With 2013 commemorating several major, but not necessarily geological, inventions and events of fifty years ago there are so many from which to pick that it’s been challenging to select the most appropriate. Perhaps, it’s worth noting that the first episode of the time travelling ‘Doctor Who’ was broadcast on 23 rd November, 1963 - the dastardly murderous Daleks appeared a month later. Extra terrestrially astronaut Gordon Cooper orbited the Earth in the final solo Mer- cury mission on 15 th -16 th May; exactly a month later, Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. In England, a train on the west coast main line was stopped in Buckinghamshire and crooks carried off 120 mail sacks stuffed with £2.6 million of used bank notes. Geologically, the beginning of the year saw the idyllic island of Bali devastated (with some 1700 deaths) by the eruption of the Mount Agung strato-volcano. At its close, the icy waters off Iceland saw the emergence of the Surtsey tuff-cone volcano. Now if you’re wondering what links these disparate elements just think of the pre- sent festive season. NORAD is busy tracking, not rockets and missiles but, the progress of a space skimming bio-powered vehicle carrying a large jolly chap (but no women passengers reported!) with sacks stuffed full of goodies. Meanwhile, on the ground, many people are celebrating a birth (sadly followed by the deaths of the innocents) to a travelling lady and hope eternal. Whether a believer or not in those two travellers it is a time of the year to remember past losses, to look to the coming New Year, and to reflect upon how we all share and need to protect one small (as the Mercury photographs perhaps first brought home) and precious globe. E D I T O R I A L E D I T O R I A L Welcome to the final Newsletter for 2013. As always I must thank those few faithful contributors and express a big wel- come to the new ones - I just hope they will all keep going into 2014! Now as you tuck into your mince pies, it is worth reflecting that the Newsletter is a quarterly window into all of our geoconservation activities for both ourselves and a wider audience. As your humble Editor I can only report what is made available to me and that clearly isn’t all that’s hap- pened - looking at various member groups’ newsletters - this, or is planned for next, year! So, how about making a New Year resolution to send in your news as it happens and to give me the delight- fully hard task of selecting the most sea- sonally appropriate? I will look forward to Santa’s all year round little helper’s email sack being much fuller in 2014! TOM HOSE ENGLAND:- GeoSuffolk Cheshire RIGS London Geodiversity Partnership Bedfordshire Geology Group Dorset’s Important Geological page 2 2 3 4 4 & 6 NEWS ITEM:- The FGB3D Project Welsh Consultations The Scottish Geodiversity Forum The Earth Science Education Forum The English Geodiversity Forum 5 7 7 8 9 MEETINGS and CONFERENCES:- The Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 150th Anniversary Symposium The GCUK AGM & GA Festival of Geology HOGG Meeting at the National Museum of Wales 9 10 11 ISSUE CONTENTS In this End of Year we Commemorate . . . Who and What?!! In this End of Year we Commemorate . . . Who and What?!! GeoConservationUK GeoConservationUK Newsletter Newsletter 16 16 th th December 2013 December 2013 Volume 4, Number 4 Volume 4, Number 4 Wishing a Merry Time to You All! Wishing a Merry Time to You All!
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With 2013 commemorating several major, but not necessarily geological, inventions and events
of fifty years ago there are so many from which to pick that it’s been challenging to select the
most appropriate. Perhaps, it’s worth noting that the first episode of the time travelling ‘Doctor
Who’ was broadcast on 23rd November, 1963 - the dastardly murderous Daleks appeared a
month later. Extra terrestrially astronaut Gordon Cooper orbited the Earth in the final solo Mer-
cury mission on 15th-16th May; exactly a month later, Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova
became the first woman in space. In England, a train on the west coast main line was stopped
in Buckinghamshire and crooks carried off 120 mail sacks stuffed with £2.6 million of used
bank notes. Geologically, the beginning of the year saw the idyllic island of Bali devastated
(with some 1700 deaths) by the eruption of the Mount Agung strato-volcano. At its close, the
icy waters off Iceland saw the emergence of the Surtsey tuff-cone volcano.
Now if you’re wondering what links these disparate elements just think of the pre-
sent festive season. NORAD is busy tracking, not rockets and missiles but, the
progress of a space skimming bio-powered vehicle carrying a large jolly chap (but
no women passengers reported!) with sacks stuffed full of goodies. Meanwhile, on
the ground, many people are celebrating a birth (sadly followed by the deaths of
the innocents) to a travelling lady and hope eternal. Whether a believer or not in
those two travellers it is a time of the year to remember past losses, to look to the
coming New Year, and to reflect upon how we all share and need to protect one
small (as the Mercury photographs perhaps first brought home) and precious globe.
