01-05 GEOSCIENTIST Dec13 Jan14.qxt nwda/~/media/shared... · Tim Good ExxonMobil Simon Passey CASP Philip Hirst BP Colm Jordan BGS 2EDUCING3UBSURFACE 5NCERTAINTY 2ISK4HROUGH ... to

ARMCHAIRPROSPECTUsing IT to mine old data

GEOLOGYCONSERVATIONNew Society initiative

GeoscientistThe Fellowship magazine of The Geological Society of London | www.geolsoc.org.uk | Volume 23 No 11 | Dec 13/Jan 14

geolsoc.wordpress.comREAD GEOLSOC BLOG!

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FIRST FOOTFALLThe first animals ever to walk on dry land

At the forefront of petroleum geoscience

www.geolsoc.org.uk/petroleum

Convenors:

Helen Smyth CASP

Mike Bowman University of Manchester

Tim Good ExxonMobil

Simon Passey CASP

Philip HirstBP

Colm JordanBGS

4-6 March 2014The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London

This meeting will provide a timely revisit and reappraisal of the value and impact of outcrop based fieldwork in hydrocarbon exploration, appraisal, development and production. In recent years we have seen a refreshed focus on frontier exploration, in increasingly difficult settings, and the challenges of new developments such as deepwater clastics and carbonates. This has led to the resurgence in the appreciation, use and need for outcrop based studies as analogues and benchmarks for the subsurface. This applies both to the overburden and the reservoirs. Digital technologies such as remote sensing and digital data capture have revolutionised field-studies, however traditional methods (e.g. mapping, logging and sampling) remain at the very core of any field study.

This meeting offers an exciting opportunity for key researchers and users of these datasets to come together, learn from recent advances and look forward to future directions and needs. A key objective is to engage industry groups and academia in a dialogue and knowledge sharing that reflects the current status and future potential of this important area.

Development and Production: Outcrop-scale fieldwork

o Clastics o Carbonates

Corporate Supporter:

Andy Whitham, CASP

Dave Hodgson, Leeds

Dave Sanderson, Southampton

Art Donovan, bp

Caroline Gill, Shell

John Howell, Bergen

DECEMBER 2013/ JANUARY 2014 03

CONTENTS GEOSCIENTIST

06 17

10 COVER FEATURE: FIRST FOOTFALLKen McNamara on fossil evidence of thefirst animals to stalk the Earth’s continents

IN THIS ISSUE

17 CENTRAL WALES OREFIELDMining old data using freely available online packages

05 WELCOME Ted Nield celebrates a fruitful field-baseduse for new technology

06 SOCIETY NEWS What your Society is doing at homeand abroad, in London and the regions

16 SOAPBOX Stuart Haszeldine and David Smytherespond to Bruce Yardley’s criticisms

20 LETTERS We welcome your thoughts

23 CALENDAR Society activities this month

24 BOOK & ARTS Four new books reviewed by JohnMilsom, Mark Griffin, Steve Rowlatt and Peter Easton

26 PEOPLE Geoscientists in the news and on the move

28 OBITUARY A distinguished Fellow remembered

29 CROSSWORD Win a special publication of your choice

n DEEP DRILLING LAKE OHRID Melanie Leng on the first fruits of UK membership of ICDP

n OPERATION ICEBERG Tom Power thinks a recent BBC documentary has implications for UK glacial geomorphology

FEATURES

ONLINE SPECIALS

REGULARS

DECEMBER 13 / JANUARY 14

04 DECEMBER 2013/ JANUARY 2014


DR TED NIELD EDITOR

AND DID THOSE FEET?EURYPTERID MODEL (BASED ONMIXOPTERIS ) ILLUSTRATES APOSSIBLE CULPRIT AMONG THE FIRST COLONISTS OF THE LANDFront cover image by Ken McNamara

~

~

EDITOR’S COMMENT GEOSCIENTIST

orrespondence continues to tumble inabout the role and importance offieldwork in the undergraduatecurriculum, following Mark Brodie’sincendiary suggestions in the Soapboxcolumn back in August.

There are two main threads. One says that industry needs people who arefamiliar with geology in the field, to be sure thatthey are grounded in reality and not basing theirideas on fantasies. I have some personal experienceof this. My last act of geological fieldwork, long agoon the Tertiary sediments of the Batinah Coast,Oman, involved working with two others, one ofwhom specialised in such things and took thescientific lead. His job was to draw all our logs and observations together into a sedimentologicalmodel for presentation to our oil-industry client. Trouble was, sedimentological models were what filled his mind.

We found ourselves once staring at a fineescarpment, whose bright white and nearlyhorizontal capping limestone lay over incompetentmarls that were collapsing in a series of rotationalslips. An incipient slip just beginning gave theillusion of a slight angular unconformity. But instead of this reality, he recognised a textbookcartoon of syn-sedimentary shelf-edgedisconformities (which, naturally, fitted his model).

It took a lot to talk him out of this convenientfantasy, even after I had made him climb the scarp,and shown him how the slips repeated thesequence, bedding planes in the oldest of thembeing turned from near horizontal to near vertical atthe foot. My verdict on his fieldworking abilities atthe time was less than charitable, but now I knowthat it was probably just lack of experience in thefield. He hadn’t seen enough rocks.

The second theme centres on the fear that theyoung are becoming divorced from reality,retreating via their iPhones into a virtual on-lineexistence and losing interest in reality altogether.This is potentially a much more serious andwidespread problem with possibly graveconsequences for recruitment. You can read allthese at full length online.

However, this month in our second feature, GregPower and Rob Barnes present an example of hownew technology can help breathe new life into olddata collected by students in the field over manyyears. We do not wish to suggest that all newtechnology is A Bad Thing – that would be luddite –but we do need to show discrimination. Things arenot all good merely because they are novel, anymore than they are all bad.

CVIRTUOUS VIRTUAL

Geoscientist is theFellowship magazine ofthe Geological Societyof London

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Trustees of the GeologicalSociety of LondonMr D T Shilston (President);Mrs N K Ala; Dr M GArmitage; Prof R A Butler;Prof N A Chapman; Dr A L Coe; Mr J Coppard;Mr D J Cragg (Vice president); Mrs N JDottridge; Mr C S Eccles; Dr M Edmonds; Prof A JFraser (Secretary, Science);Mrs M P Henton (Secretary,Professional Matters); Mr D A Jones (Vice president); Dr A Law(Treasurer); Prof R J Lisle;Prof A R Lord (Secretary,Foreign & External Affairs);Prof D A C Manning(President designate);Dr B R Marker OBE; Dr G Nichols; Dr L Slater; Dr J P Turner (Secretary,Publications); Mr M E Young

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© 2013 The Geological Society of London

Geoscientists in the AgencyThe Environment Agency is leading the way in introducing professionalaccreditation in the workplace, writes Keith Seymour.

“Geoscientists play a key role in helping the Environment Agency fulfil its

statutory duties” writes Ian Barker in an article for Geoscientist Online,

published with this issue. “In fact the Agency employs over 200 geoscientists.

Many are on the operational ‘front line’, but others have more research oriented

or strategic roles. Indeed, several of our senior managers come from a

geoscience background.”

Five years ago, the Agency pioneered a formal technical development

framework for geoscientists. Barker writes: “It introduced the award of

‘Practising Geologist’, endorsed by the Geological Society, as well as ‘Practising

Environmental Regulator’ (recognised by CIWEM and more recently CIWM and

IEEMA). These were intended to build technical resilience and professionalism

among technical staff, and provide a stepping stone to Chartership. This

structured approach to development and professionalism is now being rolled out

across the wider business.”

However, career progression in the Agency has not been linked to being

chartered, so only about 40 staff working within the geoscience field have

attained chartered status, Keith explains.

WORKSHOPS“With a renewed focus on raising the profile and getting professional recognition

for its geoscientists, the Agency’s Matt Whitehead and Keith Seymour arranged

three very successful workshops to encourage and help staff apply for

Chartership through the GSL. These were conducted in collaboration with Bill

Gaskarth, the Society’s Chartership Officer.”

In an exptended article for Geoscientist Online, Seymour describes the

initiative and his ambitions for it in the future. He has already caught one big fish

in his net. “Ian Barker, the Agency’s Head of Land, Water and Biodiversity is

setting an example to his colleagues. He started out as a geologist in Australia in

the 1970s before becoming leading hydrogeologist with the former Yorkshire

Water Authority. On being asked if he’d be interested in applying for Chartership,

as an example to colleagues, he said he’d be delighted. “Despite doing a wide

range of ‘stuff’ these days, once a geologist, always a geologist!” he said.

Barker sees it as “an opportunity to send some signals around the Agency about

the importance of geoscience and where it can take you”.

GEOSCIENTIST SOCIETY NEWS

To find out more about the Environment Agency’s initiative read the online versionof this story www.geolsoc.org.uk/en/Geoscientist

ELECTION – FELLOWSThe following names are put forward for election tofellowship at the OGM 5 February 2014.ABREU CUNHA Tiago; ADAMSON Peter; AGUSTSDOTTIR Thorbjorg;

ALLCOCK Stephanie; ANDREW George Edward; ARSLAN Arzu; BAILEYCassie; BAIN Andrew James; BAKER Joe; BANYE Oluchukwu; BARLOW Glenn;

BARON Ian Ronald; BARRETT Thomas James; BEDFORD Burcin; BIGNELLRoger Douglas; BILLINGTON Darren Vincent; BLOCKLEY-CAMPTON Courtney;

BOHLIN Madeleine; BOOL Nicholas Eric; BOOTH Matthew Graham; BOTTOMSSimon; BRADBURY Harold; BRADY Christopher; BRANDON Andrew Stuart;

BRAVERY Anne Mary; BRENNAN Mark Patrick; BREWSTER Christopher

William; BRIDGES Mark James; BROMFIELD Samantha Susan; BROWNING-STAMP Peter John; BUTLER Richard Phillip; BYERS Toby; BYRNE Christina;

CHAN Tsz Ho; CHAN Yu Jim Caroline; CHAPMAN David Leslie; CHARLTONMelissa; CHIPPINGTON Lee Jeremy; CHRISTIE Emma; CONDE-CALEROPablo; COOPER Hannah; CORLETT Michael Peter; CORNELIUS Christopher;

COWTON Laurence; COX Edward; CUTHBERTSON Michael; DANIELLNatasha; DAVENWARD Benjamin James; DAVIES Lorin; DAVIS Joel; DEGANChristian Peter; DENT Aaron; DIEMONT Kevin; DUTCHMAN James Robert;

EASTWELL David; EDWARDS Andrew James; EVANS Roland; FAIRCHILDSteven; FALDER Matthew; FERRY John; FRITH James Michael; FULLER Darrell

John; GARBUTT Daniel Ashley Barrington; GIGLER Gruffudd; GREEN Robert;

GREENFIELD James Gordon; GREENFIELD Timothy; GREY Amanda;

GUSCOTT Simon Christopher; HALL Chris; HAMMER Erik; HANCOCK Carrie;

HANNAH Michael; HARDMAN Thomas; HARRIS David; HARRIS Joleen;

HATREY Timothy; HAWKINS Simon; HAWKINS PINCHERS Connar; HAYESRyan; HENDY Richard; HERRIOT Ross; HIGGINSON James Peter; HOGGARDMark; HOPKINS Daniel; HOWELL Andrew; HOWLEY Emma; HUGHES Leuan

Peter; HUNT Emma Joanne; HUNT Jonathan Allan; HUSSAIN Ekbal; IBBOTSONEmma; ILAVBARE Ohione; IRFAN Huma; ISAH Mohammed Nuruddeen;

JAGGER Lydia; JAMES Helen; JENKINS Jennifer; JENNER Frances Elaine;

JOHNS Matthew; JOTHERI Jaafar Hamzah Abdulhussein; KARKUT Jonathan

Russell; KENCHINGTON Charlotte; KLOCKING Marthe; KONE Arlet Claudel;

LEE Jenna; LI Yuting; LITCHFIELD David John; LIUY Li Rudi; LOOCKE Matthew;

LOWRIE Jack; LURATI Matthias; LYTHGOE Karen; MACDONALD Elisabeth

Charlotte Alice; MARSHALL Iain Sinclair; MARSZALEK Anna Teresa; MARTINTom; MCANDIE Vienna; MCFARLANE John Porterfield; MCGUIRE Andrew;

