Thursday January 18th 2007 - (evening lecture)Jamie Casford of Durham University - "Black Shales, Sapropels and Ocean Anoxic Events(OAE's)".

Abstract

"This talk will look at my current work on organic rich deposits of the Quaternary in the Eastern Mediterranean (sapropels) and my collaboration with John Marshall of the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton on the Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay deposits from the South coast.

"Sapropels found in the Eastern Mediterranean are important windows into past climate change and hence our understanding of future trends in climate. They are also widely regarded as analogues of the oil producing black shale deposits like those of the Kimmeridge Clay. These are thought to have been periods of enhanced biological productivity and reduced ocean circulation. In fact, the presence of chemical fossils has led many to believe these are periods where ocean circulation was so reduced that oceans stagnated and basin wide anoxia and even euxinia occurred (i.e. absence of dissolved oxygen in the water and sulphur reducing conditions incompatible with most life).

"However recently reported sapropel 'interruptions' represent centennial-scale episodes of enhanced frequency/ intensity of intermittent bottom-water ventilation and that this ventilation process appears to continued to occur throughout periods of sapropel deposition. This mechanism also provides insight into the differences in timing of and the depositional mechanisms in Black Shales and OAE's. Data from the Kimmeridge Clay also suggests that bottom water anoxia may have been spatially restricted and/or of an intermittent nature and that even where these conditions were present, they may be restricted to a veneer at the sediment/water interface.

"This has important implications to our understanding of how these organic rich deposits form and suggests we need to rethink our current understanding of the environments present during there deposition. "

Saturday 24th February 2007 - (afternoon public lecture) Dr Jenni Chambers of the Ice Age Network and Birmingham University - "The big chill: life in the ice age" 2-15pm at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull. Everyone welcome - admission free. Organised jointly by Hull Museums and the Hull Geological Society.

Jenni is "a Palaeolithic archaeologist specialising in lithic technology, with a special interest in the formation processes of secondary context Lower Palaeolithic assemblages - essentially handaxes in river gravels, which has led to lots of comedy experiments with replica artefacts and welsh rivers! "

"The National Ice Age Network (NIAN) is explicitly concerned with the archaeological, environmental and sedimentological evidence of the Ice Age uncovered during sand and gravel extraction activities. NIAN is an Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) funded initiative administered by English Heritage and English Nature, is seeking to strengthen contacts between archaeologists, geologists, Quaternary scientists and other specialists, quarry companies and the general public, thereby creating an inclusive and supportive network of those interested in the Ice Age.

"The Network has three main aims: Firstly, to build good working relationships with the quarry industry so that finds are reported and recorded in a manner as non-disruptive as possible to commercial activity on each site. Secondly, to visit all active aggregates extraction sites in England to assess their potential for preserving evidence useful for reconstructing past environments, and/or Palaeolithic artefacts. Wherever practical the potential of inactive sites will also be assessed. The third main aim is education and outreach, providing information to all interested parties (e.g. academic and commercial archaeologists, local history/archaeological societies about the nature of Ice Age evidence, how we identify it and how we use these lines of evidence to reconstruct past environments and behaviours." "

"Cyprus is probably most well known for the superb sequence of mantle and crustal rocks that once were the ocean crust but were subsequently obducted and displayed as the Troodos Mountains ophiolite. However the overlying sediments show a succession that shows a gradual facies change from deep-water sediments to river-mouth hyperpycnites. These sediments are dominantly carbonates although the Messinian evaporates and more recent clastic fanglomerates are exposed. The research was carried out in 2004 and aimed to look at a specific section of interbedded marls, micrites and calciturbidites. Through a combination of sedimentary logging, palynological samples, microscopy and fossil collecting it was hoped that the deposition of a faunal assemblage of Syngnathus pipefish could be corroborated with an earlier piece of work carried out by Gaudant et al (2000). The results contrasted heavily with this work despite a proximal location of study sites. What caused a variation in results? This talk aims to look briefly at some of the ideas mentioned in this synopsis including how to survive behind a bush in the Cypriot wilderness for a fortnight. "

Reference-

Gaudant, J. et al. 2000, A New Fossil Fish Fauna from the Middle Miocene (Serravallian) of Cyprus, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the Geology of the Eastern Mediterranean, pp. 327-337

Humberside Geologist number 14 was published in October. It is available in printed form or as a CDROM for six pounds.Members can collect their free copy from the Secretary, or request to receive a copy through the post if they cover the costs.

