as a tool to University of Hong Kong was a evaluate anything of a scientific nature. SOAPBOX full-length poster listing the To me, IF is simply another number that O rankings of over 200 Earth science occasionally appears in my life, like my age CALLING! journals according to impact factor (IF). or credit card PIN. The quality of most I had no idea what an impact factor was research is best measured by time, as many when I first saw that poster. Six years later theories in the Earth sciences took decades Soapbox is open to contributions I was applying for an entry-level to become widely accepted. Such will likely from all Fellows. You can always professorship and my h-index was be the case in the future. Having a write a letter to the Editor, of requested as part of my application. committee evaluate the quality of one’s course: but perhaps you feel you I had no idea what an h-index was. work is just as problematic as quantitative need more space? metrics because there is a good chance that a Targets committee may stick to the orthodoxy of the If you can write it entertainingly in When I was hired by my employer, the day and inadvertently obstruct vibrant 500 words, the Editor would like performance expectation was clearly young researchers who have different ideas. to hear from you. Email your articulated, “… to be promoted you must Imagine if Alfred Wegner, freshly piece, and a self-portrait, to publish X papers in the top X% of SCI graduated and advocating plate tectonics, ted.nield@geolsoc. org.uk. journals in three years”. Additionally, I was applied for a professorship in the 1930s or Copy can only be accepted informed about ‘publication bonuses’, which 40s and had his work evaluated by a electronically. No diagrams, tables are tiered according to the IF-based journal ‘quality-control’ committee. Would his or other illustrations please. ranking. In many cases one’s income can application be evaluated fairly if his double by reaching the stated targets. interpretations conflicted with the work of Pictures should be of print Quantitative performance metrics may be one or more members of the evaluation quality – please take photographs the bane of a researcher’s existence but they committee? A similar scenario is played out on the largest setting on your are bureaucrat-friendly. The ability to in the first 20 minutes of the 1978 Superman camera, with a plain background. quantify a researcher’s ‘performance’ is one movie… (spoiler alert!). It did not work the many criteria which factor into global out well for Kryptonians. Precedence will always be given

university rankings; but they also Academic institutions are bureaucracies to more topical contributions. help to streamline hiring, promotion and, as with all bureaucracies, they must Any one contributor may not

and grant applications. There is evaluate performances. The point I appear more often than once per complete transparency with wish to emphasize is that, for better volume (once~ every 12 months). quantitative metrics and or worse, performances of all the best part is they employees in any field will be apply equally measured by some type of to everyone. metric. Whether that THE QUALITY Quantitative metric is IF, h-index or OF MOST RESEARCH metrics, as SCImago Journal IS BEST MEASURED opposed to Rank does it matter? qualitative As I understand BY TIME, AS MANY metrics, it, quantitative THEORIES IN THE cannot metric-based be easily evaluations attempt EARTH SCIENCES TOOK manipulated to level the playing DECADES TO BECOME by the field for everyone WIDELY ACCEPTED. ‘malevolent regardless of their forces’ that lurk qualitative failures. SUCH WILL LIKELY in the corridors BE THE CASE IN of academia, * Greg Shellnutt is Associate Professor in the Department of THE FUTURE public institutions Greg Shellnutt and granting Earth Sciences, National Taiwan ~ agencies. Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 09 TAMBORA TWO CENTURIES ON

hen all is quiet on the The April 1815 blast, however, was Bill McGuire* volcano front, altogether different. Pumping out five volcanologists get twitchy. times more ash and debris than the looks back on the As ash stops falling and infamous Krakatoa explosion nearly 70 W lava floods become years later, it was simply too big to ignore. legacy of Tambora, trickles, they start casting around for The greatest known volcanic eruption something else to fixate upon. Looking in modern times, and one of the largest the volcano whose back often furnishes a sought-after focal since the Ice Age, the event is an point, the anniversary of a bygone blast important benchmark that helps bracket eruption created catching the eye and offering an the potential impacts of large volcanic opportunity for retrospection, eruptions on the global environment and the ‘year without reinterpretation or consideration of society. Reaching out from its host island lessons learned, which might provide a of Sumbawa, the eruption brought about a summer’ message for contemporary volcanology. dramatic changes to weather patterns In this respect, 2015 does not disappoint across the planet, culminating in the so- - marking as it does the bicentennial of called 'Year without a Summer' in the great Tambora eruption. Europe, parts of the United States and Given that, at any given moment, at Canada - which in turn spawned crop least one of Indonesia's 78 historically- failures, famine and disease. active volcanoes – the largest number of any country - can be expected to be in Reluctant volcano Above: Volcano on Sumbawa erupting at eruption or at least restless, falling ash Unlike some other Indonesian volcanoes, sunset, taken from Komodo national park or flowing lava is rarely big news. Tambora's eruption catalogue prior to the

10 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST ~ THE GREATEST KNOWN VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN MODERN TIMES, AND ONE OF THE LARGEST SINCE THE ICE AGE, THE EVENT IS AN IMPORTANT BENCHMARK ~ Image: By Sadalmelik via Wikimedia Commons Image: By Sadalmelik via Wikimedia Image: dmitry_islentev / Shutterstock.com

Topographic map of Sumbawa, Indonesia Image: By Georesearch Volcanedo Commons Germany via Wikimedia Space Center via Wikimedia Commons Space Center via Wikimedia Image: By Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson

Infrared image of Mount Tambora, taken from the space shuttle Endeavour. Green vegetation is displayed in High-pressure gases escaping in the varying shades NE region of the Mt Tambora caldera of red

19th Century blast was particularly weeks to a few months. In the case of have touched 4300m, making Tambora – sparse, with evidence for just a single Tambora, however, the first rumblings, at the time – the highest peak in the East eruption in the preceding five millennia accompanied by small ash explosions, Indies. To the west, the volcano would or so. It seemed that this volcano kept became apparent a good three years have looked out towards the island of its head down and its violent in advance of the climactic phase of Lombok, and beyond that, Java, while tendencies under control - so much so the eruption. to the east lay the islands of Flores that the local populace probably Had today's sensitive seismic and and Sumba. regarded it as long extinct, assuming geodetic monitoring kit been available For today's volcanologists, it was they considered it a volcano at all. This in 18th Century Indonesia, it seems providential that a sequence of couldn't last, and as with many other likely that it would have detected fortunate circumstances contributed volcanic outbursts in the historical magma on the move even in advance of towards a detailed account of the record, Tambora's extended quiescence this - suggesting, perhaps, that eruption being left to posterity. In 1811, was always likely to end with a very eruptions on this prodigious scale control of the island of Java was wrested large bang rather than a whimper. might, as a matter of course, be from the Dutch by British forces, As rising magma needs to break rock characterised by periods of precursory following the defeat of defending Dutch and make space for itself, leading restlessness measured in years rather and French troops. Even while fighting respectively to distinctive earthquake than weeks or months. continued, a certain Thomas Stamford swarms and swelling of the ground Whether thought of as ‘a volcano’ or (later Sir Stamford) Bingley Raffles was surface, no volcano erupts without not, Tambora – prior to its obliteration – decreed Lieutenant Governor of the warning. The duration of the period of seems to have been a pretty impressive island, at the tender age of 30. restlessness that characterises the build- mountain, dominating the northern end Perhaps best known today for the up to eruption is elastic, although of Sumbawa's Sanggar Peninsula. The eponymous and iconic hotel in

typically on the order of a couple of volcano's pre-eruption summit may Singapore, the city he founded, ▼

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 11 Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest concentration of ‘grey’ Image: MattiaATH / Shutterstock.com volcanoes

▼ (and maybe less so for establishing – with Sir Humphry Davy – London Zoo) Raffles also earned a place in the hearts and minds of volcanologists by means of his accessible descriptions of the Tambora eruption and its impact. When not busy subjugating uppity local princes, Raffles zealously embraced his temporary home, demonstrating a great interest in Java's archaeology, culture and natural history, and an enthusiasm for committing his thoughts and observations to paper. Thus it is that we have his History of Java (1817) and his biography – written in 1830 by Image: Wellcome Library, London second wife Sophia - to turn to, in order to cast light on the nature and anatomy of an eruption that occurred eight Sir Thomas generations ago. Other invaluable Stamford sources of information about the Bingley Raffles. Stipple eruption and its aftermath can be found engraving by in the Asiatic journal, first published in J. Thomson, 1824 1816, and their content is addressed in