MCINTYRE Andrew Ross; MEAKER Georgina Emma; MILLER William; MOGAJIAminat; MORCOM Harvey; MUNDAY Sarah; NOBLE Salina; O'DOWD Nicola

Alric; OH Danny Beng Teck; OWEN Fred; OZONZEADI Ngozi; PANKHANIAShyam; PARRY Craig; PEARCE Andrew Thomas William; PEARSON Paul N;

PEMBERTON Ross Roman; PETHICA David; PORTER Heather; PORTERMichael; PRATSIDES Paul Marios; PUASA Idrus; PUGH Elizabeth; PUGH David;

REYNOLDS Hannah Iona; RICKETTS Samuel; RIDGWAY Henry; ROBERTSDaniel; ROBERTS Steven; ROBERTS Jenny; ROBINS Alexander; RODRIGUEZKayna; RODRIGUEZ-TRIBALDOS Veronica; ROSE Zachary; ROWLEY Nicola;

RUIZ Alfonso; SALEM Lois; SCHMIERMANN Ignace; SCHOONMAN Charlotte;

SEITKAN Ainur; SHELLAM Richard; SHEPHERD Iain Gavin Alexander; SIIPollux; SIMON Auvergne; SMALLWOOD Paul; SPATZ Beth Ayn; SPENCERobert William; TAFLIKU Agim; TAYLOR Aidan Edward; THOMAS Alice May;

THOMAS Dylan John; THOMPSON Ben; THOMPSON Nathan Edward;

TOMKINS Matthew James; TOULLEC Renaud; TOWNSEND Jack Micheal;

TROMBONI Fredico; TSESMELIS Katy Elaine; VALETTI Lorenzo; VECCHIAPierluigi; WAKELING Ryan; WATERHOUSE Andrew; WESSON Robert;

WIGGAN Nickolas; WILLIAMS James; WILLIAMS Lowri; WILLIAMS Thomas;

WOODMAN James; WRIGHT Gary; YATES Neil; YEATMAN Elizabeth Anne;

ZANTOUT Abdul Aziz; ZHAO Pu; ZHOU Zhaocong.

SOCIETYNEWS


Keith Seymour and Chartership Officer Bill Gaskarth conduct aChartership workshop for Environment Agency staff in Leeds

Keith Seymour –ambitions for the future

n CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR CLOSURE The Society (London and Bath) will be closed

from 24 December – 1 January inclusive,

re-opening on Thursday 2 January 2014.

n RENEW YOUR FELLOWSHIP Fellowship renewals for 2014 fell due this month.

Renewing your fellowship and subscriptions not only

ensures that you keep receiving your Geoscientist and

chosen subscriptions, but also helps your Society to

promote both science and profession.


SOCIETY NEWS GEOSCIENTIST

Your Society needs you! Record smashed – again!The number of applications for the November interviews

was another record at 45. Elsewhere in this issue the

President emphasises our pressing need for more

Scrutineers. Success brings its own problems!

Elsewhere in this issue (and online) Keith Seymour

writes of the strong interest in Chartership that has

developed in the Environment Agency. This is extremely

encouraging and I expect to receive an increasing flow

of applications from that quarter.

MSC ACCREDITATIONMSc courses in Petroleum Geoscience for Exploration

and Petroleum Geoscience for Reservoir Development

and Production at Manchester University have both

been re-Accredited. Demand for these courses is high

and some 50 students are following them this year.

The MSc in Exploration Geophysics at Leeds University

is presently being reviewed. This course has had a large

increase in the number of students this year with 38 on

the course. It is pleasing to see demand for these

vocational MSc degrees growing, and we hope that

other universities are seeing similar success.

Following the successful Accreditation application

from the Petroleum Geoscience MSc at Imperial

College, Imperial promises an application for their

Petroleum Geophysics course shortly. We are also

expecting an application from the University of Sussex

for their MSc in Applied Engineering Geomorphology

this year.

SCIENCE COUNCIL & CSCIJust before going to press we also learned that the

Science Council has now agreed to our offering a ‘20+

years experience’ route to Chartered Scientist (CSci), to

go alongside the popular one for CGeol (which has

received over 20 applications since its introduction).

For further information, email:[email protected] or call Bill Gaskarthon 07916 138631

Please see online for referenceswww.geolsoc.org.uk/Geoscientist

CHARTERSHIP NEWS Chartership Officer Bill Gaskarth hailsyet another record number ofapplications, new accredited coursesand news from Science Council.

Email: [email protected]

David Shilston issues a call toexperienced CGeols & CScis tobecome Scrutineers

Chartership is gaining momentum

across the profession and we are

receiving a growing number of

applications. This success is putting

pressure on our panel of Scrutineers.

Can you help the Society?

SCRUTINEERS PANELAbout 10% of the Chartered

Fellowship are represented on our

Scrutineers Panel, and to date this has

been sufficient to deal with the

numbers of applications and their

range of expertise. Some juggling is

involved as, for each application, we

must find two Scrutineers with

expertise matching that of the

applicant, and who are suitably located

for an interview session.

For the November 2013 interviews in

London we had to contact virtually allScrutineers in the South East offering

Engineering Geology and/or

Contaminated Land as a speciality, in

order to deal with the large number of

applications in these areas. As one

might expect, only around half of those

contacted were able to help, because

of prior commitments. We need to

add to our Scrutineers Panel!

If you are already a Scrutineer but

have not been contacted recently, then

you may have fallen through our net.

Please contact the Fellowship Office to

ensure that we have your correct

details on file (Janine Benn, direct dial:

+44 (0)20 7432 0971).

Any CGeol or CSci who has been

Chartered for more than four years, or

who has more than 10 years’

experience before becoming Chartered,

is eligible to become a Scrutineer.

Please go to the Society website and

look under ‘Chartership’ and

‘Professional’ to find a link to

‘Scrutineers’ where you will find the job

description and a short application form

that provides us with your contact

details and area(s) of expertise.

Should you wish to have more

information or have any queries then

contact Bill Gaskarth, our Chartership

Officer (07916 138631), who will be

happy to help and receive offers of help.

Bill will arrange for Scrutineer training in

association with the Regional Groups if

we are able to attract good numbers.

The Geological Society is fortunate to

enjoy a great deal of goodwill among

the Fellowship, allowing us to hold

Chartership interviews regularly. We are

also grateful to Scrutineers’ many

employing companies for their

generosity in allowing them time out.

We must not ask Scrutineers for help

too often – not more than once a year,

ideally. But to achieve this we will need

to recruit about twice the number of

scrutineers currently on our books.

I know from personal experience that

being a Scrutineer is highly rewarding.

You meet fellow Scrutineers, exchange

views and experiences, and get to

know applicants as they take an

important career step, secure in the

knowledge that you are contributing

in a very tangible way to the strength of

our Society.

Research Funds open for bidsThe 2014 round of Society Research

Funds is now open for applications.

Applications for support from any of

the Society funds must be made on

the form which can be downloaded

from www.geolsoc.org.uk/About/Awards-Grants-and-Bursaries.

Alternatively, visit the longer online

version of this story, and follow the

link there.

Image: m

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GEOSCIENTIST SOCIETY NEWS

SOCIETYNEWS...

Not just window dressingRob Butler* on the need for therestructured GeoconservationCommittee to get its act together quickly.

The British Isles boasts a variety of

beautifully exposed geology that is, for

its sheer concentration, accessibility

and historical importance, unrivalled

anywhere in the world. These sites

have inspired generations of Earth

scientists, both professional and

amateur. They remain our ‘shop

window’ – few other physical sciences

could provide such a hands-on link

between the public and research.

DISCONNECTIt is a resource that we under-use and

at times squander. There is an

increasing disconnect between

practising professionals who use (and

sometimes abuse) sites for research,

training and education and the

communities who seek to conserve

their local Earth heritage together with

the statutory bodies who oversee

this conservation.

Thanks to the Joint Nature

Conservation Committee (JNCC), the

UK has a wonderful catalogue of key

sites - the Geological Conservation

Review. But this listing reflects our

science up to around 1980 – and

many hundreds of the GCR sites still

remain un-notified as Sites of Special

Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and therefore

fall outside the statutory protection

such designation brings. Even those

that are designated have boundaries

that appear to be inappropriately

drawn - as exemplified by the

recent development issues facing

Siccar Point.

EVENTIt’s time to get our shop window in

order – a task now facing the Society’s

newly restructured Geoconservation

Committee. The Society is also

starting an annual event to celebrate

geoconservation with the UK’s

outcrop and landscape geology,

bringing together the broadest

community of local groups,

partnerships, statutory bodies,

researchers, other outdoor user-

groups and land managers. Bringing

these issues closely into the Society’s

reporting structures will allow us to be

more effective – not only in pressing

for proper protection for our key

outcrops but also in assisting local

geology groups working with councils

and other bodies to improve access

and interpretation. And we can also

join up these activities internationally,

the better to support important

outreach programmes such as the

European (Global) Geopark Network.

Watch this space – and let’s

celebrate our wonderful outcrops!

Above: Open accessrights, well-maintainedlandscapes andstunning geologyprovide peerlessopportunities forundergraduatetraining – high inthe NW HighlandsGeopark

*Prof. Rob Butler (School ofGeosciences, University of Aberdeen) isChair of the Geoconservation Committee.E: [email protected]


SOCIETY NEWS GEOSCIENTIST

lectures][Shell LondonLecture Series

Attempts to directly measure and sample subglacial

Lake Ellsworth were unsuccessful in the recent

Antarctic field season (Nov-Dec 2012). In this talk, Prof.

Siegert will explain why the experiment failed, lessons

learned, and potential ways forward for the programme.

Martin Siegert is Professor of Geosciences at the

University of Bristol and Principal Investigator of the

NERC Lake Ellsworth Consortium, involving eight UK

Universities and two research centres.

n Programme – Afternoon talk: 1430 Tea & Coffee:

1500 Lecture begins: 1600 Event ends.

n Programme – Evening talk: 1730 Tea & Coffee:

1800 Lecture begins: 1900 Reception.

FURTHER INFORMATIONPlease visit www.geolsoc.org.uk/shelllondonlectures13. Entry to each lecture is by

ticket only. To obtain a ticket please contact us around

four weeks before the talk. Due to the popularity of this

lecture series, tickets are allocated in a monthly ballot

and cannot be guaranteed.

Contact: Naomi Newbold, The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG, T: +44 (0) 20 7432 0981E: [email protected]

FUTURE MEETINGSDates for meetings of Council and Ordinary

General Meetings until June 2014 shall be

as follows:

n 2014: 5 February; 9 April

Lakes beneath the iceSpeaker: Martin Siegert (Edinburgh University)

18 December 2013

Image: John A Davis / Shutterstock.com

now the Society’s neighbour in

Burlington House).

For nearly two decades A treatiseon astronomy was deemed the

authoritative presentation in

English of astronomical science

and was soon translated into

Danish, French, and German.

The Library thanks Dr Sue

Shawcross for sponsoring this

volume, our copy of which was

presented by Herschel himself.

Council nominations – reminderFellows received a nomination form

with the October issue of Geoscientistfor the election of new Council

members for 2013/2014. Details of

the process were on the form and are

also in the Governance section of

the website.

The closing date for the receipt of

nominations is 4 January 2014 and

nominations will NOT be valid unless

they are fully completed, signed and

accompanied by a statement by the

nominees. Please return to Professor

Alan Lord, c/o Executive Secretary,

The Geological Society, Burlington

House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG.

FROM THE LIBRARYThe library is open to visitorsMonday-Friday 0930-1730.

For a list of new acquisitions clickthe appropriate link fromwww.geolsoc.org.uk/library

Fellows may nominate candidates forHonorary Fellowship at any time. To find out how to do this, please go towww.geolsoc.org.uk/honoraryfellowship

The Geological Society Club The Geological Society Club,

successor to the body that gave birth

to the Society in 1807, meets

monthly (except over the field

season!) at 18.30 for 19.00 in the

Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, or at

another venue, to be confirmed

nearer the date.

Once a year there is also a buffet

dinner at Burlington House. New

diners are always welcome, especially

from among younger Fellows.

Dinner costs £55 for a four-course

meal, including coffee and port.

(The Founders' Dinner, in November,

has its own price structure.) There is

a cash bar for the purchase of

aperitifs and wine.

n 2014: 5 February (Burlington

House); 5 March (Ath); 14 May;

24 September; 15 October.

Fellows wishing to dine or requestingfurther information about the GeologicalSociety Club, please email CallyOldershaw (Hon Sec) [email protected] orT: 07796 942361. DR

Sponsor A Book updateHerschel’s A treatise on astronomy(1833) has been restoredthrough theSponsor A Bookappeal, writesMichael McKimm.