E D I T O R I A LE D I T O R I A L
Welcome to the final Newsletter for 2013. As always I must
thank those few faithful contributors and express a big wel-
come to the new ones - I just hope they will all keep going
into 2014! Now as you tuck into your mince pies, it is worth
reflecting that the Newsletter is a quarterly window into all of
our geoconservation activities for both ourselves and a wider
audience. As your humble Editor I can only report what is
made available to me and that clearly isn’t all that’s hap-
pened - looking at various member groups’ newsletters -
this, or is planned for next, year! So, how about making a
New Year resolution to send in your news
as it happens and to give me the delight-
fully hard task of selecting the most sea-
sonally appropriate? I will look forward to
Santa’s all year round little helper’s email
sack being much fuller in 2014! TOM HOSE
ENGLAND:- GeoSuffolk Cheshire RIGS London Geodiversity Partnership Bedfordshire Geology Group Dorset’s Important Geological
page 2 2 3 4 4 & 6
NEWS ITEM:- The FGB3D Project Welsh Consultations The Scottish Geodiversity Forum The Earth Science Education Forum The English Geodiversity Forum
5 7 7 8 9
MEETINGS and CONFERENCES:- The Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 150th Anniversary Symposium The GCUK AGM & GA Festival of Geology HOGG Meeting at the National Museum of Wales
9 10 11
ISSUE CONTENTS
In this End of Year we Commemorate . . . Who and What?!! In this End of Year we Commemorate . . . Who and What?!!
HOGG meeting at the National Museum of Wales HOGG meeting at the National Museum of Wales —— 1515thth
November, 2013 November, 2013
GeoConservationUK acknowledges the support of Rockhounds Welcome! in the production of this Newsletter
It is perhaps not widely known by many in the geocon-
servation movement that during the first half of the 20th
century, the first Keeper of Geology at the National Mu-
seum of Wales, Frederick John North, put together a tru-
ly remarkable collection of early geology maps and pa-
pers — most notably including several copies of William
Smith’s 1815 map and G. B. Greenough’s 1820 map,
together with some of William Buckland’s correspond-
ence relating to the discovery of the Red Lady of Pavi-
land, and the diaries and letters of H. T. De la Beche.
The collection continued to grow under North’s succes-
sors, Douglas Bassett and Michael Bassett. Some of this
material should feature in a major exhibition at the Muse-
um in 2015; when it is hoped GCUK member groups will
also help to celebrate the bicentennial of William Smith.
The HOGG meeting superbly put together by Tom
Sharpe (see right - standing on the right), scheduled on a
Friday due to the required Museum behind the scenes
access, focussed on some of the highlights of the collec-
tion such as De la Beche’s original watercolour of Duria
Antiquior (see top right) and also provided a rare oppor-
tunity to view several issues of side by side of Smith’s
1815 map. One of these (see middle right) was of some
interest for its incomplete condition and history - having
seemingly been rescued from a bonfire in the 1930s!
The meeting also allowed a comparison of Smith’s and
Greenough’s maps. Of especial interest was the chance
to view a (much faded) and recently discovered annotat-
ed copy of the latter map that had hung in the Geological
Society’s apartments in London until 1932.
On the Saturday an informal field trip was arranged to
visit the monument at Llandaf Cathedral to William Dan-
iel Conybeare (where he was Dean from 1845 to 1857)
and to Sully (where he was rector from 1822 to 1835) to
look at the local geology he encountered daily and also
shared with distinguished visiting fellow geologists such
as Sedgwick and Murchison. Tom Hose
GeoConservationUK Executive Committee
Chair: Mike Browne - Lothian and Borders GeoConservation Group
Secretary: Lesley Dunlop - Berkshire Geoconservation Group
Treasurer: Alan Cutler - Black Country Geological Society
Committee Members: Dr. Ken Addison - Gwynedd and Mon RIGS Keith Ambrose - Leicestershire and Rutland RIGS Prof. Cynthia Burek - NEWRIGS Dr. Kevin Crawford - Cheshire RIGS Dr. Thomas A. Hose - Bedfordshire Geology Group
Angus Miller - Scottish Geodiversity Forum Keith Nicholls - NEWRIGS Rick Ramsdale - Sheffield Area Geology Trust Sam Scriven - Dorset’s Important Geological Sites Group Dr. Ian Stimpson - GeoConservation Staffordshire
Webmaster: Craig Slawson Editor GCUK Newsletter: Dr. Thomas A. Hose [correspondence to: 14 Forge Close, Chalton, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU4 9UT] email: [email protected] Copy date for the next Newsletter is 28th February, 2014