Monthly talks and occasional Field trips
We have a programme of 10 Monthly talks running from September to June each year, held on the second Monday of every month. All talks (unless specified otherwise) are at 7.30 pm (doors open 7.00 pm). Everyone welcome, free to CGS members, £3 for non members. Talks are held at St Andrew’s Centre, Histon: Hall 1, St Andrews Centre, School Hill, Histon, Cambridge CB24 9JE. The Citi 8 bus stops outside the Centre and the Guided Bus is 15 minutes walk away. There is a free car park approximately 200m along the road just past a small supermarket.
We organise a few Field trips each year. These include visits to local sites with geological interest and walks on the Fen Edge Trail to explore the landscape, geology and associated history. Most are open to everyone and often free (or with a small charge to non-members). All require booking by contacting us. Children are welcome at talks, on walks and on some field trips, usually free of charge but anyone under 18 needs to be accompanied by an adult. Free Walk Guides to our series of Fen Edge Trail walks can be downloaded here.
Our meetings programme for Sept 2024 to June 2025 is as follows:
Monthly talk: Monday 10th February 2025
Railway Quaternary Geology
by Dr Sebastian Gibson, Dept of Geography, University of Cambridge
The challenges for railway design of digging through Quaternary deposits with examples taken from HS2.
Monthly talk: Monday 10th March 2025
Crossrail Construction
by Dr Ursula Lawrence, WSP (Real Estate and Infrastructure) Ltd
A summary of the Crossrail project, explaining the main construction methods for the tunnels and stations. The Cretaceous to Holocene geology encountered along the route is presented including both the impact the geology has on the engineering and how recent infrastructure investigations have developed our knowledge of the geology of London. It also compares and contrasts the London geology with the Gault, more familiar locally.
Ursula is an engineering geologist with 35 years experience of geotechnical design of major infrastructure projects having worked on Crossrail and various sections of HS2. Ursula has a PhD in Civil Engineering and a Chartered geologist. Ursula has been involved with both the Engineering and South East Regional Groups of the Geological Society culminating in Chair of the Engineering Group 2020-2022. She has published a number of papers on ground risk in major infrastructure, London Basin geology and groundwater and the Clay-with-flints Formation. She is currently Assistant Editor of Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrology.
Monthly talk: Monday 14th April 2025
Shooting Stars and Space Rocks
Comets and Meteors can be an impressive sight in the night sky, but the study of them has told us a huge amount about the origins of the Solar System and the Planets including Earth. Paul will show where these space rocks and dirty snowballs come from, and the story that they reveal including the implications for life on Earth and beyond.
Having built his first telescope aged 14 and experiencing the “wow” of seeing the rings of Saturn for the first time, Paul has been stargazing for some 45 years and has his own private observatory where he images the sky. He is chairman of the Cambridge Astronomical Association and presents the public live observing evenings at the University of Cambridge to audiences of 200+ each week. He holds a Master’s degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a post-graduate degree in Computer Science, also from Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. Twice a winner of the Queen’s award for Technology he was recently presented a lifetime innovation award by Emmanuel College Cambridge.
Monthly talk: Monday 12th May 2025
Unravelling the glacial history of Eastern England
by Prof Phil Gibbard, Dept of Geography, University of Cambridge
Monthly talk: Monday 9th June 2025
Landscapes and environments of long ago
by Mike Tuke
How geologists determine ancient environments, illustrated by an accompanying collection of rocks which provide evidence of some of he typical features of those environments. An excellent introduction to geology and how the characteristics of various rocks reveal the earth’s history and how landscapes are formed.
Walks and Field Trips: Dates available soon
Previous events
Monthly talk: Monday 13th January 2025
Members’ talks and New Year Social
An informal evening of short talks by members, a quiz and some festive refreshments. Non members are also welcome and it is a chance to learn more about the Society and local geology. Remember to bring a few rocks and fossils for the ‘show and tell’ table.
Monthly talk: Monday 9th December 2024
The Geodiversity Landscapes of Cambridgeshire
by Dr Steve Boreham, CGS Geosites team & WildReach
Images from this talk can now be seen on the Landscapes page
The CGS Geosites team has recently developed a landscape approach to describing the geology of Cambridgeshire and the geological (and geomorphological) features to be found here. This sets the geology in a context familiar to most people and also links it with local ecology and the key role that it has played in the economic development of the county, from limestone, chalk and clay to gravel, sand and peat. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive description of local earth heritage and to promote its geoconservation.