By Woudloper, Commons derivative of image by Nyks via Wikimedia Clive Oppenheimer's excellent review paper on the eruption and its environmental and social consequences. Impossible to ignore Following a steady ramping up of activity after 1812, things really began to get interesting during the first week of April 1815, when Raffles reports that, on the fifth of the month, loud booms were heard across Java, the closest point of which was around 300km from the volcano. Mistaken for cannon fire, the stupendous explosions elicited the deployment of a detachment of troops Thickness of from Yogyakarta on Java's south coast, ashfall after the 1815 Tambora under the false impression that a eruption neighbouring garrison was under GEOSCIENTIST FEATURE

attack. Light ash-fall soon shed light on immediately to the west. Maximum Image: Suwit Gamolglang / Shutterstock.com the true origin of the detonations, tsunami run-up heights are estimated to although the culprit was thought have been four metres and are reported initially to be one of the many ‘active’ to have scoured much of the coastline of Javan volcanoes. the peninsula of buildings and hurled This initial major explosion blasted fishing boats inland. ash to a height of 33km but, with a The surface of the sea enclosing the duration of just two hours, was short peninsula was clogged with enormous lived. A lull of several days then pumice rafts, some an astonishing five ensued before an even more colossal kilometres long, which persisted for up detonation, on the tenth, reverberated to three years. These proved a around the East Indies. This second particular hindrance for shipping, explosion blasted out a column of ash especially in the narrow strait between estimated to have reached the Moyo and the Sanggar Peninsula, but staggering altitude of 43km. were even encountered far out in the Gravitational collapse of the ash column Indian Ocean. Hardly surprisingly, the fed pyroclastic flows that resulted in the eruption dramatically modified the eruption's first casualties as the nearby topography of Tambora, and once the village of Sanggar was obliterated. ash had settled the volcano was seen to Above: Mount Bromo, East Java, Indonesia Although short-lived, the eruption have been impressively decapitated. In heralded the onset of a devastatingly place of a 4300m peak, there now sat a violent episode of climactic activity that much smaller mountain 2850m high, lasted three to four days, with the topped by a six-kilometre caldera one destruction of much of the upper part of kilometre deep. the volcano and the production of voluminous ignimbrite flows (pumice- Legacy; near and far dominated pyroclastic flows) that swept For the inhabitants of Sumbawa, the flanks and surrounding area, neighbouring Lombok and probably wiping out the village of Tambora. other nearby islands, the eruption was a Taken together, the pyroclastic flows catastrophe. Estimates vary, but it and the great ash clouds that arose from seems that around 12,000 lives were lost them – known as 'phoenix clouds' - during the eruption, due to ash-fall and dumped around 50km3 (dense-rock pyroclastic flows, while a further 60,000 equivalent) of solidified magma onto or so succumbed to disease and famine Sumbawa and into the surrounding during the following several months. Flores Sea. Up to five centimetres of ash Taken together, this represents close fell as far afield as Borneo and Sulawesi to one in three of all deaths due to and accumulated to depths in excess of volcanic activity since the second half 20cm in eastern Java. The detonations of the 18th Century. during the climactic phase were felt Much as the 'in-theatre' accounts of over an even wider area, shaking the Tambora blast excite and enlighten buildings in eastern Java and heard as today's volcanologists, the so-called far- far away as Trumon in Sumatra, field effects attract much broader 2600km from the volcano. interest; in particular, the manner in On the island itself the density of which the consequences of the eruption ~ falling ash in the atmosphere brought impinged upon the culture, social fabric darkness so absolute that it was and economy of the time. Along with impossible even to see a raised hand vast quantities of ash, the eruption also THIS INITIAL MAJOR held in front of the face. Temperatures pumped out an estimated 60 million EXPLOSION BLASTED ASH plunged as total blackness reigned for tonnes of sulphur; a value a good six two days, followed by another few days times higher than the output of the 1991 TO A HEIGHT OF 33KM BUT, during which the sun was barely visible Pinatubo (Philippines) eruption, the WITH A DURATION OF JUST through a heavily ash-charged second largest of the 20th Century. TWO HOURS, WAS SHORT atmosphere. In Bima, on the east coast Unlike ash, which settles out of the peninsula, the accumulation of relatively rapidly in a matter of days to LIVED. A LULL OF SEVERAL ash was so great that most roofs weeks, the residence time of sulphur DAYS THEN ENSUED collapsed. Damage in the town was gases is much greater and - for major BEFORE AN EVEN MORE compounded by the arrival of tsunamis eruptions – can be about a couple of spawned by colossal ignimbrite flows years. Combined with atmospheric COLOSSAL DETONATION, surging into the sea. The gas-rich water, the erupted sulphur gases loaded ON THE TENTH, portions of the flows scooted across the the stratosphere with around 200 REVERBERATED AROUND surface of the water in the manner of million tonnes of sulphate aerosol. hovercraft, reaching as far as the This was rapidly dispersed across the THE EAST INDIES neighbouring island of Moyo, globe by high altitude atmospheric ▼ ~ WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 13 GEOSCIENTIST FEATURE

▼ winds, and within months was playing spring and summer 1816, bringing culture and society was significant. havoc with the optics of the unusually severe weather that more Notwithstanding Turner’s possible stratosphere. Stories abound of than halved the length of the growing inspiration, the anomalous weather of brilliantly flamboyant sunrises and the season in places. Snow fell in New 1816 is also charged with supplying the colourful invigoration of normally York State during early June and brooding backdrop that - during a 'wet crepuscular sunsets. These have been unprecedented summer frosts wiped and ungenial' summer at the Villa held up as inspiration for the out most crops across the region. Bitter Diodati on Lake Geneva – prompted kaleidoscopic skies of some of J W M weather also affected much of Europe, Mary Shelley to pen Frankenstein and Turner's post-1814 works. where summer temperatures were as Lord Byron his desolate poem, Darkness. Veils of volcanic sulphate in the much as to 2°C down on the decadal Beyond this, however, the effects of stratosphere are known to cause cooling average. Additionally, the summer was 'volcano weather' on the average of the troposphere and surface, so it peculiarly wet and seemingly followed European citizen were deleterious rather should come as no surprise to us that by an especially stormy winter. than recondite. Harvests failed from 1816 is known as 'the Year Without a Unsurprisingly, analysis of climate Ireland to Poland, resulting in the worst Summer'. The year is more widely records indicates that 1816 was the famine for more than a century and remembered for Napoleon's defeat at second coldest northern hemisphere leading – according to economic Waterloo, and it has been speculated summer of the past six centuries, with historian John Post - to the 'last great that the heavy rains that hindered 1817 and 1818 holding fifth and 22nd subsistence crisis in the western world'. progress of the French troops, allowing places in the rankings. Grain prices doubled, prompting his enemies to consolidate positions, insurrection and bread riots in a Europe may have been the first signs of the Societal impact already stagnating economically climate chaos that Tambora was to It has become somewhat de rigeur in following the end of a quarter-century of inflict upon much of the northern recent years for historians and conflict. In their malnourished and hemisphere. True or not, later weather archaeologists to big-up the societal weakened state, people succumbed anomalies provide a far more impacts of natural catastrophes, quickly to disease, and typhus was soon convincing link to events in Indonesia. speculating upon causal links for which rampant. According to a contemporary Across the NE United States, evidence is often far from robust. In the account by William Harty, a combination sulphate aerosols revealed themselves case of Tambora, however, there can be of famine and disease took an estimated as 'dry fog' that persisted through little doubt that its impact on western 44,300 lives in Ireland alone. Image: By Jialiang Gao (peace-on-earth.org) via Wikimedia Commons Image: By Jialiang Gao (peace-on-earth.org) via Wikimedia

Aerial view of Mount Balinese farmer, with ducks (used to oxygenate, de-infest Tambora’s caldera today and fertilise rice paddies). Bali bears several volcanic calderas, and one active volcano, Mt Agung GEOSCIENTIST FEATURE