Joint meeting with the Yorkshire Geological Society - 28th October 2006. - "Papers on Palaeontology (a tribute to Professor John Neale)"

In the morning there was a "Pick your own Microfossils" workshop in the morning led by Mike Horne, Pattie McAlpin and Stuart Jones. This was attedned by twelve people. About 50 people attended the lectures in the afternoon.

Abstracts -

" Still going strong: palaeoecological research at Hull University" by Jane Bunting, Mike Rogerson and Jane Reed. "Hull has a long and rich tradition of micropalaeoontological and palaeoecological research, and of sharing these skills (particularly through the former Geology Department's M Sc in Micropalaeontology). This expertise did not disappear along with the Geology Department. This talk will briefly review current activities in these areas, and use case studies to show that palaeoecology is still a lively, varied and relevant discipline within the University.'

"Ostracods, Ancient And Modern A Review Of John Neale's Scientific Contribution", by Alan Lord, Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt and David J. Horne, Department of Geography, Queen Mary University of London. During a professional career of 42 years John Neale published 111 scientific papers and book chapters, and edited 5 books, mainly concerning the bivalved crustacean group Ostracoda. Although dominantly taxonomic in nature, this body of work includes an extraordinary range of material both living and fossil, from late Jurassic to modern in age, from a range of marine and non-marine environments, and demonstrates a pioneering combination of palaeontological and zoological methods.

"Silurian Events In The Howgill Fells, Cumbria", by Barrie Rickards The author will outline Professor John Neale's input to the beginnings of what has turned out to be a major research programme including the author's Ph.D. in 1963: the field training by Cambridge University of well over one thousand undergraduates and post graduates; and the publication of numerous papers on Silurian sedimentation, Caledonian and Variscan deformation, the graptolite and trilobite faunas, global correlation, and palaeoenvironments. And, latterly, extensive remapping of the Silurian, partly in conjunction with BGS and linked to mapping in the main Lake District outcrop and the Barbon and Middleton Fells to the south of Sedbergh. The current phase of research began sometime ago and involved interpreting the oxic and anoxic regimes in the Silurian ocean, using very precise correlative tools.

"A Glimpse Of The Near Future, From The Geological Past", by Mark Williams, Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester [mri@le.ac.uk] In the 18th and 19th centuries James Hutton and Charles Lyell developed the idea of using present Earth processes as a key to the geological past. But does the past also provide a clue to Earth's future? The past 50 million years of Earth history has been characterised by a gradual change from a Greenhouse to an Icehouse climate, but in the near future, global surface temperatures may rise by several °C as a result of greenhouse gas warming. This magnitude of warming has not happened for millions of years. From the Antarctic to the tropics, the fossil record provides a signal of past global climate change. How does this signal provide a key to the Earth's near future? That is the question to be explored in this lecture.

"The Earliest Cretaceous (Berriasian To Valanginian)Ammonite Faunas Of The Speeton Clay: What We Know And What We Don't", by Pete Rawson, UCL. The phosphatic nodule bed (D2D) at the base of the Hauterivian clays at Speeton marks an important divide; ammonites are reasonably common and well-preserved above, but generally rare and poorly preserved below. Almost 50 years ago Jack Doyle and John Neale discovered the first ammonites to be recorded from the lowest D beds (D7 and D6). These were described by Neale in 1962 (Palaeontology, vol. 5) as Laugeites?, Paracraspedites, Subcraspedites and Tollia. Their preservation was very poor so it is hardly surprising that within a few years Casey had challenged many of the generic identifications based on newly-discovered, better-preserved, related faunas from Norfolk and Lincolnshire. But Casey confirmed Neale's dating of this Speeton fauna as Berriasian in age. Bed D5 marks a brackish-water interval, without ammonites, but beds D4 to D2E have long yielded pyritised innermost whorls, some of which were figured by Pavlow and Lamplugh in 1892. Most are too small for firm identification, but they give tantalising glimpses of forms apparently closely related to Early Valanginian faunas from North Germany and the Russian Platform. Even more frustrating, several museums include beautifully preserved large Polyptychites that were collected by 19th century collectors but are never found today! One of the biggest challenges it to determine where these came from. The phosphatic nodule bed at the base of D2D is one of the most fascinating horizons. It includes both pyritised earliest Hauterivian Endemoceras and a wide range of phosphatised Valanginian taxa. The latter include representatives of nearly all the North German late Valangian zones, condensed into a few centimetres of sediment. The major stratigraphic break represented here can be traced across much of eastern England and into the North Sea Basin.

Jack Doyle has also gave a short personal tribute to John Neale. John Catt proposed a vote of thanks to the speakers.