Steve Boreham (BSc PhD) is a geologist and ecologist with a special interest in Southern England, East Anglia, Fenland and the Cambridge District. He worked for the University of Cambridge, managing laboratories and teaching field and laboratory classes for more than 30 years before retiring in 2020. Steve has published several papers on the geology of Cambridgeshire and works with the Cambridgeshire Geological Society to protect the county’s geodiversity. He also assists the National Trust at Wicken Fen, The Wildlife Trust BCN at Great Fen, and Hobson’s Conduit Trust in Cambridge to enhance biodiversity, improve water quality and to protect peatland resources.
Monthly talk: Monday 11th November 2024
NOTE 7.15 pm start
Please arrive at 7 pm for 7.15 start as the talk will be preceded by our (short) AGM
The oldest fossilised trees ever found
by Dr William McMahon, Dept of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
The finding of what’s thought to be Britain’s oldest fossilised trees, calamophyton, and the world’s earliest known fossilised forest, in the cliffs in the Devonian age Hangman Sandstone Formation in Somerset.
The evolution of trees and forests through the Devonian Period fundamentally changed the Earth’s land biosphere, as well as impacting physical environments and geomorphology by stabilizing sediments and interacting with flowing air and water. The precise timing after which forests were key components of this greener Earth system remains not so well understood. In this talk I will describe a recently discovered forest landscape within the Middle Devonian (Eifelian) Hangman Sandstone Formation of Somerset and Devon. This unit had previously been considered palaeobotanically depauperate, but new fieldwork has shown it contains the earliest fossil evidence for trees in the British record, as well as the oldest known evidence globally for the relative position of standing trees: in common parlance, a fossil forest. In addition to abundant fossil material attributable to the cladoxylopsid tree Calamophyton, and other early Mid-Devonian flora, the sedimentary context of the plant remains sheds light on the biogeomorphic impacts of these earliest forests.
The trees colonized a sizeable fluvial system that was prone to seasonal disturbance events. The nature of the sedimentary system has created a bias to those areas where biogeomorphic signatures are most frequently recorded (from the distal parts of the system), but across the whole system there is evidence of plant–sediment interactions in the form of vegetation-induced sedimentary structures, rooting features and accumulations of plant debris. The Hangman Sandstone Formation is illustrative of the revolutionary power of trees as biogeomorphic agents, forming densely spaced forests and shedding exceptionally abundant plant debris, while also impacting local landforms and sediment accumulations and profoundly changing landform resilience against flood disturbance events. These findings provide evidence that the Eifelian Stage of the Devonian (393.3–387.7 Ma) marks the onset of tree-driven changes to physical environments that would forever change Earth’s non-marine landscapes and biosphere.
Monthly talk: Monday 14th October 2024
The history of building stone use in south Cambridgeshire churches
by Dr Nigel Woodcock Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge
A geological survey of about 120 medieval churches in south Cambridgeshire reveals a dominant theme of local fieldstone rubble walls with dressings of local Cretaceous Clunch and imported Jurassic Barnack limestone; the richer the church the greater the volume of costly Barnack. The Cretaceous Ely Sandstone forms rubble walls only near the city. Victorian renovations to the medieval fabric of south Cambs churches used a much wider range of stone from the Lincolnshire Limestone Formation and further afield, made possible by new canal, then rail, networks. St Laurence at Foxton, for example, has fieldstone rubble walls, partly rendered, with medieval dressings of Barnack and Clunch, much repaired with Bath stone in the nineteenth century.
Field trip: Friday 20th September 2024
Day trip to Bradgate Park in Charnwood Forest, Leics
to see spectacular Late Pre-Cambrian Rocks and associated fossils
Guide: Dr Alex Liu, Dept of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Leader: Lee Wells, CGS (and Penny Goggill, CGS)
We will be following a well-explained tour examining the fascinating rocks of this one-time volcanic region of the East Midlands. The rocks we will see will include, Precambrian, Cambrian, Triassic and Pleistocene Boulder Clay. Lunch: either own packed lunch or cafe/restaurant at Newton Linford. Distance of round walking trip: c.5km. Terrain: disused quarries and crags as well as tarmaced paths. No Hammers. Limited to 15 people. Needs to be booked and paid for in advance. Cost £5 per person. Car sharing possible -with shared petrol & (£4.50 per car) parking costs.