Lessons characterising and cataloguing all * Bill McGuire is Two hundred years on, the Tambora blast manner of natural risks capable of Professor Emeritus in bears many lessons. For volcanologists it impinging detrimentally upon the planet Geophysical & Climate reinforces the idea that future eruptions as a whole (or a significant part thereof), Hazards at UCL. with the greatest potential for disruption so enabling international agencies and His current book is are likely to occur at volcanoes that have national governments to build a more Waking the Giant: How a not erupted for millennia. Indeed, half of accurate picture of the future natural risk Changing Climate Triggers the 20 biggest eruptions since 1800 landscape. Such a move should have the Earthquakes, Tsunamis occurred at volcanoes that had not effect of minimising geophysical and Volcanoes. erupted in historic time. While not surprises, such as the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull always true, the maxim – 'the longer the eruption that played havoc with flights wait; the bigger the bang' – is borne out across the UK and Europe. FURTHER READING often enough to ensure that it is worth The establishment of an International u D'Arcy Wood, G. 2014 Tambora: the eruption that keeping an eye on seemingly innocuous Science Panel for Natural Hazard changed the world. Princeton University Press. long-dormant volcanoes. One such is the Assessment to take on such a task, a key 312pp. Alban Hills Volcanic Complex, 30km east recommendation of the 2005 report to the u Natural Hazard Working Group 2005 The role of of Rome. After lying dormant for more UK Government by the Natural Hazard science in physical natural hazard assessment. than 30,000 years, recent unrest and Working Group established by Tony Blair Report to the UK Government. Department of Trade evidence for a growing magma body following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, and Industry. beneath the area have fostered concern has clearly fallen on deaf ears. The u Oppenheimer, C. 2003 Climatic, environmental and over the possibility of future eruption. mayhem caused by the Icelandic ash human consequences of the largest known historic The societal impact of the 1815 cloud, together with the 1.1 billion Euros eruption: Tambora volcano (Indonesia) 1815. eruption, particularly for agricultural it cost the airline industry, already seems Progress in Physical Geography 27 (2), 230-259. production, reinforces calls for national to have been forgotten. u Post, J. D. 1977 The last great subsistence crisis in risk registers to include low-frequency, With perhaps a one in 10 chance, in the the western world. Johns Hopkins University Press, high-impact geophysical events that have next 50 years, of a Tambora-sized Baltimore. 240pp. the potential to seriously affect society eruption taking centre stage, we might u Stothers, R. 1984 The great Tambora eruption in and economy at the global scale. It also cope far better if - next time – we really 1815 and its aftermath. Science 224, 1191-1198. flags the importance of identifying, did expect the unexpected. u Image: Taken by the NASA Expedition 20 crew.via Commons Wikimedia Image: FiledIMAGE / Shutterstock.com

The summit caldera of the volcano. 6 kilometres in diameter and 1,100 meters deep. Layered tephra deposits are visible along the north-western crater rim. Active fumaroles, or steam vents, still exist in the caldera RED FOR DANGER? Image: patjo / Shutterstock.com Design choices play an important role in how volcanic hazard maps communicate risk. Ian Randall* reports

robabilistic volcanic hazard and 78 stakeholders.) In both, participants maps display, for a chosen area were asked to consider a series of maps – and time frame, the modelled based on a shared dataset – that displayed likelihood of dangerous volcanic a selection of design choices, including P phenomena, like ash falls or different classification schemes (e.g. lava flows. Recent improvements in binned, shaded or isarithmic); colour computing capacity and the growing schemes; phrasings in the map’s key, and number of probabilistic approaches to supplemental hazard curves. hazard analysis are making these maps an The researchers chose ash-fall as their increasingly significant part of volcanic hazard to map, given its prominence risk management. Drafted by researchers, among volcanic hazards and its potential the maps are disseminated to stakeholder for widespread and diverse social impacts. parties, including government, Ash-fall is a common target for emergency management, aviation, probabilistic analysis, given the need to agriculture, etc. – after which they are consider the impact of variable used to inform a variety of emergency- atmospheric conditions on its spread. related decisions. Eruption End-user The demonstration maps used in the It is important, therefore, that the map be study depicted the probability of successful in communicating the hazard it accumulating a set thickness of fallen ash was intended to depict – especially in from a hypothetical eruption at Mount time-sensitive, crisis situations where Tarawera, an active rhyolitic volcano that decisions are made based on rapid lies south-east of Lake Rotorua, in the impressions of perceived hazard. middle of New Zealand’s North Island. Together, the complicated nature of Part of the larger Okataina Volcanic probabilistic hazard data and the variety Centre, Tarawera is well-known locally, of design choices available for presenting having had two recent eruptions: one them means that each dataset can be around 1315, and another in 1886. The portrayed by many different maps – not latter – which is believed to have ejected all of which, however, may convey the around two cubic kilometres of material – desired message to the end-user. caused over 100 fatalities and resulted in “Even if you get great data, that doesn’t an ash fall whose impact was felt as far as Above top: Graduational shaded representation of ash fall mean anything unless people use it, Christchurch, 800 kilometres away. from a rhyolitic eruption from Tarawera understand it, and are confident with it,” “Over the last 26,000 years that area has Above middle: Binned representation of the same data says Mary Anne Thompson, who studies had maybe 10 significant ash fall events,” Above lower: Isarithmic representation volcanic hazards at the University of says Thompson. “It’s important to build Left: Mount Tarawera with Lake Okaro. Mt Tarawera has

Auckland. With scientists’ general focus hazard models for it because it could erupted in c. 1315 and more recently in 1886 on methodology and data, she explains, happen again in the future.”

little attention has been given to the role of Looking at the classification of map communication in volcanic hazard data, the main concerns that emerged research. To address this, a new study by from the participants centred on ease of ~ Thompson and her colleagues has reading, precision, aesthetics and the investigated how map users from New realistic representation of hazard. Binned Zealand – both other scientists and classification schemes were seen as being decision-making stakeholders - perceive ‘too stepwise’, while the gradational A NEW STUDY HAS the impact of some of the map design shading was seen as best for depicting the INVESTIGATED HOW choices that are available. change in ash-fall moving away from the MAP USERS FROM NEW Their research was conducted in two vent. At the same time, however, the stages, with a small series of face-to-face grading was also seen as being too ZEALAND PERCEIVE THE interviews (with four volcanologists and challenging to interpret with certainty – IMPACT OF SOME OF THE 10 stakeholders) forming a pilot study unless isopleths were also present. MAP DESIGN CHOICES which informed a subsequent survey, Isopleths at 10% intervals were favoured distributed to a larger number of over those at 5%, which were viewed as THAT ARE AVAILABLE participants (110 in total, with 32 scientists being misleadingly precise. ▼ ~ WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 17 ▼ Background content was appreciated for used. While the pilot study set the ‘chance’ was perceived as unreliable, as map orientation, and participants threshold at 10 millimetres of ash (an well as fostering negative associations preferred maps on which the mapped often-used value in scientific literature, with gambling. hazard was not cut short by political and which would result in significant boundaries. disruption) the stakeholders preferred Static Colour schemes were reported to affect instead to know if there would be any Map users expressed a preference for the perception of hazard levels among ash at all, this being a more useful trigger receiving the maps in static formats – 67% of participants. The two most for action in response (e.g. clearing ash such as .jpg or .pdf files, or in hard copy – popular schemes were the red-yellow from roads). implying that the users are unlikely to sequential colour scheme – also favoured As a supplement to the maps, most want to edit or add additional content to by most scientists – and the diverging survey participants found both extra the map with digital tools. This fixed red-yellow-blue scheme, favoured by the information (about the volcano, nature, they propose, underscores the majority of stakeholders. Red colours probabilistic hazard and possible impacts importance of the initial design choices, were noted as carrying connotations of of ash fall) and also hazard curves to be as they will likely be carried through to ‘danger’ and ‘volcanoes’, while blue was useful additions. The hazard curves the maps’ ultimate use in decision- seen as relating to the absence of hazard – were more popular among scientists than making processes. with the potential therefore to create stakeholders. Of the two curve designs While the researchers caution against misleading impressions of safety or provided, more participants found the reading the results of their study as underestimated hazard. In addition, blue curve with an 80% confidence area easier suggesting that there can be one ideal shades offered the potential for confusion to interpret than the equivalent with 10th standard for volcanic hazard maps with other types of hazard map, and 90th percentile lines depicted. (especially given the varied needs of especially flooding maps. Several For the map keys, a selection of three different stakeholders), they do believe participants in the interview portion of expressions of numerical probability was that their results can usefully inform the study also raised concerns about the presented to participants: decimals (e.g. future map designs. “[This has] a lot of difficulty that colour-blindness causes in 0.1), natural frequencies (1 in 10), and exciting implications for the way we reading maps with certain colour schemes. percentages (10%). These were communicate probabilistic volcanic accompanied by three different verbal hazards… and we do want to do more Threshold descriptions: ‘chance’, ‘likelihood’ and research into it” says Thompson. The participants displayed no significant ‘probability’. Overall, participants Amy Donovan of the University of preference between maps showing a fixed preferred to have both percentage and Cambridge, who studies volcanic risk ash threshold (i.e. probability of a given natural frequency expressions in the key, and who was not involved in the depth of ash coverage) versus a fixed while decimals were universally deemed research, told Geoscientist: “This is an probability threshold (i.e. the distribution less accessible. Stakeholders reported interesting paper that addresses an of ash at a given probability). Despite regarding the term ‘probability’ as being important topic in applied volcanology”. this, stakeholders did express a distinct more definitive and trustworthy than Highlighting its impressive level of desire for a low ash threshold, when ‘likelihood’; in contrast, the phrasing detail, Donovan said the study “will be