John Herschel

(1792-1871), a

renowned and

highly influential

mathematician

and astronomer,

played a key role in the

creation of the

Astronomical Society

(from 1831 the Royal

Astronomical Society,

For more information about theSponsor A Book Appeal visitwww.geolsoc.org.uk/sponsorabook

he world in which animalstook their first tentativefootsteps on land was a verydifferent one from today. No verdant meadows, norforests. Not a fern to be seen.

The only plants were mosses andliverworts, clinging to rocks in wetplaces. For the most part the land was abare, windswept world, probably not toodissimilar to the surface of Mars. Yet forsome reason, some animals decided toleave the oceans, rivers and lakes, andventure on to this largely barren surface.Like the first Mars Rover that left itsdistinctive marks on virgin Martian soils,the first animals to drag themselves outof their aqueous world onto a harshlandscape at least 450 million years ago,left their own distinctive traces.

COLONISINGWe are faced with a number of challengesto work out just when this happened,which organisms were involved, and thenature of the subsequently developedterrestrial ecosystems. The first is todetermine whether a sandstone that hasa beautifully preserved set of tracksarcing across it was deposited on landrather than under the sea or in a river.Secondly, evidence needs to be found toshow that even though there may besedimentological evidence for aterrestrial environment of deposition, thetracks were made by an animal walkingout of water on land. To do this it isnecessary to look at intricate details ofeach footfall, such as the little mounds ofsand or sandsplashes left behind like

miniature sandcastles to show that ananimal once passed this way, with the sun on its back, rather than anaqueous cloak.

There are a number of candidates forthe first animal to step onto land.Whether these intrepid creatures, boldlycrawling where no creature had crawledbefore, formed part of a fledglingterrestrial ecosystem, or were just chanceadventurers onto this alien landscape, isnot clear. One proposal for the firstcolonisers are the animals thatconstructed millimetre-sized verticalburrows and centimetre-scale horizontalburrows in what have been interpretedas fluvial channels in the early CambrianWood Canyon Formation in California.However, doubts have been expressed asto the terrestrial nature of thesesediments, some researchers preferringto regard them as having been depositedin a marginal marine setting. So, closemaybe, but perhaps not close enough.

More convincing are trackways madesubaerially by arthropods in what havebeen interpreted as aeolian dunes in theUpper Cambrian to Lower OrdovicianNepean Formation in Ontario, Canada.Similarly, arthropod trackways in the lateOrdovician Borrowdale Volcanic Groupin the English Lake District appear tohave been made on a wet, subaerial sandsurface, suggesting periodic excursionsby myriapod-like arthropods on to theland. The lack of other types of tracefossil, particularly burrows, in thesesediments suggests that although thesearthropods may have been making briefforays on to the land they were not part

T

Ken McNamara* reports on fossil discoveriesthat are providing tantalising evidence ofsome of the first animals to live on land

FOOTFALLFIRST

GEOSCIENTIST FEATURE

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Exposure of the mid SilurianTumbalgooda Sandstone in the gorge ofthe Murchison River, Western Australia



of any nascent terrestrial ecosystem.Greg Retallack of the University of

Oregon has argued that burrows foundin the late Ordovician Juniata Formationin the eastern United States were madeby millipedes, indicating the existence ofone of the earliest terrestrial ecosystems.Others, though, have questioned thisinterpretation, citing both the lack ofevidence that the burrows were evenmade by millipedes and the absence ofplant material on which they are said tohave fed. Moreover, the sedimentscould well be marine in origin.

DEPOSITINGOne indication of an establishedfreshwater ecosystem is extensivebioturbation. The strongest contenderfor the title of the earliest knownecosystem of this type is theTumblagooda Sandstone, WesternAustralia. This red-bed unit contains anextremely diverse trace-fossil fauna, richin both burrows and trackways. It is best exposed in the deep gorge ofthe Murchison River in KalbarriNational Park, about 600km north ofPerth. In outcrop it consists of over 1kmof well-sorted, predominantly fluvialand aeolian sandstones that weredeposited along the western margin ofthe Australian continent. Offshore theunit reaches up to 3.5km in thickness. The sands are thought to have beendeposited sometime between theOrdovician and Silurian, although aSilurian age is more likely.

The sediments were probablygenerated by the uplift of the Australiancontinent to the southeast.Tumblagooda sediments containabundant evidence for northwesterlyfluvial flow. Uplift appears to have beenoccurring during early Silurian times, aconceivable depositional age for thesesediments. Significantly, this was beforethe evolution of vascular plants,although ‘lower’ plants, like mosses andliverworts, would have been present.The evolution of vascular land plants isknown to have had a major influence on styles of fluvial sedimentation.Before they appeared, river systemswere predominantly braided, laterallyexpansive outflows. An extensive coverof vascular plants on land constrainedwater flow for the first time into well-defined channels, trapping finer, muddy fractions on alluvial floodplains.The nature of the TumblagoodaSandstone sediments is consistent withdeposition primarily under a braidedstream regime.

LargeDiplichnitestrackwayprobably madeby a eurypterid

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Diplichnitestrack made byunknownarthropod withabout 8 pairs oflegs walkingacross wetrippled sandsurface

Diplichnitestrack made byunknownarthropod withabout 8 pairs oflegs walkingacross wetrippled sandsurface


FEATURE GEOSCIENTIST

Much of the early work on thesedimentology of the TumblagoodaSandstone was carried out by RogerHocking of the Geological Survey ofWestern Australia, followed by NigelTrewin (University of Aberdeen) whoworked both on sediments and tracefossils. Hocking showed that thesandstones form four discrete packages,reflecting different environments ofdeposition. The lowest, known asFacies Association (FA) 1 and the third,FA3, consist of massive units of troughcross-bedded sandstone thought to havebeen deposited under a braided fluvialregime. The uppermost unit, FA4, isgenerally thought to represent a moremarginal marine environment ofdeposition, containing the verticalburrow Skolithos, which is usuallyindicative of marine deposition. It is the last sedimentary package, FA2, a unit dominated by thin-beddedsandstones, which contains the richesttrace-fossil assemblage.

The sediments of FA2 consist mainlyof sub-parallel sandsheets up to twometres thick, and thin low-angle cross-bedded units. Many of the sandsheetsshow distinctive aeolian features suchas wind-ripple laminations. Thesedeposits are thought to represent lowsand-dunes whose intervening areaswere periodically flooded, either bystream flow, or (more often than not) bya rising water-table. This environmentof ephemeral water bodies forming,with little erosive water movement, inan environment where there wasrelatively little plant cover helped topreserve a wide variety of trace fossils.

TRACKINGThe most stunning of these are the greatvariety of tracks made by (probably)more than a dozen different types ofarthropod, from eurypterids toeuthycarcinoids, and myriapods toxiphosurids. Looking, on occasions,remarkably similar to the tracks left byMars rovers, they range in size fromabout 5mm to 300mm across. The double sets of imprints show thatthese different arthropods possessedgreat variability in numbers of theirwalking legs. Some of the trackwaysare very extensive. The most impressiveis a rippled bedding surface covering anarea of about 8m by 5m, crossed by fivetrackways, each about 18cm across andrunning for many metres. Intriguingly,two of them come together and thediscrete clusters of footprints lose theirdefinition, making a shallow trench ▼

Eurypteridmodel (basedon Mixopteris)showing typicalcharacters oflarge, anteriorclaw-likeappendages,and three pairsof walkingappendages,the back pairbeing modifiedas paddles

Bedding surfacewith extensivefeeding traceHeimdallia,palimpsestripples and thelarger huntingburrow Tumbla-goodichnus

Murchison Rivergorge at “TheLoop”, KalbarriNational Park,WesternAustraliashowingextensiveoutcrop of theTumblagoodaSandstone

which suggests that perhaps one climbedon to the back of the other. After a fewmetres one staggers off to the side, whilethe other continues on. It is a matter ofpure speculation as to the nature of thisconjugal association…

One of the more frustrating aspects ofstudying the trackways is not being surewhat made them. That it wasarthropods of some sort seems beyondquestion; but unless the number ofappendages that they used for walkingcan be ascertained and then fitted to aknown organism, their identity remainsenigmatic. Some of these beasts appearto have walked on three pairs ofappendages, suggesting a eurypteridcreator. Some sets of track have a centraldrag mark, either a pair of thin groovesor a much thicker single groove. Manylack a drag mark altogether. Thesetracks are called Diplichnites.Interestingly, eurypterids are known tohave possessed a long, extruded genitalappendage with a two-prongedtermination, and it was probably thisthat dragged along the sediment, leavinga characteristic groove.

Other forms, possibly huge centipede-like myriapods called arthropleurids, upto a metre long, clearly walked on manymore sets of legs. As the footfalls oftencoincided with imprints made by otherappendages, unravelling the exactnumber of walking legs is a challenge.Fortunately, on occasions the animalseither got bogged in the sand of perhapswere tacking into a stiff breeze, walkingwith a slightly skewed gait and repeatedsets of footprints can be made out. Someforms seem to have had about eight setsof walking legs, and others 11!

HUNTINGThe only body fossil ever found in theTumblagooda Sandstone provides aclue to the identity of some of thesetrack-makers. This is the fossilisedremnant of an enigmaticeuthycarcinoid arthropodcalled Kalbarriabrimmellae. Until thediscovery of thisfossil the oldest knowneuthycarcinoid wasLate Carboniferous.The discovery ofKalbarria in mucholder rockspushed back the

known range of these animals by at least120 million years. Since then an evenolder, Cambrian, form has been found.Euthycarcinoids may be the ancestors ofmyriapods, crustaceans and insects.

Looking rather like a cockroach with11 pairs of legs, Kalbarria has left behindnot only evidence of what its bodylooked like, but also probably itstrackways. Moreover, impressions of itsbody when it rested on the sand (a tracefossil called Rusophycus) are alsopreserved along with crescenticdepressions where it stuck its head intothe sand searching for food. These bedscontain tiny holes that represent theopenings of U-shaped burrows, probablyoccupied by the euthycarcinoids’ prey.This is one of a number of instanceswhere we can see evidence of whatappears to be one type of animal feedingon another - trophic levels which indicatethat a complex and sophisticatedecosystem had developed on land at thistime, quite early in the Silurian.

Other evidence of hunting comes frombeds that are riddled with meanderingvertical burrows, called Heimdallia.Looking for all the world like fossilisedmacaroni, these beds, up to 120mm thick,cover many square metres and representplaces where shallow pools of waterbetween dunes were occupied by small,burrowing arthropods mining the sandfor food - probably algae or bacteria.Into this industrious world, largearthropods periodically swooped -scooping into the sand as they hunted fortheir prey, leaving behind shallow, nearhorizontal trenches, up to 30cm long.

Further examples of feeding are seenon sloping surfaces that represent thebases of gently sloping dunes at themargins of these bodies of shallow water.

As the water levels receded they leftbehind strand lines, whichare often faithfullypreserved, and manyexamples are known oftracks made by different

types of arthropods walkingparallel to these ephemeralshores, probably scavenging forstranded debris.

SANDCASTLESThe discovery of Kalbarria alsoprovides some clues to how thetrackways were preserved.

The euthycarcinoidbody fossil is


Professor NigelTrewininspecting aDiplichnitestrackway in theTumblagoodaSandstone inthe gorge of theMurchisonRiver, WesternAustralia

The euthycar-cinoid Kalbarriabrimmelae.Specimen 13cm long

▼



preserved as an impression of the ventralsurface of the animal, showing its legsand the underside of the plates thatcovered its thorax and abdomen. If youimagine squashing a cockroach on to apiece of plasticine, you would get thesame sort of preservation. It seems likelythat the animal was walking across a wetsand surface, was caught in a dust-stormand smothered by fine, dry sand. The minimal terrestrial vegetation coverat this time would have meant higherlevels of erosion and high frequency ofsuch transport of fine, dry sand.

A similar scenario explains both thefrequency with which trackways arepreserved and supports the contentionthat they were made subaerially on wetsand surfaces. And this is wheresandcastles come into the story. Researchon wet granular piles (a.k.a. sandcastles)has shown that on wet sand surfaces thatare subaerially exposed, surface tensionbetween sand grains will provide a rigid,cohesive force over a wide range of watersaturation. It is only in extremely wet orextremely dry sands that footprints willbe ill-defined.