Monthly talk: Monday 9th September 2024
Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of Northern European Chalks
by Dr Haydon Bailey, Past President of the Geologists’ Association & Geological Adviser for the Chiltern Society
Dr Haydon Bailey is an expert on the Chalk: ‘The Upper Cretaceous Chalks of Northern Europe appear, on the face of it, to represent sedimentation during an extended period of relative tectonic and environmental stability. Nothing could be further from the truth. These uniform, white, fine grained carbonates are the sediments result from constant change in water temperature, oxygen content, dynamic water currents both at the sea surface and at depth.
Back in 1994 I presented a talk at a European conference entitled “Chalk, white, as above!”, because that was the comment frequently seen on core logs, geologists’ description sheets and engineering geologists’ well logs. Just how much information were we losing because of this phrase? Over the last 30 years our understanding of chalk deposition, and the environmental conditions which control it, have fundamentally shifted. Hopefully I can convince you that this might be the case.’
Visit: Sunday 14th July 2024 2.30pm to 4.30pm
Living Fossils of the Botanic Garden, Cambridge
Guided by Franziska Norman, Cambridgeshire Geological Society
Franziska will show us the ‘living fossil’ plants she described in her talk last April that are flourishing in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. She will take us on a tour of the glasshouses and the garden to see the plants that have been growing somewhere in the world since the middle of the Jurassic Period.
Easy walking, all welcome. Free but you do need to pay entry to the Botanic Garden (£8, free for Friends of the Garden). Please book (as it is limited to 15 people) by emailing us on info at cambsgeology.org to reserve a place. Details of the meeting place will be given after booking.
Monthly talk: Monday 10th June 2024 7.30pm
My favourite fossils held at the Sedgwick Museum
Rob Theodore, Exhibitions and Display Coordinator, Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge
Learn about some of the amazing fossils that are held by the world-famous Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge. This will be a personal look at some of Rob’s favourites.
This talk will be in our usual venue at St Andrew’s Centre, Histon.
Walk: Friday 14th June 2024 morning (10.30am to 12.30)
Building Stones of Cambridge
Celebrating Cambridge Nature Festival
Guided by Penny Coggill, Chair, Cambridgeshire Geological Society
By popular demand, a repeat of the walk held on Friday 7th June 2024 which was overbooked.
Cambridge is a beautiful city! Why? Because it has a great number of very fine buildings – university, ecclesiastical, public and commercial – built with some affluence, which meant the owners could use stone, and the more fashionable and pleasing to the eye that stone was the better. Join us for this guided walk around the city to see how these different stones were used, where they came from, how building and architectural fashions changed over time with improvements in transport and see what stones are used today to enhance the built environment. Our locally sourced stones tell us about the past environments of the area – as seen in the fossils that many of them contain – from Chalk ‘clunch’ to highly prized Jurassic limestones. Others, such as granites and ‘exotic’ pebbles tell the story of earth’s history elsewhere in the world. You will never walk through the city with the same eyes again.
Easy walking, about 1 mile total, all welcome, free (as it is part of the Cambridge Nature Festival) but you do need to book.Please email us on info at cambsgeology.org to reserve a place. Details of the meeting place will be given after booking.
Other organisations’ events
Friends of the Sedgwick Museum
The Friends organise a series of lectures in Cambridge (doors open, 6.15 pm for 7.00 pm in the Department of Earth Sciences) during autumn and winter and field trips during the spring and summer. They also organise overseas field trip in the UK and overseass. More information.
Cambridge Natural History Society
CNHS organise a series of talks (winter) and excursions (all year). Talks are usually held at the Attenborough Building next to the Zoology Museum. Visitors welcome (small charge) More information.
Courses at the Institute of Continuing Education of University of Cambridge
The ICE holds many interesting courses, at Madingley Hall near Cambridge, including some on geology, local landscape, evolution and archaeology e.g. Extinctions: crises in the history of life with Peter Sheldon
Online courses
Future Learn has a number of short, online courses on geological and related subjects. These courses are free and very easy to follow. Ideal for introductions to many subjects. Courses include Extreme Geological Events, developed by Cardiff University, The Earth in my pocket: an introduction to geology and Extinctions Past and Present.
The Open University has free online courses on Geology, for example: Earthquakes, Geological Processes in the British Isles, Introduction to geology, An introduction to minerals and rocks under the microscope, Life in the Palaeozoic, Mountain building in Scotland, Plate Tectonics, Volcanic hazards.
U3A Geology groups
There are a few local geology groups run by U3A: Cambridge Peterborough
Other Talks
For details of many other talks and societies in the Cambridge area see the CONDUIT publication issued by the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. It gives contact details for the many organisations working to promote interest in history, particularly that of Cambridgeshire. The latest issue of CONDUIT can be downloaded from their website.