18 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST Tarawera volcano from Rotorua

A

B

helpful for other workers in the field who wish to ensure that probabilistic maps are effective.” “Engaging with stakeholders, using a bottom-up approach, can clearly C complement and enhance top-down approaches to volcanic hazard mapping, making the science - and the maps produced - more relevant and useful,” said Carina Fearnley of Aberystwyth University who researches environmental hazards. A:Red-yellow Noting that such communication sequential issues are not often discussed, she said: B: Blue-yellow sequential “The findings ... demonstrate the C: Blue-yellow- important role interdisciplinary studies red diverging can bring to traditional topics such as mapping; to help deconstruct perceptions of what maps are, and how they are used, and make sure that hazard maps make use of all knowledge and technologies available to benefit all vulnerable populations.” u

* Ian Randall is a science writer with a geological background, now based in New Zealand

REFERENCE

1 Mary Anne Thompson, Jan M Lindsay and JC New Zealand Gaillard, 2015: The influence of probabilistic volcanic showing (right) hazard map properties on hazard communication. the Auckland Journal of Applied Volcanology 4.6, 11 February 2015 Region, and doi:10.1186/s13617-015-0023-0 W: (left) population density by www.appliedvolc.com/content/4/1/6/abstract. percentage

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 19 Geoscientist welcomes readers’ letters. These are published as promptly as possible in Geoscientist Online and a selection READERS’ printed each month. Please submit your letter (300 words or fewer, by email only please) to [email protected]. LETTERS Letters will be edited. For references cited in these letters, please see the full versions at www.geolsoc.org.uk/letters Online publishing Sir, Don Hallet’s Soapbox (Geoscientist, November 2014) and Desmond Donovan’s letter (Geoscientist, February 2015) raise interesting issues in relation to scholarly publishing. It is quite right to assert that there are factors at play that might distort author and publisher behaviour, and that

Image: Dudarev Mikhail / Shutterstock.com commercial competition has led to a proliferation of journals, but most publishers (both society and commercial) make genuine efforts to improve the discoverability of the content they publish via a range of search interfaces, and invest heavily in services that add value to authors’ papers. Indeed, since Making the leap: Don Keeble Trust has supported over 50 students, mostly on Masters courses in geotechnical engineering 2007 the version of record for Geological Society publications has been the online copy hosted on the Lyell Collection (www.lyellcollection.org), where Follow the Keeble road both PDF and HTML displays are Sir, Donovan (‘Don’) Keeble (pictured, left), had the vision to establish an available, and we have invested Educational Charity in 1989, following a distinguished career as a continually in author and reader professional Civil Engineer in the UK and Southern Africa, to award functionality. There is a growing ‘scholarships, exhibitions, bursaries or maintenance allowances ... for the number of online titles for which advancement of education of persons who intend to pursue a career in print is no longer offered - though Consulting Geotechnical Engineering.’ print versions Don consulted closely with Dr Mike De Freitas of Imperial College on the of GSL books need for financial support for students at that time. They considered the and journals use to which such support would be put, the things that could go wrong, do remain and the means by which such support might be best directed. Mike Scott, then MD of Southern available to Testing at that time, was also consulted. those who Don donated part of his Southern Testing (STL) shareholding to the Trust, to fund the awards. prefer them. The Trust is administered by Southern Testing, and I have served as one of three Trustees for the Desmond last 24 years. The awards, independent of STL, are designed to meet the educational needs of makes a individual postgraduate students. We have given awards to over 50 geologists and civil pertinent engineers, predominately to assist funding for Masters degrees in geotechnical engineering. suggestion Individual awards vary according to funds available (reflecting the financial performance of about Southern Testing) along with the needs of successful applicants. centrally We would be delighted to hear from candidates who have benefited from our awards, with organised details of their current employment. We would also be interested to know how they came to electronic hear of the awards, how it helped them at the time, and their career progression. Links to Social publishing Media are available at www.southerntesting.co.uk for this. on behalf of the major societies. Funding of postgraduate studies has become limited since the Trust was set up. Perhaps it is In fact the Society has contributed time for other large and small-scale consultants (and those who feel philanthropic) to establish its content to just such an similar methods of funding, not directly related to their organisation, to finance the next aggregation for 10 years now – generation of consulting engineers and geologists. GeoScienceWorld Don felt a very strong and personal need to do this, perhaps as a way of returning to society (http://geoscienceworld.org/), an something he felt he owed. Educational philanthropy is going to be needed and should be a online-only collection of 45 full text significant source of future funding in our profession. journals and over 1000 ebooks MORRIS STEVENSON from 28 society publishers, with nearly 1000 subscribing institutions worldwide. Perhaps it is time for other large and small-scale NEAL MARRIOTT, COLIN NORTH consultants (and those who feel philanthropic) ➤ Follow us on Twitter, search for to establish similar methods of funding Geoscientistmag or on Facebook MORRIS STEVENSON www.facebook.com/geolsoc

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More war graves Sir, Picking up on John Dixon’s letter regarding Mud in yore eye Portland Stone substitutes used by the War Graves Sir, I would like to congratulate you on the latest Geoscientist and the Society Commission, I am surprised not to hear Hopton Wood for the Year of Mud, which at last recognises the significance of the main Stone being mentioned at all. Hopton Wood Stone is subject of my career! The lifetime of mud and X-ray diffraction was in fact a Carboniferous Limestone, off-white to buff in colour, quite a jolly one, despite the jokes of my colleagues at Reading, and I still and sparsely fossiliferous, which is quarried in the believe it to have been a really significant part of geology. Wirksworth area of Derbyshire. It has been used ANDREW PARKER extensively in the local area on facades of public buildings and is still used today as an ornamental Sir, There is mud stone in fireplace surrounds. (assorted clays I have read that it was used by the Commonwealth and clastics) War Graves Commission as an alternative to Portland containing lovely Stone, on account of its remarkable similarity. With animal and plant reference to a conference paper by Ian Thomas (2008), fossils, and then Director, National Stone Centre, its historical use by the there is mud (clay) CWGC was significant, amounting to over 120,000 produced by the alteration of volcanic glass. Yes, I am talking about headstones by 1939. The paper also refers to 100- bentonites (mostly smectite/illite), on which I have worked for 30 years. 200 headstones per year still being produced for the These muds also contain fossils, but these are fossil crystals formed in situ CWGC at the time of writing. My understanding is that in the original melt. Apatite, zircon and sometimes biotite occur as beautifully Hopton Wood Stone was also widely used as an preserved crystals which also tell a story, albeit a geochemical one. alternative to Portland Limestone in the rebuilding of Combined with bulk chemical analysis, the fossil crystals help to date the London after the Blitz. rock, to identify the magmatic environments and to correlate strata across MARK COPE countries, and sometimes across continents. Reference - Thomas, I.A., 2008. Hopton Wood Stone, England’s premier decorative stone. 90-105 in Doyle, P, Hughes, T & Thomas, I Let’s hear it for bentonites! A (eds.). England’s stone heritage. Proceedings of conference 2005, RICHARD A BATCHELOR English Stone Forum: Folkestone.