However in wet, cohesive sands eachindividual footprint can be preserved inexquisite detail, the walls of the footprintsoften being steep-sided to verticalbecause the wet sand was sufficientlycohesive when the foot was withdrawnfrom the sediment to retain its exactshape. The animal’s direction ofmovement can be interpreted from small,discrete mounds of sediment piled upbehind each footprint - the firstsandcastles. In one unusual set offootprints, finely preserved sand splasheshave been produced by rapid flicking ofthe sediment during the animal’slocomotion stroke. These types offeatures can only be formed out of water,on wet sand surfaces. Animals wereliving on land.

LAND COLONISEDMost researchers consider that permanentterrestrial ecosystems did not appear onland until near the Silurian-Devonianboundary, which is about the time thatvascular plants evolved and began todiversify. However the diverse burrowsand trackways of the TumblagoodaSandstone suggest that a structured,terrestrial ecosystem may have been in place by the early Silurian. The Tumblagooda Sandstone postdatesthe Cambrian explosion and the evolutionof arthropods by up to 100 million years,so why did it take so long for animals tomake this permanent transition from the

1 Davies, N S & Gibling M R (2010)

Cambrian to Devonian evolution of alluvial

systems: the sedimentological impact of the

earliest land plants. Earth-Science Reviews,

v98, pp 171-200.

2 Hocking R M (1991) The Silurian

Tumblagooda Sandstone, Western

Australia. Western Australia GeologicalSurvey, Report 27.

3 Trewin N H & McNamara K J (1995)

Arthropods invade the land: trace fossils

and palaeoenvironments of the

Tumblagooda Sandstone (?late Silurian) of

Kalbarri, Western Australia. Transactions ofthe Royal Society of Edinburgh, v85, pp

177–210.

4 Schaefer, I, Norton, R A, Scheu, S &Maraun, M (2010) Arthropod colonization of

land – Linking molecules and fossils in

oribatid mites (Acari, Oribatida). MolecularPhylogenetics and Evolution, v57, pp

113-121.

FURTHER READING

oceans on to land? Perhaps it is all aquestion of scale. These early Palaeozoictrace fossils seem to reflect a worlddominated by large arthropods, some more than a metre long, whichcolonised the land before it becamesmothered in plants.

Intriguingly, a recent molecular studyof mites has proposed a more complexscenario for terrestrial colonisation, withthe suggestion that tiny oribatid mites(otherwise known as ‘moss mites’)possibly colonised land as early as the latePrecambrian. The oldest fossil oribatidsoccur in late Devonian (376-379 Ma) rocksnear Gilboa, New York. Perhaps, it hasbeen suggested, terrestrialisation beganwith these very small, soil-dwelling mites.These tiny omnivorous and detritivorousarthropods, barely more than 1mm longand lurking between sand grains, wouldhave facilitated the invasion of terrestrialhabitats by later colonisers, acting as aready food source for the largerarthropods that followed, in anarthropod-eat-arthropod world.

More research is clearly needed tounravel all the mysteries of this greatevent in evolutionary history, and toreveal just when the first footfall wouldhave been distinctly heard. n

* Ken McNamara is Director of the SedgwickMuseum, Department of Earth Sciences, Universityof Cambridge; email [email protected]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSAll images taken by the author Ken McNamara(excluding sandcastle: Shutterstock.com)


SOAPBOX CALLING!

Stuart Haszeldine and David Smythe * respond to

Bruce Yardley’s criticisms published here in April and still

available on Geoscientist Online under ‘Previous Issues’

BY STUART HASZELDINE & DAVID SMYTHE

Fallout over radwaste

GEOSCIENTIST SOAPBOX

Bruce Yardley resorts to ad hominemcriticism1 of our scientific views on nuclearwaste disposal, accusing us of‘campaigning’ on science matters of publicinterest, in contrast to scientists (himselfpresumably included) who dispassionatelyand neutrally 'advise'. However, he hasevidently not taken the trouble to look outand study the highly detailed onlineevidence2,3 underlying our summaryviews4,5 concerning West Cumbria.

NIREXDuring the 1990s Nirex undertook anational site search with BGS help, butfinally targeted an inland Sellafield sitewhich had not even featured in the workinglist of 537 sites6. Nirex drilled, cored, andinterpreted 29 boreholes, as well asundertaking various geophysical surveys,to produce geological and hydrogeologicalmodels of the West Cumbria district, at acost of £400M. It proved to haveexceptionally fractured geology, complexhydrogeology and geochemistry. The Nirexplanning inquiry of 1995-96 rejectedconstruction of an underground testlaboratory there7, recommending thatalternative UK sites should be investigated8.

Reports in 1999 by the Royal Society9

and the House of Lords Science andTechnology Committee10 recommended anational site search, led by geologicalcriteria. However the 2001 Defra whitepaper Managing Radioactive Waste Safely11

ignored this advice, proposing'voluntarism'. CoRWM, the committee setup to develop deep geological disposal forUK intermediate and high-level radwaste,which reported in 2006, contained not asingle Earth scientist.

BIASED?Are we partial and/or biased, according toYardley, because our conclusions"overwhelmingly" support our case? It follows that the case for anthropogenicglobal warming is similarly campaign-induced, because the overwhelming

majority (97%) of climate scientists acceptit12. The Nirex planning inquiry inspectorconcluded7 that "The indications are, in myjudgement, still overwhelmingly that this siteis not suitable for the proposed repository,and that investigations should now bemoved to one of the more promising siteselsewhere” [our emphasis]. Was heanother biased ‘campaigner’?

Yardley says that we "characterised thegeology of west Cumbria as well-known,yet also so unpredictable that finding a saferepository site there was impossible" [ouremphasis], implying that well-understoodgeology is necessarily predictable. Butpredictability does not necessarily arisefrom detailed measurement of a complexsystem. NASA calculated prior to the 1986Challenger space shuttle disaster that thecompound probability of failure from well-known components was one in 100,000.The real probability turned out to be morelike one in 10.

Yardley makes the startling claim thatthe subsurface water geochemistry at westCumbria is suitable for waste containment,based on cerium geochemistry from thePADAMOT project13. The full portfolio ofevidence permits an outline reconstructionof both modern and palaeo-hydrogeology.Unsuitable oxic waters with Eh greaterthan +50 mV have clearly dominated to adepth of 1km, spanning all prospectiverepository depths. He has chosen hisevidence to fit his prejudice. Yardley is an‘agnotologist’14; one who argues that wenever know enough; 'we do not yet haveenough data' – much like climate scepticsand in earlier times, apologists for bigtobacco15,16. Our full technical response toYardley is available online2,3.

Soapbox is open tocontributions from all Fellows.You can always write a letter tothe Editor, of course: butperhaps you feel you needmore space?

If you can write it entertainingly in

500 words, the Editor would like

to hear from you.

Email your piece, and a self-

portrait, to [email protected]. Copy can only be

accepted electronically. No

diagrams, tables or other

illustrations please.

Pictures should be of print

quality – as a rule of thumb,

anything over a few hundred

kilobytes should do.

Precedence will always be given

to more topical contributions.

Any one contributor may not

appear more often than once per

volume (once every 12 months).

CORWM, THECOMMITTEE SET UP TO DEVELOP DEEPGEOLOGICAL DISPOSALFOR UK INTERMEDIATEAND HIGH-LEVELRADWASTE, WHICHREPORTED IN 2006,CONTAINED NOT A SINGLE EARTHSCIENTISTStuart Haszeldine & David Smythe

~

~*Stuart Haszeldine FRSE FGS CGeol is Professorof Sedimentary Geology, University of EdinburghDavid Smythe is Emeritus Professor ofGeophysics, University of Glasgow

The references cited in this piece arelisted in its online version. Editor

fter a lifetime ofaccumulatinggeologicalinformation it issometimes difficult tolet it go. Retirement

is a particularly critical time, but italso offers new opportunities.When retirement eventually befellone of us (GMP) he retained aninterest in a large dataset fromcentral Wales that he hadaccumulated with 20 generationsof students, little realising the new interpretations that might be extracted.

That had to wait until a chancecontact with an old friend (RPB),when we were able to explore thedata more fully using GeographicalInformation Systems (GIS)technology. Gradually it becameapparent that modern methods ofdata exploration could be appliedprofitably to the dataset, partlythrough the application of modern

GIS systems but also using theastonishing range of productsfreely available for informationvisualisation and sharing. We feelthat this example may encourageothers to avail themselves of such techniques.

DATABASEThe dataset in question comes froma series of 25 separate explorationgeochemistry stream-sedimentstudent-training surveys madewithin central Wales from 1979 to2003. Each had been interpretedseparately at the time it was carriedout. Now they have all beencompiled into one large database,so that regional variations may beobserved (open access files atwww.geologis.com).

For our purposes the data havebeen processed within a GIS, and tosome extent this remains anecessary precursor; but here wewould like to illustrate the use of

Google Earth overlays, which offersome unique features. GoogleEarth is free and plenty ofinformation is available on how to use it with your own data. The symbolisation capabilitiespresent some limitations, but forpoint data bespoke 'placemark'symbols may be easily created.Research areas or individual sitesworldwide may be examined atvarious scales using Google Earthimagery. Much of the UK, even thedepths of central Wales, is coveredby the ground-level imagery ofStreet View, so that an excellentinvestigation of some sites may beachieved without straying fromone's computer. The armchairgeologist may now, in retirement,do more than merely reminisce!

OREFIELDThe central Wales orefield was animportant source of lead, silver andsome zinc and copper during the

PROSPECTINGVIRTUAL

Greg Power and Rob Barnes* use IT to mine old data collected inthe Central Wales Orefield, all from the comfort of their armchairs

Above:Oblique view ofCwmystwyth MineA

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19th Century, extraction taking placefrom many small mines and a fewlarger mines such as Cwmystwyth,(Pb ore: 33,439 tonnes; Zn ore: 19,216tonnes; Ag: 33,509 oz). James1 givesan excellent review of the orefield’sgeology, and a well-argued modelfor the mineralisation process. The area includes some isolated andelevated terrain and the sources ofthe rivers Severn and Wye.

The exploration geochemistrycourse at the University ofPortsmouth used the area for streamsediment survey exercises. Themarket town of Llanidloes provideda base from which nine 1:25,000topographic map sheets coveringmuch of the orefield could easily bereached. Each of the annual surveysinvestigated one of these sheets.Teams formed of two or threeundergraduates were allocated10km2 from which to collect about 30stream sediment samples in the two collection days of the field course.

Team members prepared andanalysed their own samples byatomic absorptionspectrophotometry (AAS) for Fe,Mn, Pb, Zn, Cu and from 1989, Ag.Each student had to prepare aninterpretative report on the completeset of results for the whole mapsheet. Thus they gained experienceof teamwork in field and laboratory,as well as in interpretation andreport-writing.

In the early years, results werecalculated using pocket calculatorsand interpretive maps were drawnby hand. Much ingenuity was usedto display the data in the mostreadily understandable way. Withthe advent of computer networksdata could be exchanged andcompiled more readily. A dedicatedprogramme was written in QuickBasic as a project by a computerscience student to display the data asa series of instant geographical mapsfor data exploration and this wasused extensively for reportproduction. Spreadsheets andstatistical packages also becameavailable so that the application oftechniques such as principalcomponents analysis could be tested.

GOOGLE EARTHThe capabilities of Google Earthmay be demonstrated by using thestream sediment data for silver, a

Far left: Thesurvey area

Left: Sampling,Inset: Samplerand sampling bag

Distributionmap for silverfor the wholesurvey area

Area NW ofNant-y-mochReservoir(bottom right)

Overlay ofDerwenlasFormation andPb values

▼

the interest in this particularanomaly. Unfortunately thepublication of Street View imagesis restricted by copyright butinterested readers may use theirown copy of Google Earth to 'drivepast' site 1 to establish that there isno visible evidence of previousmining activity.

O T JONESA further overlay, showing theoutcrop traces of mapped mineralveins in red, has been added andthe alert reader may notice thatnow, site 2 has gained a 'formershaft' symbol. We discovered onreference to the classic work by O T Jones2 that a trial excavation(called ‘Cwmdwrbach’) was made there in 1904 but wasabandoned after only yielding atotal of 26.4 tonnes of zinc blende.The stream sediment survey haspicked up the evidence for thecontamination caused by the smallspoil tip left at the site, itselfvisible in Google Earth.

