The glacial history of our region has a complexity that is yet to be fully unrav- elled, but significant discoveries have been made in recent years that throw light on the glacial, periglacial and interglacial periods that have transformed our landscape. Phil is a Quaternary geologist, and this talk will describe how the dramatic changes […]

Isostasy explains why there are raised beaches and fossil cliffs, why mountains like icebergs have roots, the shape of rift valleys, the height of Everest, and many other aspects of the landscape. Mike's talk will have lots of demonstrations to help us visualise how all this happens

We are probably aware of the contribution of large scale Lidar surveys to understanding the landscape around us, by organisations using aircraft or drone borne commercial Lidar and 3d mapping systems, but you may not be aware that this technology is to hand for smaller scale modelling in your iPhone Pro (and some other) mobile […]

In 1878, some Belgian coal miners discovered the first nearly complete dinosaur skeletons ever found: a group of 30 Iguanodons. This talk will show how far the real appearance of these animals differed from previous reconstructions based on only a handful of bones and teeth, and how research has given us some detailed insights into […]

Everything around us, apart from hydrogen and helium, was made inside stars. The Earth and Sun contain elements made in generations of stars that were born and died before the birth of our Sun and planets. The story of the birth and death of stars is also the story of the battle of matter against […]

One of the proposed routes for mitigating the impact of greenhouse gases on the climate is to collect carbon dioxide (CO2), from the atmosphere or at source, and put it somewhere safe (usually underground). This is sometimes called CCS - carbon capture and storage (or sequestration), or CCUS - carbon capture, utilization and storage. It's […]

A talk to demonstrate how 2000 years ago the Greeks knew the Earth was a sphere and could calculate its circumference; how the speed of rotation affexts the direction of wind and ocean currents and why the ice ages altered the spin; How to measure the density of some rocks and compare with the density […]

The Northumberland Basin developed as a depression in the lithosphere during the Palaeozoic Caledonian and Variscan orogenies. It extends from near Eyemouth in the north to near Newcastle in the south and contains an extensive archive of Carboniferous strata, previously geologically famous for features such as the Whin Sill and Coal Measures. Recent work on […]

Eight field seasons mapping around the Everest – Makalu massifs in Nepal and south Tibet has resulted in a detailed geological map (scale: 1:100,000). Combining macro- and micro-scale structural mapping with thermobarometry and U-Pb geochronology has unravelled a comprehensive 4-dimensional history of the tectonic evolution of the Himalaya. The 25th April 2015 Gorkha earthquake resulted […]