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History of the Quaternary understanding in their respective fields. geochemistry, mineralogy and tectonics The QRA is to be congratulated on and are summarised briefly below. Research Association producing this landmark volume at a Chapter 2 documents the lithotectonic price which is simply exceptional value. zones present in Rayner Province and how It is 50 years since By adopting a ‘mutual’ publishing model these are similar to features in the Albany- the Quaternary Field one hopes that the sales of this excellent Fraser Orogen in Western Australia. Study Group held its people-centred book will not be Chapter 3 describes how feldspar-lead first meeting based restricted by a lack of publicity – spread isotopic information from Eastern on the Department the word! Antarctica can be correlated with mineral of Geology at the compositions from Dharwar Craton and University of Reviewed by Peter Worsley the Eastern Ghats. A different mineralogy is Birmingham. After also described in the Ruker Complex in four years, this Antarctica suggesting a different post- THE HISTORY OF THE QUATERNARY Study Group became RESEARCH ASSOCIATION Archaean evolution. more formalised as the interdisciplinary JOHN CATT & IAN CANDY(eds). Published by: Chapter 4 sets out the tectonic Quaternary Research Association Quaternary Research Association, 2014 ISBN : implications drawn by examining the 0907780873. 431pp (QRA), and in the late 1980s it became List price: £25.00, Order from www.qra.org.uk at mineralogy in the Larsemann Hills, one of the specialist groups of the £31 including postage and packing Prydz Bay in East Antarctica. Chapter 5 Geological Society. describes the complex tectonothermal Courageously, the Executive events evident in rocks making up the Committee resolved to self-publish a Prince Charles Mountains of the Prydz history to mark the anniversary. It is in ay region, East Antarctica. two parts – first, a conventional history Chapter 6 describes the metamorphic and second, a selected set of 12 chapters rocks in the central Sor Rondane Mountains, commissioned by the committee on topics Antarctica and eastern Dronning Maud Land, East considered to reflect the more important Supercontinent Evolution Antarctica, and proposes the area be a test- topics allied to QRA members’ work. ground for the regional tectonic processes The book is a handsome A4 hardback Antarctica’s geological proposed for the orogeny of Gondwana. with 108 mainly coloured figures and 39 record spans 3.5 billion Chapter 7 presents information on the tables. It is of considerable weight, and years and provides a mineralogy of garnet-sillimanite gneisses pleasingly printed in Wales. remarkable window in Eastern Antarctica and the implications The history is the sole work of founder into the geological of the P-T path matches on ultrahigh- member John Catt, who, with prodigious history of the world. temperature metamorphosis. energy, has scoured the archives and the This book has a Chapter 8 moves to West Antarctica and pages of the in-house published summary chapter discusses the differences in isotopic Quaternary Newsletter to reconstruct, followed by eight composition of zircons in granite found in often in considerable detail, the trials and detailed chapters the area. Chapter 9 provides additional tribulations of the Association through providing an insight into current insight into how the composition of half a century. Interestingly, of the c. 150 understanding of the evolution of detrital zircon in northern Victoria Land, original members some 50 survive, Antarctica, and where Antarctica may Antarctica is evidence of a range of rock although the membership now exceeds have been incorporated into forming mechanisms ranging from 1000. One suspects that this part will give supercontinents of old. The discussion contemporaneous magmatic activity to the greatest enjoyment to those survivors. ranges across Antarctica, California, Africa, erosion of older crustal sources currently There is an index to this part, but it is not India and Australia. covered by the polar ice sheet. totally comprehensive. The introductory chapter summarises Part II is jointly edited by Catt and Ian the current state of knowledge of the Reviewed by James Montgomery Candy and covers ‘The scientific ancient supercontinents and how the achievements and contributions of the geology of Antarctica has contributed to ANTARCTICA AND SUPERCONTINENT EVOLUTION QRA’. It features 10 key topics written by this. The chapter concludes with a S L HARLEY, I C W FITZSIMONS AND Y ZHAO (eds), a mix of sole and joint authored chapters summary of the uncertainties that remain. Published by: Geological Society, Special Publication 383, 2013. ISBN 978-1-86239-367-7, 237pp hbk. –in journal format and not indexed. This is mind-boggling stuff. The remaining www.geolsoc.org.uk One gets the impression that the eight papers present evidence covering contributors - 16 in all - were given lax word limits as there is a wide range of page length, 13–50 pages and stricter Evgeny Kovalev spb / Shutterstock.com editorial control might have shortened the longer ones and, by consolidating the references into a single list, space would have been created for additional topics such as climatic modelling/ prediction, radioactive and stable isotopes, palaeosols and periglaciation. Nevertheless the chapters are delightful Antarctic lake in the Larsemann Hills reading as the authors trace progress in

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Early Palaeozoic companion notes placed online. overriding crust in these systems (eight (There is already a significant amount of papers examining crustal melt and Biogeography and supplementary material there). magma evolution and their residence Publications of this type are intended as a times). The final section synthesises the Palaeogeography communication between experts, but it recent research investigating the temporal would be a shame to keep the developing evolution of orogenic andesites and their Palaeobiogeographers story of the Earth’s radiative evolution a contribution to continental crustal growth can rejoice; here is a ‘secret’ among so few friends. and development (three papers). detailed and In summary, the volume thoroughly comprehensive Reviewed by Arthur Tingley demonstrates that the debate on the origin memoir setting out of andesitic melts at convergent margins the state of art of Reference - 1) Cope J C W, Ingham, J K & Rawson, P F (i.e. formation from primary melts of slab (eds.) 1992. Atlas of Palaeogeography and Lithofacies. your ‘craft’. This Geological Society, London, Memoir, 13. or mantle materials versus evolution from memoir originates basaltic melts at shallower crustal levels) mostly from the work is an active, significant and unresolved of two International EARLY PALAEOZOIC BIOGEOGRAPHY AND research area in igneous petrogenesis. Geoscience Programmes; The Great PALAEOGEOGRAPHY The volume is non-dogmatic and well- HARPER D A T AND SERVAIS T (eds) 2013 Published Ordovician Biodiversification Event (IGCP by: Geological Society. London, Memoir 38. balanced on this important issue 410, 1997 -2002) and ‘Ordovician List price: £125.00; Fellow's price: £62.50 Other favouring neither particular genetic Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate’ societies price: £75.00. www.geolsoc.org.uk viewpoint. Attempting to establish a (IGCP 503, 2004 – 2009). It draws together forum for discussion, the volume a lot of specialist detail and presents the successfully promotes the need for new results of multidisciplinary collaboration and further research efforts on the between scientists at the leading edge of petrogenesis of these important and their game. enigmatic rocks and their role in the There are 26 Chapters by over 140 global geochemical cycles of the Earth. authors, in a densely written format The editors are to be congratulated on covering dominantly the Cambrian and Orogenic Andesites and an excellent and significant contribution Ordovician, with some excursions into the to the field. This reviewer anticipates that Silurian - up to Pridoli where warranted. Crustal Growth the editors’ stated purpose for the volume These cover; Trace Fossils, The significance of to facilitate cross-fertilisation and Stromatoporoidea, Porifera, Corals, orogenic andesites (the discussion between researchers proposing Brachiopods, Bryozoa, Echinoderms voluminous andesites these opposite (and potentially (superb photography) , Gastropods, formed at convergent irreconcilable) genetic hypotheses and Bivalves, Molluscs, Polychaetes, Trilobites, plate margins and enable the establishment of a mutually Ostracods, Phyto and Zooplankton, volcanic arcs) as holistic model for orogenic andesite Radiolaria, Graptolites, Cephalopods, petrogenetic proxies petrogenesis, will ultimately be realised. Vertebrates and Land Plants. for the evolution of The central concept is that through the continental crust has Reviewed by Mark Griffin extensive use of similar maps, such as been recognised and ‘Bugplates,’ (see www.geodynamics.no/ established for over three decades. OROGENIC ANDESITES AND CRUSTAL GROWTH bugs/SoftwareManual.pdf) as a basis for However, their genesis remains highly A GOMEZ-TUENA, S M STRAUB AND G F ZELLMER comparison and assessment; the origin, contentious and is still much debated. The (eds). Published by: Geological Society of London. Special Publication No 385, 2014. ISBN 978-1- evolution and radiative distribution of controversy as to whether orogenic 86239-369-1. Hbk. 414pp. ISSN 0305-8719. life forms can be elucidated and andesites are the products of primary List price: £125.00. www.geolsoc.org.uk. hypothesised upon. Thus a good platform melts of mantle and crustal slab materials, has been established onto which further or are derived from basaltic mantle melt detail can be built. Read in combination differentiation in overlying crust within BOOKS Available for review with the considerably more accessible convergent margin environments, remains Atlas of Palaeogeography and Lithofacies1 this uncertain and problematic. This Please contact [email protected] if you would should form a defining framework. Geological Society Special Publication like to supply a review. You will be invited to keep the review copy. See a full up-to-date list at While most of the book will be of documents the recent research www.geolsoc.org.uk/reviews immediate interest to working and developments undertaken to address this aspiring palaeontologists, especially those fundamental petrogenetic issue. u NEW! Structural Geology - The Mechanics of with good palaeobiolexidexterous Introduced with an overview chapter Deforming Metamorphic Rocks Vol. 1 - Principles. tendencies. For the rest of us, the best on the current state of research on By Bruce Hobbs & Alison Ord 2015. Elsevier.665pp hbk advice is to read the first three chapters, orogenic andesites, the volume is broadly u NEW! On the Edge - Coastlines of Britain by Robert and then dip into the rest slowly. divided into three main sections, Duck 2015. Edinburgh University Press 222pp sbk At this point I would make a plea: for presenting recent research papers u NEW! Flow in Porous Rocks - Energy & the non-specialist, some of the investigating the crustal slab – mantle Environmental Applications by Andrew W Woods 2015 Cambridge UP.,289pp hbk terminology used and concepts described connection (four papers on the influence u create an entry barrier, inevitable in a of slab fluids, melts and diapirs, their NEW!A Memoir to the Map & Delineation of the Strata of England & Wales with part of Scotland by specialist memoir. However it might be associated melt-rock reactions and melt William Smith. Facsimile edition, BGS 52pp sbk fairly easily rectified with ‘barrier-busting’ transfer timescales), and the role of the