Overlays may also be drawn inGoogle Earth to show possibleinterpretations. For example,orange lines have been added atsites 1 and 3 to suggest potentialmineral veins from the anomaloussilver and lead values and theorientation of the stream valleysfollowing the general trend ofknown mineral veins in the region.

AONBOpen-ended investigations of thisdatabase, or its use for teaching,may be carried out by

downloading the data fromwww.geologis.com. However ifyou feel that you may havelocated a new prospect formineral exploitation be warnedthat in this Area of OutstandingNatural Beauty (AONB) it isunlikely that permission would ever be granted to restart mining!

Much work has been done tomediate the contamination fromthe old mine sites. For examplethe Van mine , one of the largestproducers in the orefield (Pb ore:98,287 tonnes: Zn ore:28,788tonnes and Ag: 756,142 oz) isnow gently reverting into, andbecoming part of, the landscapefollowing considerableremediation efforts. n



useful indicator for leadmineralisation as well as valuablein its own right. The distributionmap, covering the whole of thedatabase area, classifies silverconcentration in samples as:'Background' (Ag <4 mg/kg),blue; 'Anomalous' ( Ag 4 -11mg/kg), yellow; and 'Probablemine contamination' (Ag>11mg/kg), red, circles. Old mines(white cross on circle) and themain faults (black lines) have alsobeen added as overlays.

These digital data, produced bythe British Geological Survey, areaccessible to registered academicusers through the EDINA serviceof the University of Edinburgh.At the relatively small scale of thewhole study area the unevendistribution of the mines,exploiting mineralisationprimarily developed inassociation with the faults, may beclearly seen. The contaminationfrom old mines is also veryobvious. More detailedexamination may be achieved by increasing the magnification of the image for selected parts ofthe area.

The area NW of Nant-y-MochReservoir is shown as an example of this, using the samesymbols. There are clusters of Agvalues greater than 11 mg/kgaround some of the old mine sitesand sometimes trails of these'mine contaminated' valuescontinue some considerabledistance downstream. Sites 1 and 2, however, show interestingclusters of 'anomalous' Ag values that might prompt further investigation.

Additional geologicalinformation may be added asoverlays. For example, thepotential productivity of theDerwenlas Formation is knownfrom old mining records and thisunit has been coloured in abedrock overlay superimposed onthe map. Also shown are: leadvalues, 'Background': (Pb <220mg/kg), small pale blue circles;'Anomalous' (Pb 220-740 mg/kg),larger dark blue circles and 'High'(Pb >740 mg/kg), pale blue'washers'. The anomalous leadvalues of site 1 are seen to beassociated with the DerwenlasFormation, which might increase

1 James, D M D 2011. Turbidite

pathways, pore-fluid pressures and

productivity in the Central Wales

Orefield. Journal of the Geological

Society of London, 168, 1107-1120.

2 Jones, O T 1922. Lead and Zinc.

The mining district of north

Cardiganshire and west

Montgomeryshire. Memoir of the

Geological Survey, Special Mineral

Resources of Great Britain, 20.

REFERENCES

Above: A reservoirbarrage towersover the remains ofBryn Tail mine

*Dr Rob Barnes is a Director of GeoloGISLtd. a Geoscience and GIS consultancybased in the Scottish Borders. E: [email protected]. Dr Greg M Power,formerly of Portsmouth University, may becontacted at E: [email protected]


READERS’LETTERS

CLIMATE CHANGE-CO2 LINK

Geoscientist welcomes readers’ letters. These are published aspromptly as possible in Geoscientist Online and a selectionprinted each month. Please submit your letter (300 words orfewer, by email only please) to [email protected] will be edited. For references cited in these letters,please see the full versions at www.geolsoc.org.uk/letters

Sir, In response to John Gahan’s

comments of August 21, the Geological

Society's Statement on Climate Change

was very careful to exclude all comment

on the merits of climate models produced

by the meteorological and climatological

science communities, because they are

not in our sphere of expertise. Our

statement was based on a careful

appraisal of the geological evidence for

the role of greenhouse gases, especially

CO2, in causing climate change in

past times.

Investigations on this topic began in the

1890s, with the American geologist

Thomas Chamberlin, but were then

suspended for lack of the detailed

information required to test the

hypothesis. Much of the information

needed from spectroscopists about the

absorptive properties of atmospheric

gases required advanced scientific

equipment that was not available until the

mid to late 1950s, and geochemists did

not get deeply into trying to understand

the role of CO2 in past climate change

until the early to mid 1980s. Since 2000 a

great deal of information has become

available from ice, plankton, leaves and

soils about the past distribution of CO2

and its relation to temperature.

The most recent ice data show that

CO2 and temperature evolved in

synchrony (not sequentially) with the last

deglaciation – that gives us a new

perspective. In addition, the recent data

from leaves and plankton demonstrate how

CO2 and temperature declined from the

greenhouse climate of the Cretaceous into

the icehouse climate of the Neogene, as the

sources of CO2 from volcanism associated

with sea floor spreading declined and as

mountains and associated weathering drew

CO2 out of the atmosphere. Much of this

information is sufficiently new that it is not yet

widely recognised in basic geological

textbooks. Many people are unaware that

following the peak in insolation reached some

11,000 years ago at the end of the last

deglaciation, planet Earth experienced a

continued steady decline in insolation

accompanied, not surprisingly, by cooling that

led our planet into what some Earth scientists

refer to as the ‘Neoglacial’, marked by the

development of the Little Ice Age.

Superimposed on that cooling curve

(which, by the way, is projected to continue

for another 1000 years or so) we see small

warming and cooling events lasting some

few hundreds of years that are related to

cyclical changes in the sun's output as

expressed through sunspots and recognised

in Earth materials via the radionuclides 14C

and 10Be. According to the insolation curve

we should still be in the Neoglacial and

experiencing the continued delights of the

Little Ice Age (Frost fairs on the Thames).

However, from the ice cores from the

Antarctic coast, as well as from global

thermometer records, it is clear that

significant warming began to cut across that

insolation-driven cooling trend in synchrony

with the rise in CO2 that began with the

industrial revolution in the 1770s. Solar

output rose too, for a while, as seen from

sunspots, but declined slightly since 1970,

while temperature continued to rise. What

did continue to rise after 1970 was CO2, a

known greenhouse gas. People would like

to know why global warming stalled after

the year 2000 (it did not ‘go into reverse’,

by the way).

Explanations are already arriving from

the oceanographic and meteorological

community for those who like to read their

literature on the front line. For one thing,

more heat is being taken down deep into

the ocean interior than before. And for

another thing we are also seeing the effect

of a natural cycle, the Pacific Decadal

Oscillation (PDO). Just as El Niño events in

the Pacific raise global temperatures

slightly above the global mean temporarily,

and La Niña events there cool the planet

temporarily, so too the longer-lived PDO

can have the same effect. It is now in a

cool phase, which helps to explain the

current global stand-still (see Kosaka and

Xie, in Nature, 19 September 2013).

Underlying my remarks is the

unchanged conclusion of the GSL’s

Statement on Climate Change, which is

that we can see from the past that the

climate warms when CO2 goes up. It is

hardly surprising that meteorologists and

climatologists reach the same conclusions,

albeit by different methods.

Colin Summerhayes

Society’s statement on climate change ‘based on carefulappraisal of geological evidence’, not modern climate models


LETTERS GEOSCIENTIST

FRACKING LEAKSSir, I am delighted to see the October issue

of Geoscientist focus on Shale Gas; and

particularly delighted to see reference to

incontrovertible evidence (from Duke

University in North Carolina) that fracking

wells leak.

As Professor Peter Styles has pointed out

in a previous issue, leakage of methane

from extraction, transportation, and delivery

infrastructure - as well as from boilers and

cookers - means that shale gas cannot

be considered to have a low carbon

footprint (or intensity).

For this reason alone, large-scale pursuit

of fracking will make it incredibly difficult for

the UK to reduce its CO2 emissions.

Despite the advice of the International

Energy Agency and International

Monetary Fund that such a

strategy is unwise, it

would appear that the

UK is going to

gamble on making

Carbon Capture

and Storage

(CCS) work in

order to be

able to get its

CO2 emissions

down in the

long term.

However it may be

eventually achieved,

CCS will probably be the

only way to reduce CO2

Sir, I am glad that the Society is

recognising the issues surrounding

shale gas. However there are geological

reasons why shale gas in the UK is

going to prove difficult, apart from all the

regulatory and HSE issues that blight it.

Everyone seems to be jumping on

the shale gas bandwagon just now,

either in the hope of getting rich quick

or, at the other end of the spectrum,

from the evangelical environmental

perspective. But shale gas rock

systems in the UK are very poor

cousins of those found in North America

and elsewhere in the world. This is not a

‘slam dunk’, as they say over the water.

We have a lot of hard work to do before

we understand the rock systems we

find in Europe.

I believe it will be very difficult to make

shale gas in the UK economic. One

should never say never, and yes, some

shale gas will be produced here

eventually. But the big players like

XOM, Shell and BP seem unable to

make this work, even with the

prodigious shale gas plays of the United

States. So it will be the smaller

companies like IGas, 3rd Energy and

Cuadrilla, who will make some money

from this kind of venture. Yet at every

stage they are being beaten up by the

Green lobby - and to some extent the

media - when they should, in my view,

be encouraged and supported.

I have worked in shale gas now for

over six years. This may not sound long,

but it is a young field. I have seen most

of the shale gas wells drilled in Europe

and a number from some of the prolific

shale gas plays in North America.

Believe me - the rocks are different

here in Europe. We need to understand

these differences to better characterise

these plays. This is paramount

but it can only be achieved by drilling

and testing.

All I see now however are road

blocks, put in place by the regulatory

bodies (whose present regulations are

already more than adequate) and local

governments who seem to be trying to

appease the Green lobby and their

more vocal constituents. The BGS

resource figure of 1300 TCF quoted by

Mike Stephenson is all very well; I take it

with a pinch of salt myself, but in the

end but it’s what comes out of the

ground that matters, and we are not

addressing this key issue.

Andrew Foulds, Petrafiz Ltd.

FRACKING OBSTACLES

politicised to such a degree that it is now

almost impossible to hold a reasoned debate.

Only when contrary opinions are respected

and refuted with relevant data can we hope

to return to a sensible debate and perhaps

gain a better understanding of the complexity

of the Earth's climate.

In the meantime the wider public is being

deceived by pseudoscientific reports largely

driven by the politics of academic science.

The very real danger here is that science in

general, and this Society in particular, will

suffer from a collapse of confidence by the

general public when the political

machinations that lie behind the alarmist and

unrealistic claims and predictions of the IPCC

and its supporters are revealed as the Earth's

climate cools over the next decades.

Stephen W Foster

CO2, CLIMATE CHANGE: THE MISSING LINKSir, I write in response to the letters of J G

Gahan and Summerhayes's response (left).

I wish to add my voice to Gahan’s: the

Society and the IPCC do not reflect the

views of all members of the Society or of all,

or even a majority, of meteorologists,

climatologists and physicists.

A central presupposition of Summerhayes'

letter, and that of the GSL statement on

climate change, that CO2 concentrations are

a direct cause of temperature change, has

not been proved by any of the statements in

this or any other of his letters or IPCC

reports, or by any research data. It may be

true that "we can see from the past that the

climate warms when CO2 goes up", but it is

equally valid to state that "as temperatures

rise, so too do CO2 concentrations in the

atmosphere". Correlation is not the same

as cause.

I am very aware that this subject has long

since moved from being one where contrary

opinions can be held and debated in relatively

balanced manner and that it has become

emissions (in the UK and globally) in the way

the IPCC says is now necessary in order to

avoid excessive anthropogenic climate

disruption (ACD). I genuinely hope that we

can do this but it is more hope than

expectation; as the challenges of scaling-up

and rolling-out CCS technology globally

such that it will be effective at mitigating ACD

are almost certainly without precedent in the

history of human endeavour.

In its most recent assessment, the IPCC

has made it very clear that ACD is now a

very real, large, and immediate problem

that humanity simply cannot afford to

ignore any longer; because further delay

will not be cost effective. Given the reality,

scale and urgency of the need for

humanity to decarbonise its global power

generation systems (IPCC AR5),

I was therefore

disappointed that

Professor Mike

Stephenson did

not acknowledge

that the

important

question is not

"how much

shale gas can

we get out of

the ground?".