Back numbers of Humberside Geologist and the new CD-ROM version were sale at the meeting.

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In the footsteps of Lamplugh.

Saturday 8th October 2005 - joint afternoon lecture meeting with Yorkshire Geological Society - looking at the work of G W Lamplugh and the progress made in local geology in the last 100 years. Speakers - John Catt, Mike Horne, Paul Hildreth, Rory Mortimore and Pete Rawson. (click here for abstracts) Followed by a field meeting.

I have compiled a CD-ROM of the October joint meeting. Included on the CD are recordings of three of the talks (as wav files), the text of two of the talks, a report of the field meeting and photographs of the displays and field meeting taken by Paul Richards. The CD should play on all modern computers that have web-browsing facilities; no technical support is offered. If you would like a copy of the CD please contact me - the cost is one pound if you plan to collect it, or two pounds if you would like me to post it to you (UK rate). Please make cheques payable to the "Hull Geological Society" and send to Mike Horne, 28 Salisbury Street, Hull, HU5 3HA.

Hull Museums - geology.

Local geologists, the Society and East Yorkshire RIGS Group have been worried that Hull Museums have not replaced Matt Stevens, who left the post of Keeper of Geology and Natural History over a year ago. In reply to enquiries we have discovered from Jayne Tyler in August 2005 that :-

"The Assistant Keeper of Natural History post has been deleted from Hull Museums Service as part of savings we had to make in terms of posts. This was not a decision we took lightly but one that followed a review of all of the City's Designated and non-designated collections and the use which was being made of the collections by the residents of Hull and the wider public. In a climate of local authority restructuring, reviews and reallocation of funding we have to continually justify the areas of our collections and Service which are being funded and the benefits for our community. I realise that this is not such good news for the areas of the Service which have been cut as a result of re-allocation of resources. The impact on the natural history/geology collection at present is that it is no longer an active collection but instead one that is being maintained and preserved by the Service. However we are pleased to inform you that we are currently seconding a natural history curator from the Yorkshire Hub to work on the maintenance of the collections on a monthly basis. This as you are aware is being carried out under the supervision of Bryan Sitch and a colleague at the Yorkshire Museum."

I feel that this will have an affect on the future of geological education, research and conservation in East Yorkshire. Please let me know what you think and I will arrange a meeting to put the Society's views to Jayne. I think that this is important - so please reply!

Here are some further details for some of the Hull Geological Society Meetings:-

Click here for some more information about the microscopy evenings.

Donald Beveridge, a past Vice-President of the Society died on Saturday 20th March 2004. Donald and his friend Harry Thompson were instrumental in the planning, fundraising, design and construction of the shelter at Rifle Butts SSSI.

A small group of Society members has started work on a research project to investigate the Quaternary deposits of the Flamborough coast. Please contact me if you are interested in helping.

If you missed our contribution to the BBC's Sense of Place project you can listen to it on the BBC Humber website - http://www.bbc.co.uk/humber/features/senseplace/04timeandtide.shtml

The "Hunting Dinosaurs in Argentina" lecture and "Stones and Bones" walk both attracted about 30 people. The Society thanks Hull Museums and Chris Ketchell (respectively) for their help.

Important news -

News about the geology books from the University Library:

Members of the Society 'rescued' a substantial number of geology books that were no longer required by the University Library. We are grateful to the University for the donation of the books and to the Library staff for their help.

The Society has formed a Library sub-committee to decide on the future of the books and make a proposal to next year's AGM. Stuart Jones has kindly allowed us to keep the books in a room at his house and has volunteered to act as Librarian. The sub-committee is planning to create a catalogue of the books and make this available to members.

As an interim plan of operation, members may borrow up to six books and periodicals from Stuart for a period of one month. Non-members may also borrow books and periodicals, subject to a five pounds' deposit for each item. Any costs involved in the loan are to be met by the borrower.

We are happy to accept the donation of other publications to the new Library. We have already received some maps of the geology of the North Sea and parts of Scotland.

Stephen Whitaker has donated some copies of the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society to our Library. This is a complete run from volume 34 (in 1963) to volume 52 (for 1999). We are grateful to Stephen for his donation.

Gordon Binns has donated about 50 books to the Library in August 2006.

You can contact Stuart on his mobile 'phone - number 07932 600 384

Classes organised by the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the Universtity of Hull :

"Fossils Through the Microscope" Course starts in January 2007. Ten Wednesday evenings from 7-30pm until 9-30pm at the University of Hull, Department of Geography. Places are limited so please register in advance.

- for further information Tel. 01482 465415 or click here

Click here for our news archive and the recent history of the Society