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 23 PEOPLE NEWS CAROUSEL IN MEMORIAM WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/OBITUARIES All Fellows of the Society are entitled to entries in this column. Please email [email protected], THE SOCIETY NOTES WITH SADNESS THE PASSING OF: quoting your Fellowship number. Adatia, Ruth Horman* Kosler, Jan * u Armstrong, David * Lane, Alan* Michael McKimm Borg-Costanzi, Joseph A * Leach, Bernard * Michael McKimm (Geological Society Brasier, Martin * Mills, J A * Library) has commissioned and edited a Cater, Maxwell Clinton * McSweeney, LJM * new poetry anthology, now published, to Cooper, Mike Morris, Richard Oliver * celebrate the William Smith bicentenary. Evans, J Russ* Oswald, Desmond Map: Poems After William Smith’s Foster, Michael * Quick, David * Geological Map of 1815 contains new Fothergill, T * Rivington, John Blackett* work by over 30 poets in response to Heeley, Martyn * Scott, Barry* Hooper, P L * Watson, John S the map, Smith’s life and the legacy of geological King, Chris * (Dorset) Wright, Martin * mapping, including Andrew Motion, Philip Gross, Alison Brackenbury and Helen Mort. In the interests of recording its Fellows' work for posterity, the Society publishes A number of events relating to the obituaries online, and in Geoscientist. The most recent additions to the list are shown anthology will take place during 2015, in bold. Fellows for whom no obituarist has yet been commissioned are marked with including a reading at the Rotunda an asterisk (*). The symbol § indicates that biographical material has been lodged with Museum (Scarborough) on Friday 26 the Society. June. For more information see If you would like to contribute an obituary, please email ted.nield@geolsoc. www.worplepress.co.uk/map or org.uk to be commissioned. You can read the guidance for authors at contact michael.mckimm@ www.geolsoc.org.uk/obituaries. To save yourself unnecessary work, please do not geolsoc.org.uk. write anything until you have received a commissioning letter. u Deceased Fellows for whom no obituary is forthcoming have their names and dates John Warburton recorded in a Roll of Honour at www.geolsoc.org.uk/obituaries. John Warburton, Director of Imperial Oil & Gas Ltd, Executive Adviser to several petroleum companies, Founder & Director of Image: Svetlana Danilova / Shutterstock.com international petroleum exploration consultancy Insight Exploration, has published his first novel North Sea to North-West Frontier. The book is available as an e-book through Amazon-kindle from www.vividpublishing.com. au/johnwarburton/.

24 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST GEOSCIENTIST PEOPLE NEWS

Geoscientists in the news and on the move in the UK, Europe and worldwide

DISTANT THUNDER Tecto tech talk

Geologist and science writer Nina Morgan* discovers some excellent taphrogeosyncline ways to confuse colleagues and influence people exogeosyncline

I've always considered science writing a great way to introduce cactolith non-scientists to the wonders ? and importance of science. But successful science writing does zeugogeosyncline ? ? ? come at a price. In presenting complex ideas in simple but lively prose, deficient in the passive voice and easily understood and appreciated by the public at large, you often harpolith lose the respect of your scientific akmolith colleagues. I see their point. If the conclusions and arguments in your geological magnum opus can be instantly understood by other scientists, let alone by any epieugeosyncline, a cactus. The term and its ➤ Acknowledgement educated reader, your non- taphrogeosyncline, a associated definition, 'a quasi Thanks to Philip Powell of the geological colleagues could paraliageosyncline and a horizontal chonolith composed Oxford University Museum of easily come to the conclusion miogeosyncline.' Having had no of anastomosing ductoliths, Natural History for drawing my that geology is actually quite a luck simply copying this phrase whose distal ends curl like a attention to an Opinion piece about simple English by Derek simple subject, requiring no into Google Translate, I had to harpolith, thin like a sphenolith, Ager in the July 1985 issue of particular intelligence to pursue. turn to several on-line geological or bulge discordantly like an Geology Today, which provided dictionaries to find out the akmolith or ethmolith', was the inspiration for this vignette. Erudition in action meaning of these geosynclinal created, tongue-in-cheek, by Other sources include How to But, argued prose style guru and references. What erudition! It USGS geologist Charles B Hunt. write geologese by Nicholas prose policeman, Nicholas took me at least half an hour to Hunt's wonderfully mind- Vanserg, Economic Geology, vol Vanserg – aka. Hugh McKinstry track them all down – and that's boggling definition somehow 47, 1952, pp. 220-223; and the

(1896-1961) mining geologist with a fast broadband made it through the USGS websites: http://harvardmagazine.com/ and professor of geology at connection.~ reviewing process and into print Harvard University – "by where it appears in the USGS 1997/03/pump.html http://www.aggman.com/car following just a few simple rules, Professional paper Geology and ved-in-stone-2/ you can ensure that your BY FOLLOWING Geography of the Henry ➤ If the past is the key to your audience is well and truly baffled Mountains region, Utah, present interests, why not join by your erudition". Top of his list JUST A FEW SIMPLE published in 1953. the History of Geology Group is to build up a collection of RULES, YOU CAN But aside from boosting our (HOGG). For more information highly specialised terminologies. professional status, geological and to read the latest HOGG This is certainly a lesson that ENSURE THAT YOUR jargon is also a real boon for Newsletter, visit the HOGG stratigraphers – whose AUDIENCE IS WELL Scrabble players. 'Xenolith' website at: speciality, after all, really is based AND TRULY BAFFLED placed on a triple-word square, www.historyofgeologygroup. on fairly straightforward I'm reliably informed, adds up to co.uk where you'll also find abstracts for the talks and concepts – took to heart in back BY YOUR ERUDITION 54 points. But that relatively Nicholas Vanserg posters presented at the in the days when geosynclines familiar term has nothing on Conference on Geological reigned supreme. zeugogeosyncline, defined by Collectors and Collecting, April Vanserg particularly admired a ~ those in the know as 'a 2011 available free to download mythical paper that revealed Hard rock parageosyncline that receives its as a pdf file. how to differentiate between a Petrologists at the US Geological sediment from eroded 'eugeosyncline, an Survey (USGS) went one better complementing highland within *Nina Morgan is a geologist and exogeosyncline, an with their definition of a the craton'. Put that down on a science writer based near Oxford, autogeosyncline, a ‘cactolith’, an intrusive body of triple-word square and you'll currently working on a book about zeugogeosyncline, an rock that resembles a saguaro garner an impressive 96! the Geology of Gravestones