The really big

question is "can

we actually afford to

burn it?".

Martin Lack

CO2


GEOSCIENTIST LETTERS

Sir, The Soapbox by Haszeldine and Smythe,

responding to my own piece in the April

Geoscientist (p.16), exactly reinforces the

point that I was trying to make and I am

indebted to them for this. My April Soapboxarticle was intended to show how Smythe

and Haszeldine presented information to the

voters of Cumbria in such a way as to

maximise their own case, to the point of giving

a very misleading impression of the original

sources. They have done the same here.

The clear impression readers will gain from

their piece is that in April I argued in favour of

a repository in West Cumbria. I did not.

They write that I claimed that subsurface

water is "suitable for waste containment".

I did no such thing. I simply pointed out that

what Haszeldine told MPs on this point

contradicted the conclusion of the published

report of which he was an author. It is

unfortunate that the chance to explain this

discrepancy has been missed.

Bruce YardleyEditor: This correspondence is now closed

RADWASTE DISPOSALFRACKING INACCURATESir, The first paragraph of the

feature Meet the Frackers(Geoscientist 23.9) did not bode

well for what was to come.

We were told that there was

“a small flurry of earthquakes

near Blackpool” and, the

authors continue:

“the largest event being

M2.3 at Preece (sic) Hall” -

actually Preese Hall No 1 – “was quickly

attributed to gas drilling close by at

Becconsall, where the operators were testing

the technique properly referred to as

‘hydraulic fracturing’”.

The M 2.3 tremor at Preese Hall 1 took

place on 1 April 2011; but the Becconsall No

1 well was not spudded until five months later

on 23 August 2011. Of course this does not

mean that the earthquakes were never

ignorantly ‘attributed’ to it, but we feel this

discrepancy in dates should be made clear.

Our understanding is that Becconsall No 1

well was drilled vertically and there was no

intention of hydraulically fracturing the

Bowland Shales at that locality.

Tony Grindrod, Kiki van Den Bosch

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CALENDAR GEOSCIENTISTCan’t find your meeting? VISIT

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full, accurate, up-to-date[ ]ENDORSED TRAINING/CPD

Course Date Venue and details

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Geomorphological Processes

Lapworth’s Logs

2-6 December

27 - 31 January

n/a

Venue: University of Sussex, Sussex House, Brighton. Convener: Prof. Roger Moore E: [email protected] per course for 2012-13 is £1229. 10% Fellows’ Discount

Venue: University of Sussex, Sussex House, Brighton. Contact: Dr Cherith Moses E: [email protected] as above

‘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 DECEMBER 2013 / JANUARY 2014

Meeting Date Venue and details

Glossop Lecture. Southern Wales Regional

Joint Poster Competition. Central Scotland RegionalScottish Geotechnical Gp.

Hydrogeology. Western regional Group

Application of LiDAR DataHong Kong Regional

Underground Bridgewater Canal System in theNorthwest. North West Regional

The Application of Geophysical Methods in UKUnexploded Ordnance (UXO) Risk ManagementNear Surface Geophysics Group

The Geological Society President's LectureScarborough Museums Trust

Status and developments in geological remotesensing. Geological Remote Sensing Group

Geoscience Literacy and Understanding in the PublicRealm. Western Regional

New Guidelines for Natural Terrain Studies - An Update. Hong Kong regional

New Developments in Ground Gas Risk AssessmentWest Midlands Regional

Capturing Uncertainty in Geomodels - Best Practicesand Pitfalls. Petroleum Group

Group AGM and Quiz. Yorkshire Regional

Lakes Beneath the Ice. Geological Society, Shell UK

TSG Conference. Tectonics Studies Group

Early Career Award - Finalist PresentationsWest Midlands Regional

LUSI Mud Volcano. Western regional

Higher Education Network Annual MeetingGeological Society, Higher Education Network

Construction over abandoned mine workings, andAGM. North West Regional

International Symposium on Foraminifera (FORAMS2014). University of Concepcion, Chile

The Engineering Geology of Chalk - a total rockapproach. Home Counties North Regional

Geoscience and the Welsh EconomySouthern Wales Regional

3 December

3 December

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5 December

9-11 December

10 December

10 December

10 December

11-12December`

11 December

18 December

6-8 January

14 January

14 January

15 January

16 January

19-24 January

21 January

28 January

Venue: Main Building, Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff. 1730 for 1800. Speaker: JimGriffiths. Contact: [email protected]

Venue: IET Teacher Building, St Enoch Square, Glasgow Time: 1730. See online for submissiondetails. Contact: [email protected]

Venue: The Hub, Aztec West, Bristol. Time: 1800 for 1830. Speaker: Peter Thorn, Atkins. Contact: [email protected]

Venue: Mariners' Club, TST. Time: 1830 for 1900. Speaker: Bob Sas. Contact: [email protected]

Venue: Williamson Lecture Theatre, University of Manchester. Time: see website. Speaker: Mr Glen Atkinson. Contact: [email protected]

Venue: British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham. Time: 0900 – 1700. For details ofregistration and submission of abstracts, see website. Contact: Brian Barrett E: [email protected].

Venue: The Public Library, Scarborough. Time: 1830. Free. Speaker: Mr David Shilston. Topic: Landslides and Subsidence: Engineering Geology in an Age of Austerity. W: http://scarboroughmuseumstrust.org.uk

Venue: Sachsen-Anhalt Landesvertretung, Berlin-Mitte, Berlin. For registration and details seeWebsite. Contact: Jason Manning [email protected]

Venue: SH Reynolds Lecture Theatre, University of Bristol. Time: 1800 for 1830. Speaker: Hazel Gibson (Plymouth University). Contact: [email protected]

Venue: Mariners' Club, TST. Time: 1830 for 1930. Speaker: Sam Ng. Contact: [email protected]

Venue: Lapworth Museum of Geology. Speaker: Steve Wilson - Technical Director (EPG). Time: 1800 for 1830. Contact: Daniel Welch [email protected]

Venue: Elphinstone Hall, University of Aberdeen. For registration, fees and details, see website.Fellows’ discount applies. Contact: Laura Griffiths, The Geological Society, Burlington House. T: 020 7432 0980 E: [email protected]

Venue: The Brewery Tap, Leeds. Time: 18.30

A Shell London Lecture. Speaker: Martin Siegert (Edinburgh University) See p. 9 for details.

Venue: University of Cardiff. For details of fees and registration, see website. Fellows’ discountapplies. Contact: Tom Blenkinsop E: [email protected]

Venue: Lapworth Museum of Geology. Time: 1800 for 1830. Contact: Daniel [email protected]

Venue: SH Reynolds Lecture Theatre, University of Bristol. Time: 1800 for 1830. Speaker: DavidShilston (Presidet, GSL). Contact: [email protected]

Venue: Keele University. Time: 0930-1700. For details and registration see website.Concessions, but no Fellows’ discount. Contact: Tom Argles E: [email protected]

Venue: Birchwood Centre, Birchwood Park, Warrington. Speaker: Dave Parry (WRG Nottingham).Se website for further details. Contact: Nik Reynolds E: [email protected]

Venue: U. Of Concepcion. See website for registration , abstract submission and details. Contact: Monica Sorondo E: [email protected]

Venue: Burlington House. Time: 1800 for 1830. Speaker: Rory Mortimore. E: [email protected]

Venue: Pierhead Bldg., Cardiff. Time: 1730 for 1800. Conference, in the presence of the Presidentof the Society and AMs. Free. E: [email protected]



Radioactive WasteManagement 2012Based upon the outcomes of the themedconference on the geological disposal ofradioactive waste held at the University ofLoughborough (October 2011), thisMineralogical Society volume presents aconcise and detailed summary of thecurrent, independently conductedscientific and technological researchunderpinning the challenges associatedwith the long term management ofradioactive waste in the UK.

Reflecting the structure of theconference sessions, the volume isorganised into nine thematic sections, eachbeginning with an introductory paperauthored by the key UK stake holder, theNuclear Decommissioning Authority(NDA), outlining its view on the particulartheme. This is followed by wide-rangingpeer-reviewed papers from independentacademic, industrial and supply chaingeoscience research contributors.

The nine thematic sections presentedare comprehensive and cover the fullrange of geoscience research in each area:Section 1: introduction (1 paper), Section 2:wasteforms, containment materials andcriticality (12 papers), Section 3:engineered barriers – near-field (10papers), Section 4: geosphere – far-field(nine papers), Section 5: biosphere andmicrobial sciences (six papers), Section 6:gas (10 papers), Section 7: radionuclidetransport (seven papers), Section 8:international aspects (two papers) andSection 9: general issues (six papers).

The papers presented in the mainsections of the volume are extensive andvaried, demonstrating the considerableindependent research effort beingundertaken to support the robust scientific and technological basis of the UK geological disposal programme. All sections are well-written and edited,concisely laid-out with clear andappropriate figures, photographs anddata-tables, features that one has come to expect from a Mineralogical Society publication.

This ‘Photographic Guide to the Geologyof Britain and Ireland’ is sumptuouslypresented in hardback, with highproduction values on high quality paper,making the presentation of thephotographs large and spectacular. As well as including geology, the photosare very artistically pleasing. The text thataccompanies the photographs is wellwritten, even rather simple and a bitsparse! Even so, there is a comprehensiveglossary for the non-specialist, includingsome description of rock types,photographic details, suggestions forfurther reading and useful websites.

The book is suitable for everyone,particularly anyone interested inlandscapes. It includes 100 beautiful,

Shore to Summit

GEOSCIENTIST BOOKS & ARTS

often dramaticphotographs of suchclassic localities as thewhite Cliffs of Dover, theLong Mynd and Wrekin, Anglesey, theOld Man of Hoy and Helvellyn, arrangedin order of formation and telling thegeological story of the evolution of theBritish Isles.

The author describes volcaniceruptions, the collision of continents,upheavals and many deposition anderosion events. There are also diagramsdescribing processes such as folding andplate tectonics. The text describes thelandscapes in terms of how they wereformed, together with some idea of thehistory, legend, folklore and archaeologyof each area.

Halsall paints vivid historical picturesof the arrival of agriculture, deforestation,industrial revolution, and consequentenvironmental changes. Literature andmusic associated with the landscapesfeatured are mentioned (Mendelssohnand Fingal’s Cave, James Joyce andDoldrum Bay, etc.). The author mentionsmodern day amenity-use of landscapes,such as rock-climbing, and takes accountof the effects of the climate and weather.

She talks of the Anthropocene and theGaia hypothesis, and tells of thecatastrophic events that have occurredsince the start of life and of the morerecent changes in weather and climate(e.g. the modern absence of ‘Aprilshowers’, increased incidence of floods,plants flowering at unusual times and thethinning of polar ice). She repeats thefamiliar mantra that we have beenconducting ‘an experiment with theatmosphere’ whose outcome is‘uncertain’. She wonders what willhappen in the future; will we be called‘the plastic age’ by future geologists whofind the material deposited in our era?

This is an excellent general book foreveryone – it is not a detailed textbook forthe specialist! Halsall’s perspective on theworld is unusual and very stimulating.The book is interesting for all and must berecommended most strongly (andoutstanding value at £20). Anyone shouldbe proud to have it on their coffee-table.

Reviewed by Steve Rowlatt

SHORE TO SUMMIT: A PHOTOGRAPHIC GUIDE TOTHE GEOLOGY OF BRITAIN AND IRELANDFRAN HALSALL Published by Frances Lincoln Ltd. 2013 Hardback ISBN 978-0-7112-3348-5 192pp List price: £20.00 www.franceslincoln.com

RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT 2012NICK EVANS (Ed). Mineralogical Magazine Vol 76 (8),#501. December 2012. Mineralogical Society. ISSN0026-461X. Sbk. pp2865-3507.

A major stated objective of theconference was to make the latestindependent geoscientific research on thegeological disposal of radioactive waste(primarily in relation to the UK context)publicly available. In my opinion this has been amply fulfilled by thepublication of this volume, and is animpressive achievement.

The primary readership is thought tobe practising geoscientific professionalswithin the UK radioactive wastemanagement industry. However, thisvolume also provides a welcome (andlong overdue) public information sourcefor the general scientific orenvironmentally-concerned reader,documenting current progress andcontribution of independent geoscienceresearch to the radioactive wastemanagement and disposal strategy. A recommended read and valuablereference work.

