June 5th Hazardous terrain and disaster management & June 8th Bristol building stones walk

Bath Geological Society invite you to:-
June 5th - Space technologies, hazardous terrain and disaster risk reduction
Dr. Richard Teeuw, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Portsmouth
During the 21st century there have been major advances in the use of space technologies for the mapping of hazardous terrain and for disaster management. Natural hazards often have a devastating impact on poor countries - as illustrated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake and the 2013 Philippines typhoon/storm surge. This talk will examine how developments in satellite-based remote sensing are helping to reduce the impacts of natural hazards on communities, with case studies at the preparedness, crisis response and recovery stages of disaster management.
7.30 BRLSI, 16 Queen Square, Bath - visitors £4 - free refreshments - all welcome


Sunday June 8th - Bristol; heritage in stone with Elizabeth Devon
We shall follow part of the walk in the book ‘Bristol; heritage in stone’ by Eileen Stonebridge.
Meet outside the entrance to @Bristol at 10.30 a.m. Parking is available in the Millennium car park, access from Anchor Road. This is a pleasant area with cafes, restaurants and seats to eat sandwiches. The walk will take between 2 to 2.5 hours.
Free to members of Bath GS, WEGA, Bristol NATS (Geology) and WGG
Visitors £2

Landscape photos - Olivier Grunewald

 Superb landscape photos

24th May - 30th September - Jurassic Ark

Click here for further information

Quite a ride . . . .

This is fun! Make sure you turn on the sound before you click on this link.

'World's largest dinosaur' discovered in Argentina

The largest creature to have ever walked the earth has been discovered in Argentina. Its gigantic bones were found by a local farm worker in a desert in Patagonia, the southern Argentine region that has yielded many important dinosaur discoveries.
Based on the size of the thigh bones – taller than an average man – the dinosaur would have been 130 feet (39.6m) long and 65ft (19.2m) tall.
Its calculated 77-tonne weight would have made it as heavy as 14 African elephants, beating the previous record holder, Argentinosaurus, by some 7 tonnes.
The palaeontologists say the find is thought to be a new species of titanosaur – a huge herbivore of the long-necked sauropod group that lived in the Late Cretaceous period.
More info

May 20th Rifting in Africa - Seismological views from Afar

Rifting in Africa - Seismological views from Afar
Professor Mike Kendall, University of Bristol
The Western Regional Group is pleased to invite you to an evening presentation on rifting in Africa. 
The rifting of continents and eventual formation of ocean basins is a fundamental component of plate tectonics, yet the mechanism for break-up is poorly understood. Rifting of the continents leading to plate rupture occurs by a combination of mechanical deformation and magma intrusion, but the available driving forces have been estimated to be as much as an order of magnitude smaller than those required to rupture thick continental lithosphere. The East Africa Rift system (EARS) is an ideal place to study this; it captures the initiation of a rift in the south through to incipient oceanic spreading in north-eastern Ethiopia - Afar.
S.H. Reynolds Lecture Theatre (Room G25), Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol - 6.30 p.m. Everyone welcome

Well done geologists at Wells Cathedral School!

The National Schools Geology Challenge & Early Career Award 2014
On Thursday 8 May, the Geological Society held its third National Schools Geology Challenge and Early Careers Finals at Burlington House.

It was a very close final between the schools; Reading Blue Coat, Gower College and Wells Cathedral. Each school was judged on a poster about their chosen topic, then the students gave a 5 minute presentation, (followed by some probing questions from the judges!) and the final part was a general geology quiz.

The winners this year were Wells Cathedral School, whose chosen topic was “The Impact of Plate Tectonics on Life on Earth”.
Congratulations to their teacher David Rowley and his students!

New Information Board on Two Tunnels Greenway

A new geology information board has just been unveiled on the Two Tunnels Greenway in the cutting on the south side of Combe Down Tunnel.

The board depicts:-
- the rock formations of the tunnel and the surrounding area
- some history of how the rock was commercially quarried and mined
- the work of ‘the father of English geology’ William Smith
- the former Somerset and Dorset Railway which provided the track-bed upon which the path is built
Professional input is from Avon RIGS Group members Simon Carpenter and Andrew Mathieson.

myVolcano - app from BGS

myVolcano

myVolcano is a crowd-sourcing app that enables you to share your photographs and descriptions of volcanic hazards, as well as collecting samples and measurements of volcanic ash fall, helping scientists to gather vital new information about volcanic eruptions.

26th May to 31st August - GeoFest 2014

Discover more about the Geopark at the Malvern Hills GeoCentre and Bewdley Museum - displays, rock specimens and maps

Click here for further details