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 25 GEOSCIENTIST OBITUARY

OBITUARY GORDON YOUNGER CRAIG 1925-2014

Distinguished Scottish palaeoecologist, author ordon Craig was and historian always 'saw the big picture' significance of Edinburgh as born 17 January home to ‘father of modern 1925 in Milngavie, geology’ James Hutton. In attending Hillhead 1990 he was awarded the G High School and Mary C Rabbitt History of Bearsden Academy before Geology Award (Geological entering Glasgow University Society of America). Gordon where he graduated in 1946 was a founding Trustee of

with first class honours. In Our Dynamic Earth, seeing it 1947 he became a lecturer in through its turbulent early

Palaeontology at Edinburgh years to its opening (1999), University, going on to and continuing to take a keen become Senior Lecturer and interest until~ his death. Reader (1960), first James Hutton Professor of Geology (1967) and Head of ALL WHO Department (1981-84). KNEW GORDON WILL Holmes REMEMBER A MAN Gordon served under both WHO GAVE US THAT Arthur Holmes and Fred Stewart. Each supported MOST PRECIOUS Gordon in his research in GIFT - TIME palaeoecology, but Gordon’s main contribution was in his ~ ability to see the ‘big All who knew Gordon will picture’. Just as students remember a man who gave us over the years have that most precious gift - time. treasured Holmes’s He had time for all of his Principles of Physical Geology, colleagues, students, and Craig’s Geology of Scotland wide circle of friends, became the bible of Scottish visiting on sabbatical from publications was the book, neighbours and family. His geological interpretation, Pomona University. They A Geological Miscellany, a family life had its ups and running to three editions identified immediately what “potpourri of adventure, downs. Losing his first wife, with Gordon as editor. He they were, and their anecdote, epigram, Molly was a devastating was able to communicate importance. Together with autobiography, discovery, experience but his later years ideas in the most succinct Gordon Craig they hypothesis and bureaucratic were enriched by Mary, with way, summing up his researched the localities and absurdity” (with Jean Jones) whom he enjoyed many years research into the ‘The Lost Drawings’, about geology and geologists. of happiness and laughter as paleoecology of Lingula: intended to illustrate visitors from around the “Lingula burrows vertically, Hutton’s second volume of INHIGEO world visited Lasswade. He anterior end uppermost and the Theory of the Earth, were Gordon was keenly interested was a keen golfer and captain always did”! published (with Craig as in the International of the Mortonhall Golf Club When the Clerk family editor) in 1978. In 1997, Commission on the History of (1972-73). His garden too (Penicuik House) found Gordon was involved in the Geological Sciences meant much to him and he drawings by Sir John Clerk organisation of a Edinburgh (INHIGEO) serving as enjoyed its ever-changing of Edin which looked and London-based President (1984-89) and vista to the end. He meant a geological, they took them symposium to celebrate the setting up international great deal to many, and will to Charles Waterston bicentenary of Hutton’s conferences in Moscow, Pisa, be sorely missed. (National Museum of death and the birth of Washington, Edinburgh and Scotland) where Prof Charles Lyell. One of Budapest. Through this ➤ By Stuart Monro Donald McIntyre was Gordon’s most successful engagement he promoted the

HELP YOUR OBITUARIST The Society operates a scheme for Fellows to deposit biographical material. The object is to assist obituarists by providing contacts, dates and other information, and thus ensure that Fellows’ lives are accorded appropriate and accurate commemoration. Please send your CV and a photograph to Ted Nield at the Society.

26 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST GEOSCIENTIST CALENDAR Can’t find your meeting? VISIT www.geolsoc.org.uk/listings] [full, accurate, up-to-date

ENDORSED TRAINING/CPD COURSE DATE VENUE AND DETAILS

Introduction to Micromine: two day 14-15 April Venue: Challoner House, 19 Clerkenwell Close, London EC1R 0RR. Charges. training course See website for details. Contact: Jenny York E: [email protected]

One day training course: Cone Penetration 23 April Venue: Fugro Engineering Svcs., Glasgow, UK. See website for details and registration. Testing (CPT) Contact Steve Poulter E: [email protected]

One day training course: Soil & Rock 21 April Venue: Fugro House, Hithercroft Rd, Wallingford OX10 9RB. Mike DeFreitas. Logging to EC7 Contact: E: [email protected]

Lapworth’s Logs n/a ‘Lapworth’s Logs’ is a series of e-courses involving practical exercises of increasing complexity. Contact: [email protected]. Lapworth’s Logs is produced by Michael de Freitas and Andrew Thompson.

DIARY OF MEETINGS APRIL 2015 MEETING DATE VENUE AND DETAILS

From Hooke to Helioseismology: The UK 9-10 April Venue: College Court, Unviersity of Leicester. See website for registration and contribution to Seismology - past, present & details. Contact Conference Office Leicester T: +44 (0)116 223 1680 future. GSL/BGA/RAS/IOP/Shell E: [email protected]

European Geosciences Union General 12-17 Venue: Austria Centre, Vienna. For details and registration visit website. Assembly 2015. EGU April W: http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/sessionprogramme

IMCET2015: The 24th International Mining 14-17 Venue: WOW Kremlin Palace & Topkapi Palace Hotels, Antalya, Turkey. See website Congress and Exhibition of Turkey. UCTEA April for details and registration. Contact: Nejat Tanzok E: [email protected] Chamber of Mining Engineers of Turkey

The SEAPEX Exploration Conference 2015. 14-17 Venue: Fairmont Hotel, Singapore. See website for details and registration. Southeast Asian Petroleum Exploration Society April Contact SEAPEX: [email protected]

Earth's Climate Evolution. GSL 15 April Venue: Burlington House. A Society London lecture. Speaker: Colin Summerhayes. For details see p. 6

Continental loss: the quest to determine 21 April Venue: The Royal Society, Carlton House Terrace. Free lecture. Time: 1830-1930. Antarctica's contribution to sea-level change. See website for details. Contact: Naomi Asantewa-Sechereh Royal Society E: [email protected]

The Stratigraphy of the Lambeth Group and its 21 April Venue: University of Portsmouth, Dept of Geology. Time: 1830. Speaker: Jackie Effects on Engineering Properties Skipper (Geotechnical Consulting Grp.). Contact: Neil Mackenzie Solent Regional E: [email protected]

William Smith (1769-1839): 200 Years of the 1st 21 April Venue: Cardiff University, ROOM 1.25 Main Building, Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT. Nationwide Geological Map. Time: 1800 for 1830. Speaker: Dr Tom Sharpe. Contact: [email protected] Southern Wales Regional

One day training course: Petroleum Geology of 21 April Venue: Burlington House. Charges apply. See website for details and registration. East Africa. Finding Petroleum Contact: Natalie Cronshaw E: [email protected]

Did the earth move for you? From great 23 April Venue: Affinity Water, Tamblin Way, Hatfield Business Park, Hatfield, Herts. earthquakes to silent slip. Time: 1800 for 1830. Speaker: Dr Rebecca Bell, Imperial College. Home Counties North Regional E: [email protected]

William Smith Meeting 2015: 200 Years of 23-25 Venue: Burlington House. Charges. See website or details and registration. Smith’s Map. GSL/HOGG April GSL Conference Office Contact: Jess Aries E: [email protected]

Field Trip - Chalk subgroups, periglacial 26 April Venue: Dunstable, Beds. Leader: John Wong. Time: 1000-1700. See website for deposits, building stones and medieval history details. To register E: [email protected] Home Counties North Regional