Reviewed by Mark Griffin


How will it all end? Detailing thenumerous ways humans are impacting thenatural environment - with many scarygraphs - that is the Big Question withwhich this book leaves the reader. It covers all impacts you could think of,and some you might not - including“desecration of cave formations by speleologists”.

The historical context is nicely set,explaining how humans mouldedlandscapes over millennia – from the firstuse of fire, to tree-cutting, domestication ofanimals, and modification of water bodies. Impacts were not at forstnecessarily negative, with many societiesliving in sustainable harmony with nature. The big change now is ourunprecedentedly growing population,affluence and industrialisation.

Chapter 1 provides a short history ofour growing concerns. From the 1700s, theimpact of European colonisation onuninhabited lands was observed.Gradually, a better understanding of theimpact of deforestation, on water flows,recharge and erosion, emerged. In the mid

1800s, Mary Somerville deduced thatevery species played an important role,and destroying even one upsets nature’sbalance. In the 1900s, the sustainability of relentless development began to bequestioned, and recently, we “have begun to ponder whether the world isentering a spasm of unparalleled human-induced modification”.

The main part of the book reports onobserved impacts, with chapters on eachkey subject area: vegetation, animals, soil, water, geomorphology and climate. A second part focuses on the future,principally projections of climate changeimpacts. This approach seems out of linewith a concluding observation that “globalwarming is not the only big global issuewe face. Of immense and in many casesmore immediate importance are otheraspects of global change”, mentioning landuse, biodiversity, water shortage andquality, soil, erosion, salinisation, andpollution. While it is good to see themacknowledged, an opportunity to providemore detail and emphasis on future trendsin these other critical areas seems to havebeen missed.

Solutions will not be easily found orapplied, and some may themselvesgenerate negative impacts, with biofuelscited as an example. The author offerslittle by way of solutions, and even thequestion of whether to be pessimistic oroptimistic – where, indeed, it all may end –are left (perhaps unsurprisingly) open.

Now in its seventh edition since 1981, itis up-to-date with 2013 data andreferences. Overall, it is an excellent andwell illustrated reference that helpscounter the risk of single-issue fixation byvirtue of its measured, broad and yet alsodetailed approach.

Reviewed by Peter Easton

Human Impact on theNatural Environment

THE HUMAN IMPACT ON THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT- PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE (7TH EDN.)ANDREW GOUDIE Published by Wiley-Blackwell 2013 ISBN978-1-118-57658-8 (paperback) 422pp List price: £34.95 (Also available as hard cover and e-book) www.wiley.com

BOOKS & ARTS GEOSCIENTIST

Gravity and MagneticExplorationThis June the Geological Society wasselling a copy of Nettleton’s 1971 classic‘Elementary Gravity and Magnetics’, whichcovered both disciplines in 121 pages.Now, however, magnetics has become theinevitable ‘must have’ in airbornegeophysical surveys, and the last 10 yearshave seen an explosion in the use ofairborne gravity and gradiometry. Not surprisingly, Nettleton’s most recentsuccessors now need more than 500pages, and a dedicated website, to coverthe same ground.

In their book the separate sections forgravity and magnetics are divided intochapters on basic method, underlyingmathematics, anomaly sources, dataacquisition, data processing andinterpretation. Each section has a generalintroduction and is rounded off with achapter on applications and an appendixon data processing. The applicationchapters are brief, but are supported by anadditional 282 pages on the website.

Each chapter begins with an overviewand ends with a summary of ‘KeyConcepts’, and these are actually essential,because, although the authors emphasisethe importance of GPS technology in thefield, they unfortunately failed torecognise that readers also neednavigation aids. Their index is too short,and their choice of key words is eccentric.For example, they choose to list someremarkably obscure satellites but noteither gravity gradiometry or tilt-angleinterpretation, two topics actually quiteadequately covered.

The lack of colour maps is alsodisappointing. The grey half-tones arealmost unusable, and their full-colourcounterparts on the website aresometimes little better. Thus any chanceto communicate excitement at thespectacular magnetic images of entirecontinents or at the intricacies of sea-floorspreading revealed by gravity has beenlost, and one is left wondering if it waseven recognised.

The authors, one feels, do not ‘do’excitement. They make a serious andconscientious attempt to cover the wholeof a rapidly expanding discipline, but areunlikely to attract new converts to it. A shorter book would have done that jobbetter, with no loss of content, simply bytighter writing. Almost every sentence isat least half as long again as it needs to be,and this matters when writing for anindustry where everyone is chronicallyshort of time.

Reviewed by John Milsom

GRAVITY AND MAGNETIC EXPLORATION.PRINCIPLES, PRACTICES AND APPLICATIONSWILLIAM J, HINZE, RALPH R B VON FREESE & AFIF H SAIDPublished by Cambridge University Press 2013. ISBN 978-0-521-87101-3. 515pp. List price: £40.00www.cambridge.org/gravmag

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n NEW! Dangerous Neighbors: Volcanoes &Cities by Grant Heiken. Cambridge University

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Stephenson Elsevier 2013. 143pp pbk.

REVIEWS: COPIES AVAILABLEPlease contact [email protected] ifyou would like to supply a review. For a full upto date list go to www.geolsoc.org.uk/reviews


GEOSCIENTIST PEOPLE

IN MEMORIAM WWW.GEOLSOC.ORG.UK/OBITUARIES

THE SOCIETY NOTES WITH SADNESS THE PASSING OF:

In the interests of recording its Fellows' work for posterity, the Society

publishes obituaries online, and in Geoscientist. The most recent

additions to the list are shown in bold. Fellows for whom no obituarist has

yet been commissioned are marked with an asterisk (*). The symbol §

indicates that biographical material has been lodged with the Society.

If you would like to contribute an obituary, please email

[email protected] to be commissioned. You can read the

guidance for authors at www.geolsoc.org.uk/obituaries. To save

yourself unnecessary work, please do not write anything until you have

received a commissioning letter.

Deceased Fellows for whom no obituary is forthcoming have their names

and dates recorded in a Roll of Honour at

www.geolsoc.org.uk/obituaries.

PEOPLE Geoscientists in the newsand on the move in the UK,Europe and worldwide

CAROUSEL

All fellows of the Society are entitled to entires in this column.Please email [email protected], quoting yourFellowship number. Bestow, Trevor *

Blackburn, James Kirk *

Bowler, Christopher Michael Lance *

Chapman, W T *

Holroyd, J D *

Hudson, Neal F C *

Jacqué, Maurice *

Jones, Brian Lloyd *

Middleton, John *

Miller, James *

Million, Ronald *

Moffatt, William Stewart *

Robson, Geoffrey Robert *

Spencer, Peter Murray *

Spurr, Arthur M M*

Vincent, E A (‘David’)*

Williams, Colin L *

n ALAN F COOK Alan F Cook worked in

geotechnical engineering

for most of his career, but

maintained a research

interest in Cambrian

trilobites in North

Warwickshire. As early

1972 he began to find a little known trilobite fauna in the

area in 1972, with subsequent finds in 1977. In 1985 he found a

new species, which was later confirmed by Dr A W A Rushton in

2011 and has now been named Luhops coquus (Latin for Cook).

n RICHARD HERRINGTON Richard Herrington has taken over from Andy

Fleet as head of the Department of Earth

Sciences at the Natural History Museum. The

department was formed from the Departments

of Mineralogy and Palaeontology last year.

Andy moves to being Assistant Director of

Science at the NHM.

n PAUL MALIPHANT Paul Maliphant, formerly Vice President of

the Society, has become a Fellow of the

Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE) via the

special route of Presidential Invitation -

‘offered selectively to people of prominence

and high reputation in the field of

civil engineering’.

n JOHN MATHERJohn Mather, on behalf of the Society, and

together with his wife Jen, gave the second

oration at a rededication of the gravestone of

William Baker FGS at a ceremony in

Bridgwater recently. You can read more

about the largely self-taught Baker (1757-

1853) who was proposed for Fellowship by

William Buckland, at www.bridgwaterscientists.org.uk/baker/.


PEOPLE GEOSCIENTIST

DISTANT THUNDER The gift that kept on giving

In 1910, the roommate of Alfred

Wegener (1880-1930) was given

a copy of the newly revised 5th

edition of Andree’s Handatlas for

Christmas. “For hours weadmired the magnificent maps”Wegener wrote to his thenfiancée (later wife) Else Köppen.And then, he reported, inspirationstruck. “A thought occurred tome …Does not the east coast ofSouth America fit the west coastof Africa as though they hadbeen contiguous in the past?Even better is the fit seen on thebathymetric map of the Atlanticwhen comparing ... the break-offinto the deep sea. I must followthis up.” The result of his further

investigations led to his

proposing the theory of

continental drift - the idea that

the break-up and drifting apart of

a supercontinent, Pangaea, from

the Late Palaeozic , was

responsible for the configuration

of continents and oceans that we

see today.

BACONAs long ago as 1620 Francis

Bacon had noted the way that

modern day continents fit

together. But when Wegener,

then better known as a physicist

and meteorologist, presented the

theory of continental drift at a

meeting of the GeologischeVereinigung (GV) in 1912,

and that same

year published it

in Peterman’s

GeographischeMitteilungen and

in the GV journal,

GeologischeRundschau, the

initial response

within the geological

community was

outrage. No one could envisage

a mechanism by which

continents could be moved.

But nevertheless the seeds

were sown, and the rest, as they

say, is history. Supporters of the

continental drift theory emerged,

mechanisms were proposed.

Today there are few, if any,

geologists who don’t subscribe

to the theory of plate tectonics.

But as well as moving

mountains, the theory of

continental drift also stimulated

academic minds and promoted

the idea of collaborative science.

Wegener acknowledged that

even those colleagues who

remained sceptical about

continental drift were generous in

contributing the references he

needed to back his theory, saving

him, he noted, “nine tenths of mytime”. And it can be argued that

the search for a mechanism to

explain continental drift led to the

widespread application of

geophysics in marine geology.

This, in turn resulted in the

discovery of mid-ocean ridges

and deep-sea trenches, and

demonstrated that far from

being flat and boring – the sea

floor is, tectonically speaking,

where it’s at.

In terms of generating new

theories, opening up new fields

of research and stimulating new

ideas that lead

to a greater

understanding of

many areas geology,

that copy of

Andree’s Handatlashas certainly proved

to be the Christmas

gift that changed

the world.

A happy holiday

season to all!

HELP YOUR OBITUARISTThe Society operates a scheme for Fellows to depositbiographical material. The object is to assist obituaristsby providing contacts, dates and other information, andthus ensure that Fellows’ lives are accorded appropriateand accurate commemoration. Please send your CVand a photograph to Ted Nield at the Society.

If the past is the key to yourpresent interests, why not jointhe History of Geology Group(HOGG). For more informationand to read the latest HOGGNewsletter visit the HOGGwebsite at: www.historyofgeologygroup.co.uk, whereyou’ll find abstracts for the talksand posters presented at theConference on Geological

Collectors and Collecting, April2011 available free to downloadas a pdf file.

* Nina Morgan is a geologist andscience writer based near Oxford

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSources for this vignette include:Alfred Wegener, 100 years of

mobilism by Wolfgang R. Jacoby,Geoscientist, vol 22 no 9, October2012; How plate tectonics clicked,by Naomi Oreskes, Nature, vol 501,5 September 2013, pp. 27-29;Dating the Spreading Seafloor,chapter 12 in Much Ado about

[practically] nothing: a history of the

noble gases, by David E. Fischer,OUP, 2010 [ISBN 978-0195393965].For more background on continentalbreakups and plate tectonics see:Supercontinent by Ted Nield, Granta,2007 [ISBN 978-0674032453]

The first map of Pangaea, envisioned in the mind ofAlfred Wegener: the gift that keeps on giving

Geologist and science writer Nina Morgan celebrates a Christmas gift that sparked off a geological revolution

GEOSCIENTIST OBITUARY

Exemplary lecturer and tutor at Sheffield University, with wide geological interests

MARTIN ANDREW WHYTE 1945-2013

OBITUARY

artin Whyte,born 27 March1945 inEdinburgh, wasthe eldest of

three children of the Rev.James Whyte and his wifeElisabeth of Oban. Here,beach-combing sowed theseeds of his enthusiasm fornatural history and later,palaeontology. The familyreturned to Edinburgh,where he attended DanielStewart’s College, beforemoving to St. Andrews in1957. Martin attendedMadras College from 1957-1963 where he met Carol, hisfuture wife. He went on tocomplete a BSc HonoursDegree at St. Andrews(1967), before moving toEdinburgh where he wasawarded a PhD (1973) for his

thesis, ‘Palaeoecology ofUpper Viséan MarineMudstones, near Dunbar, EastLothian’. Martin and Carolwere married in St Andrewsin 1968.

