Lectures and Field Trips 2021/2022 21 July - The Ice Age in Cornwall: new perspectives on old problems. Professor James Scourse. 25 July (Sunday 2pm) - Field Trip - details below 18 August – The Nebra Sky Disc - Professor Gregor Borg. 15 September - ‘Pyrite’ The Ubiquitous Sulphide - Frank Howie. 20 October – Mining and Miners of Newton St Cyres - Brian Please. 17 November - Recording Earthquakes with a Raspberry Shake - Mark Vanstone. 15 December - Christmas event, details to follow 2022 19 January - Precariously balanced rocks - Anna Rood. 16 February – more information to follow Saturday 19th February - AGM, Penzance More details about all the above lectures and field trip, including zoom links below.
Wednesday 21 July at 7pm on zoom (rescheduled from January)
The Ice Age in Cornwall: new perspectives on old problems. Professor James Scourse, Centre for Geography and Environmental Science, University of Exeter (Penryn).
The recently completed 6-year BRITICE-CHRONO NERC Large Grant has reconstructed in great detail the Last British-Irish Ice Sheet. Highlights in our region include new extensive offshore ice limits, very tight constraints on the timing and extent of the glaciation on Scilly but brought into sharper focus some longstanding problems, such as where was the ice limit offshore north Cornwall, or was north Cornwall glaciated after all?
Join Zoom Meeting
https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/j/91009679650?pwd=ZXlMU2QxTkZpZ2JlcnQ5MzcrVkdQdz09
Meeting ID: 910 0967 9650
Password: 455406
Phone access to listen to the audio if you have no device or internet connection to join the talk:
+44 203 481 5240 United Kingdom
+44 208 080 6591 United Kingdom
Field Trip - Sunday 25 July from 2pm - Quaternary Geology on the Lizard to follow James Scourse’s RGSC lecture: Lowland Point (raised beach and loess) and Croft Pascoe, Holocene vegetational and landscape evolution to discuss the origins of the Cornish heath. Leaders James Scourse and Geoff Garbett. Families welcome but all under 16's must have an accompanying adult. There will be a walk of about 1 km to Lowland point. The fieldtrip is free for members but we ask £5 per household cash payment for non-members (refunded on joining the RGSC which is just £15 per year). If you would like to attend, please email your name(s) and address, telephone number, and the telephone number for an emergency contact to Beatrice Kerno (beatricekerno@yahoo.co.uk). You will then receive the joining instructions and further information.
Wednesday 18 August 7pm on zoom
The Nebra Sky Disc - Professor Gregor Borg, Professor of Economic Geology at Halle-University, Germany and Honorary Professor at Camborne School of Mines. https://www.campus-halensis.de/en/artikel/die-spur-nach-cornwall/
Wednesday 15 September 7pm on zoom
‘Pyrite’ - Frank Howie, Chair of Cornwall Geo-conservation Group. The Ubiquitous Sulphide.
Wednesday 20 October at 7pm on zoom
Mining and Miners of Newton St Cyres - Brian Please. Brian is local historian who lives in Newton St Cyres, and is descended from families from this part of Devon. He is member of the Newton St Cyres History Group, and discovered the remains of manganese mining in a field next to his home. It can be claimed that, together, Upton Pyne, Newton St Cyres had the first commercially successful manganese mines in the world! The talk explores those early mining ventures, how and why it was done, and who did it.
Wednesday 17 November at 7pm at Truro School if possible
Mark Vanstone, Director of Studies, Truro School: Recording earthquakes with a Raspberry Shake (provisional title)
Wednesday 19 January 2022 at 7pm on zoom
Anna Rood, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London
Precariously balanced rocks are ancient formations found throughout the world where a slender boulder is balanced in such a way as to be vulnerable to being pushed over by earthquake shaking. These natural balancing acts provide a geological record of seismic shaking of large, rare earthquakes, a record that could drastically improve estimates of future earthquake ground shaking.