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 27 GEOSCIENTIST OBITUARY

OBITUARY DAVID ROGER OLDROYD 1936-2014

Distinguished historian of the geological sciences he select band who who made his career in New Zealand and Australia Science 1991-1995), he was care for the history awarded our Society’s of our (most Sue Tyler Friedman Medal historical) science in 1994. T have suffered a grievous loss with David’s Medal death, in Sydney, on 7 David retired in 1996, to give November 2014. His himself more time to do what multiple skills, whether as he most wanted; and with author, critic, editor such success that he was extraordinary, English awarded the GSA‘s History of script-writer, whether from Geology award in 1999, and a Japlish, Chinglish or Centenary Medal from the Russlish, secretary to Australian Government. INHIGEO, or as a fine He had already been made cellist, will be impossible to a fellow of the Australian replace. Academy of the Humanities He was born in Luton, in 1994, the first historian of son of Kenneth Oldroyd and science there to be so Gladys Buckley, on 20 honoured. January 1936. He studied In 1998 came his volume of sciences at Luton Grammar Variorum Studies published school (with the initial by Ashgate. In 2003 followed intention of becoming a his GSL Memoir Earth, Water, doctor). In 1955 he entered Ice and Fire, on the history of Emmanuel College, geological research in the Cambridge, where there Lake District (where he had were no places for medicine, been first sent as a WW2 so he took natural sciences, evacuee). He next proved migrating from physics to immensely helpful with our chemistry, while adding the Oxford Dictionary of National ‘half subject’ geology. He Biography, contributing 15 gained a second class, in In its midst, in 1962, Jane and New South Wales (but still masterful essays when it chemistry, but then found, he decided to emigrate to with no publications, and appeared in 2004. having been much diverted New Zealand as ‘ten pound no high level teaching His last equally remarkable by too much cello playing, poms’, with that government experience. Those were memoir, which appeared after there were no openings for paying their tickets and the days!). he had been diagnosed with a what he most wanted to do, furniture removal. What a His PhD on the history of brain tumour, in 2013, is his with such a degree. So he bargain Australasia got! But the development of extraordinary Maps as first became a school David still had to find his mineralogy in relation to pictures: The early development teacher, in Harrow, and MSc dissertation topic. He chemistry was awarded in of geological maps (GSA Special married Jane Dawes, whom chose Geology in New 1974. Australia proved Paper 502). This is fine work he had found playing the Zealand prior to 1900, generous with both research which will remind us all of oboe in our National Youth examined, and passed leave and expenses, and his extraordinary skills next Orchestra, in 1958. postally, by Victor Eyles David managed regular year, when we will now be (1895-1978). David could now study trips to England. forced to celebrate the Bargain start to think of becoming a These resulted in his bicentenary of William While teaching, David had university teacher, and Highlands Controversy book Smith’s equally extraordinary started an (evening class) having moved to Australia in in 1990, and for this, and map without him. taught master’s degree in 1969, soon found a new, other classics like his history of science at history of science, job - Archaean Controversy series ➤ By Hugh Torrens University College, London. teaching at the University of (published in Annals of

HELP YOUR OBITUARIST The Society operates a scheme for Fellows to deposit biographical material. The object is to assist obituarists by providing contacts, dates and other information, and thus ensure that Fellows’ lives are accorded appropriate and accurate commemoration. Please send your CV and a photograph to Ted Nield at the Society.

28 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST GEOSCIENTIST CROSSWORD

CROSSWORD NO.189 SET BY PLATYPUS WIN A SPECIAL PUBLICATION!

The winner of the February Crossword puzzle prize draw was Clyde Leys of Kuala Kenyana, Papua, Indonesia.

All correct solutions will be placed in the draw, and the winner’s name printed in the June 2015 issue. The Editor’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Closing date - April 24.

The competition is open to all Fellows, Candidate Fellows and Friends of the Geological Society who are not current Society employees, officers or trustees. This exclusion does not apply to officers of joint associations, specialist or regional groups.

Please return your completed crossword to Burlington House, marking your envelope “Crossword”. Do not enclose any other matter with your solution. Overseas Fellows are encouraged to scan the signed form and email it as a PDF to [email protected] ACROSS DOWN Name ...... 1 Hard mineral mass formed by 1 Mineral of fossilized carbon (4) ...... precipitation (10) 2 Negative votes, required by those who 6 Long-legged wader with oppose but do not have the power of a 24 Membership number ...... downward pointing bill (4) across (4) Address for correspondence ...... 9 Coleridge's dulcimer-playing maid 3 Extinct (Cambrian-Permian) class of mollusc, who sang of Mount Abora (10) bivalve-like but merhaps more akin to ...... scaphopods (12) 10 Therefore, a backward giant (4) ...... 4 Root note of key is a real pick-me-up (5) Spookily seeing it all coming (12) 12 ...... 5 Drum-bashing, fife-playing Ulster Protestants 15 Less than a bronchus, but more (9) than a bronchiole (9) ...... 7 Bow resident Bertie, not an early riser, with a 17 Stiffness found in the recently fondness for gloves (10) ...... dead (5) 8 'Hush this brat, it's been roaring with pain' (10) 18 Fluorescent protein-binding dye (5) Postcode ...... 11 Scientific study of minuscule organisms (12) 19 Dark, shadowy, obscure, with something of the night. (9) 13 Set of desired outcomes (10) 20 Most people need this like a hole 14 Brief summary of a large topic, prioviding an SOLUTIONS FEBRUARY in the head (12) overall view (10) ACROSS: 24 I forbid, Latinly (4) 16 The worst are always full of it, and with 1 Carbonados 6 Abed 9 Apostasies 10 Moon passion, according to Yeats (9) 25 Universal public announcement 12 Polymorphism 15 Patchouli 17 Ingot devices, typically used by estate 21 Argentinian/Urugayan dance music, more 18 Realm 19 Misshapen 20 Submissively agents, for example (10) lately elaborated by such exponents as Astor 24 IOUs 25 Sculleries 26 EAGE 27 Platitudes Piazzolla (5) 26 Movable element in the 'fenêtre guillotine', invented by Robert 22 'Vigour', musically, a marking often to be DOWN: Hooke and much found in found on 21a (4) 1 Clay 2 Riot 3 Orthorhombic 4 Assay draughty Britain as a result. (4) 23 Goddess of the Shining Nile, where a sacred 5 Orebodies 7 Biotic Gaps 8 Dynamiting 27 Having the same meaning (10) 6a might be seen (4) 11 Sprightliest 13 Oppressive 14 Strasbourg 16 Unmusical 21 Valet 22 Bird 23 Isis

WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST | APRIL 2015 | 29 GEOSCIENTIST Executive

RECRUITMENT Secretary Six figure salary

The Geological Society is both a professional body and a learned society. It serves almost 12,000 members, known as ‘Fellows’ and awards Chartered Geologist and also Chartered Scientist on behalf of the Science Council. The Society is thriving; membership is growing year- on-year and it has an excellent demography of young professionals. The Society has a strong professional and academic presence internationally. It organises a range of scientific meetings in London, and across the UK, and produces a range of journals, publications and online resources that are internationally recognized for their quality. The Society has built a reputation for providing Government (and other non-geologists) with the facts. This reputation is important; given the political nature of the debate on issues such as Shale Gas, the Society is steadfastly independent of interested parties. The Executive Secretary will lead an organisation with an annual turnover of over £5m and a staff of around 50 located in London and Bath. He/she will have a strong empathy for the membership, very likely with experience and professional credibility or academic credentials in a related field. The business model necessitates strong financial acumen and a naturally entrepreneurial approach to income generation, as well as an understanding of the governance of a member-led organisation. For more information, and to apply, please see www.odgers.com/52376. Closing date: 20th April 2015.

20 Cannon Street, London EC4M 6XD. Executive Search +44 20 7529 1111 Over 50 Offices in 29 Countries www.odgersberndtson.co.uk

TheThe GeologyGeology ofof GeomechanicsGeomechanics

28-2928-29 OctoberOctober 22015015 The Geological Society, London

FurtherFurther This conference aims to bring together information geologists and engineers from the petroleum, radioactive waste disposal, Jess Aries, carbon sequestration, mining and Conference Office, geothermal communities to discuss the links The Geological Society, between the geomechanical disciplines and Burlington House, mainstream geology. Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG We are particularly interested in what T: 0207 434 9944 geological observations can add to the predominantly present-day observations and E: [email protected] analysis of geomechanics. Furthermore, what W: www.geolsoc.org.uk/ can geology learn from the unique Geology-of-Geomechanics-15 observations of geomechanical datasets?

Call for Papers For this meeting we encourage submission of papers that address the full spectrum of geomechanics applications. The deadline for abstracts is 1 June 2015. Please submit your abstract as a Word document to Jess Aries. E: [email protected]

30 | APRIL 2015 | WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/GEOSCIENTIST

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