SHEFFIELDIn 1971 Martin moved to HullUniversity where he was aResearch Assistant in Geologyuntil 1973, and then aResearch Fellow until 1974,when he was appointedLecturer in the Department ofGeology, University ofSheffield. Here he remaineduntil retiring in 2010, having become SeniorLecturer in 1997.

Martin’s geologicalinterests were exceptionallywide. Initially his expertise inCarboniferous stratigraphyand palaeoecology dominated

searching for exoticphosphatisation of parasitesand other organisms.Research on dinosaur eggmorphology andpreservation, with Chinesecolleagues, resulted inpresentations atinternational meetings inFrance and the USA. Mostrecently, he identified thelargest known trackway ofa eurypterid, from theLower Carboniferous of Scotland.

Martin was a member ofeight learned societies,serving on the Council ofThe Geologists’ Association(1997-2001) and as aCouncil Member (1984,2005), Secretary (1988-1989)and President of theYorkshire GeologicalSociety (2006-2008). He wasa regular and frequentvisitor to the Society libraryin Burlington House.

Martin was anexemplary lecturer andtutor, never too busy to seestudents, an enthusiasticlecturer, and a helpful,supportive and patientsupervisor to his manypostgraduate students. As a colleague, he wasalways willing to answerany query, frequently usinghis meticulously organisedreprint, textbook andspecimen collections.

Martin died 25 June 2013 in Sheffield, and issurvived by his wife, three children (Jennifer,Carolyn and Andrew) andthree grandchildren.

his publications. In the 1970s and 80s he completedworks on Carboniferousstratigraphy, bivalves,barnacles and crinoids.However, papers on ‘TurningPoints in PhanerozoicHistory’ published in Natureand thematic volumes,demonstrated his ability tosee the broader picture.

In the early 1980s hebecame interested in dinosaurfootprints from the MiddleJurassic of Yorkshire. Herecognised the potential for amodern scientific approach,and was responsible, in 1996,for inviting volunteers fromEarthwatch International tosearch for dinosaur footprintsalong the Yorkshire coast.This resulted in numerouspublications, and putYorkshire dinosaur tracks onthe international stage.

BARNACLESMartin also pursued othergeological interests. Heworked on biomineralisationin barnacles and gave invitedtalks in Japan. Hisrecognition of phosphaticbarnacles is regarded as themost significant advancesince the work of Darwin.His study of soft tissuepreservation in bivalves ledto collaborative work By John Mather

M

‘

MARTIN WAS AN EXEMPLARYLECTURER AND TUTOR,NEVER TOO BUSY TOSEE STUDENTS

~~


CROSSWORD GEOSCIENTIST

All correct solutions will be placed in the

draw, and the winner’s name printed in

the March 2014 issue. The Editor’s

decision is final and no correspondence

will be entered into. Closing date -Friday 24 January.

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]

Name ....................................................

...............................................................

Membership number ...........................

Address for correspondence ..............

...............................................................

...............................................................

...............................................................

...............................................................

...............................................................

...............................................................

Postcode ..............................................

SOLUTIONS OCTOBER

ACROSS: 1 Homeomorph 6 KCal 9 Faraday

10 Abdomen 12 Parameters 13 RAF

15 Eunuch 16 Aureoles 18 Meanders

20 Ethane 23 Tor 24 Travertine 26 Zeugmas

27 Sporran 28 Aide 29 Ecosystems

DOWN: 1 Haft 2 Murrain 3 Ordnance Datum 4 Oxygen

5 Pleateaux/s 7 Cameral 8 Lungfishes

11 Dissertations 14 Pelmatozoa 17 Triassic

19 Aground 21 Aintree 22 Seism 25 Anus

WIN A SPECIAL PUBLICATION

The winner of the October Crosswordpuzzle prize draw was Mike Walter

of Doncaster.

CROSSWORD NO. 175 SET BY PLATYPUS

1 Organised structure found in cell

nuclei containing DNA, RNA

and proteins (10)

6 British research funder supporting

the environmental sciences

(1,1,1,1)

9 Leave off (7)

10 Iranian capital (old spelling) (7)

12 Seeker after mineral wealth (10)

13 Sliding footstick (3)

15 Fixed, stable, constant in rate (6)

16 Combine into one (8)

18 Use and profit of a thing, but not

the thing itself (8)

20 Searcher after lost time (6)

23 Rocky source of valuable mineral

(3)

24 Temperature-sensitive heating

control (10)

26 Acid that contains cyanide (7)

27 Phenyl group attached to an

amino group, fishy feedstock of

many organic chemical processes

(7)

28 Anger (4)

29 Of equal temperature (10)

1 Passage bringing a piece of music

to an end (4)

2 Minerals that are valuable and

legally, economically and

technically feasible to extract (7)

3 Stony–iron meteorites consisting of

roughly equal parts of nickel-iron

and silicate (13)

4 Rocky equivalent of a Period (6)

5 Genetic change (8)

7 Northern hemisphere landmass

stretching from the Atlantic to

the Pacific (7)

8 Buoyant sialic crustal element (10)

11 Home of the emponymous 55Ma

Puddingstone (13)

14 Recrystallised micrite (10)

17 To English speakers only, systems

of organised knowledge

characterised by experiment (8)

19 Not identical in quantity (7)

21 Naturally radioactive element

feedstock of the nuclear industry

(7)

22 One way of forming stishovite (6)

25 Ridge on the venter, usually

defined by sulci (4)

ACROSS DOWN



RECR

UITM

ENT

First Announcement

Tsunami Hazards and Risks: Using the Geological Record

– twin symposia organised by the Geological Society of Japan and the

Geological Society of London –

Kagoshima, Japan, 14th September 2014 and London, UK, 25th September 2015

With Earth’s growing population clustered increasingly on coastlines,tsunami hazards are of concern worldwide. A linked pair of one-daysymposia, to be held in Japan and the UK in 2014 and 2015, will bring together geoscientists and risk assessors to consider tsunamihazard in an integrated manner, with a view to facilitating morequantitative and evidence-based evaluation of their scale, nature,location and timescales.

The first Symposium (Japan), will focus principally on the geologicalevidence and the Pacific Rim, whilst the second Symposium (UK) willfocus on the North Atlantic and Mediterranean regions, tsunamimodelling and hazard and risk assessment.

Tsunami and their Geological Evidence: 14th September 2014,Kagoshima, Japan (note: this will be held as part of the 2014 AnnualMeeting of the Geological Society of Japan). - Part I: Seismic tsunami- Part II: Non-seismic tsunami- Part III: Developments in tsunami sedimentology

Planned post-symposium 2 to 3-day field excursions to Kakegawa onthe Pacific coast of central Honshu, about 250 km SW of Tokyo, andthe Boso Peninsula, at the mouth of Tokyo Bay.

Tsunami Impacts and Risks: 25th September 2015, London, UK. - Part IV: Tsunami in Europe and the Atlantic Margins- Part V: Tsunami Impacts- Part VI: Risk and Economic Modelling

Planned field excursion to the Shetland Islands to examine the traces ofthe prehistoric tsunami caused by the Storegga slide.

Contact [email protected] for further details ofSymposium 1 (Kagoshima) and any of the following conveners fordetails of Symposium 2 (London): Neil Chapman:[email protected]; Ellie Scourse: [email protected]; Dave Tappin: [email protected]

Puddingstone and relatedsilcretes of the Anglo-Paris Basingeological and archaeological perspectives

Burlington House, London, UK

A joint meeting of the Geological Society, the Geologists Association and the Society of Antiquaries

16-19 May 2014

Conveners: Jenny Huggett (Petroclays)

Chris Green (Society of Antiquaries)

Rory Mortimore(Geologists Association)

Hertfordshire Puddingstone and its regional counterparts havelong been of interest to both geologists and archaeologists,while recent developments in the understanding of modernsilcrete and recent petrographic and stable isotope studies ofthe puddingstone silica cements are providing new insightsinto the origin of puddingstone. Even though HertfordshirePuddingstone is a remarkably tough rock, it has been found inplace in only a few locations. In contrast, puddingstone that hasbeen moved and used by humankind is much more common. Inparticular, Roman puddingstone querns are found over a widearea and are of particular interest to archaeologists. In the lastsix years there has been growing cooperation betweengeologists and archaeologists on puddingstones studies, toinvestigate both the Hertfordshire Roman puddingstone quarryand to look further afield. In 2011 a second Romanpuddingstone quarry was found in Northern France, in an areaof the Paris Basin that includes fossiliferous Paleogenepuddingstone. The meeting will cover puddingstones andsilcretes of similar age in both the Hampshire and Paris Basins,and the weekend field trip will include East Hertfordshire/Essex, then Saint-Saëns and Sotteville in Northern France. It isanticipated that both the meeting and the post-conferencefield trips will lead to further co-operative research betweenarchaeologists and geologists.

Speakers include:Bryan Lovell, David Nash, Mike Parker Pearson, Jane Tubb, Chris Green, Jenny Huggett, Tony Brown

For further information please contact:Georgina Worrall, The Geological Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG

T: 020 434 9944E: [email protected]: www.geolsoc.org.uk/puddingstone14

Deep sea chemosynthetic ecosystems: where they are found, how theywork and what they looked like in the geological past

Lyell Meeting 2014

The Geological Society, Burlington House

The ocean exploration in the past 40 years has revolutionised ourknowledge of ecological adaptations of life in the deep sea andassociated mineralogical resources. In the cold and dark ocean depthsabundant animal communities flourish where fluids rich in methane,hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen and other chemically reducedcompounds are released from the sea floor at hydrothermal ventsand cold seeps. Similar communities occur where large pieces oforganic matter, such as whales and wood, have sunk to the bottom ofthe sea. Life teems at these so-called chemosynthetic sites because ofthe huge amount of chemical energy available, and numeroussymbiotic relationships of animals with chemoautotrophic bacteria.The same chemosynthesis-based communities are being increasinglyrecognised in the geological record, giving important new insightsabout the evolution of these communities through time. Part of thisrecord comes from massive sulphide deposits, which are a significanteconomic resource.

This meeting will bring together geologists, marine biologists andecologists, palaeontologists and geomicrobiologists to highlightrecent achievements in our understanding of chemosyntheticecosystems, past and present. We will explore the complexrelationships between geology and life at these sites; details ofchemosymbiotic animal-microbial interactions; and how and whenanimals adapted to life in these extreme environments. Finally, recenthypotheses about the existence of similar ecosystems on other SolarSystem planets will be presented.

Conveners:Silvia Danise (Plymouth University),Crispin Little (University of Leeds)

Speakers include: Jonathan Copley (University ofSouthampton) Orbis non sufficit:going beyond biogeography inunderstanding the ecology of deep-sea hydrothermal vents

Nadine Le Bris (Université Pierre etMarie Curie-Paris, France) Intimatelinks between chemosynthetic faunaand their chemical environment: amicrohabitat perspective

Richard Herrington (Natural HistoryMuseum) The economic importanceof modern seafloor massive sulphidedeposits and their ancient analogues

Marina Cunha (Universidad de Aveiro,Portugal) Ecology and biogeographyof cold seep fauna, with insights fromthe Northeast Atlantic

Jörn Peckman (Wien Universität,Austria) Biogeochemical processes atancient and modern methane-seeps

Jillian Petersen (Max Planck Institutefor Marine Microbiology, Germany)Chemosynthetic symbioses at ventsand seeps: Tapping dark energy inthe deep sea

John Taylor (Natural History Museum)Chemosymbiotic bivalves from theintertidal to deep sea – multipleorigins, diversity and evolution

Adrian Glover (Natural HistoryMuseum) Chemosynthesis at whale-falls and their role in driving thespeciation and evolution of annelidsin the deep sea

Steffen Kiel (Universität Göttingen,Germany) Chemosyntheticecosystems through Earth history

Monica Grady (The Open University)Astrobiological implications ofchemosynthesis and the possibility oflife beyond the Earth

Further informationFor further information about the conference please contact:

Naomi Hewbold, Conference Office, The Geological Society,Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG

Tel: 0207 434 9944Email: [email protected]: www.geolsoc.org.uk/lyell14Follow this event on Twitter: #lyell14

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