Wednesday 27 November 2013

Date for 2014 - Oxford Colloquium, March 8th

The Oxford Colloquium will be held on March 8th, with fringe events happening on March 8th & 9th.
Further details
Book the dates now!

Monday 25 November 2013

WRGS Offshore Wind farms - November 26th

Challenges of Investigation and Design in Complex Ground for Offshore Wind farms
Imad Alobaidi & Andrew Benson
26th November / 6:30pm refreshments from 6pm
As part of the drive for a low carbon economy, offshore renewables are becoming increasingly important with major investments in offshore wind farms expected over the next ten years. With the increasing size of offshore wind farms being constructed in deeper waters with complex ground conditions, a reliable ground model and engineering parameters are essential for efficient design and construction.
Atkins, The Hub (Ground Floor), 500 Park Avenue, Aztec West, Almondsbury, Bristol, BS32 4RZ
Further details from WRGS

New volcanic island south of Japam


Wednesday 20 November 2013

Build a dinosaur - 24th November


Build a Dinosaur!
Sunday, 24 November 2013
11am - 1pm and 2pm - 4pm



Discover the science behind reconstructing dinosaurs and work with Robert Nicholls, the man rebuilding the Bristol Dinosaur, to create your very own dinosaur model and paint it in your choice of colours. More information on Bob's work is on his website, Paleocreations.
Suitable for 7 - 12 years. Aprons will be available but be prepared to get messy!
£10 per child. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
For details on how to book a place, contact M Shed reception on 0117 35 26600 or via email at info@mshed.org

Friday 15 November 2013

Friday 8 November 2013

Tuesday 5 November 2013

November 12th - WEGA AND Western Region GS

On Tuesday 12 November, as well our regular WEGA session, there is a Western Regional Group (WRG) lecture. This coincidence continues with the respective speakers, Profs Brian Williams and Ted Nield, who are friends and also went to the same grammar school in Swansea!

WRG lecture: Ted Nield: Incoming! Or, Why We Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the Meteorite
Meteorites have been the stuff of legend throughout human history, and since 1980 the idea that dinosaurs were wiped out by a meteorite strike 65 million years ago has become one of the most widely known scientific ideas of all. However, the causes of the end Cretaceous mass extinction were complex, and the idea that major meteorite strikes are always bound to be bad news for life on Earth is being challenged by fresh discoveries. New research is suggesting that 470 million years ago, a stupendous collision in the Asteroid Belt (whose débris is still falling, to this very day) bombarded the Earth with meteorites of all sizes. A revolutionary idea is emerging that the resulting ecological disturbance may have been responsible not only for massive worldwide submarine landslides, but for the single greatest increase in biological diversity since the origin of complex life the hitherto unexplained Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event.
Ted Nield will be known to people from his role as editor of the Geological Society’s monthly magazine Geoscientist, and for his books Supercontinent and his most recent book, Incoming! 
WRG has extended an invitation to WEGA members to attend this lecture.
This talk will be in the Reynolds Lecture theatre (G25) and starts at 18:30


WEGA lecture: Brian Williams : From Bergs to Ergs: the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation of gondwana and its hydrocarbon potential
The supercontinent of Gondwana during Permo-Carboniferous times covered a vast area of some 120 million km2. It mainly comprised the land masses of Africa, Arabia, Australia, Antarctica, South America, India, Madagascar and Sri Lanka. Individual, largely intracratonic basins are of huge dimensions; over 600,000 km2 in South America (Parana Basin) and 450,000 km2 in Australia (Canning Basin). Glaciations shaped the landscape of the supercontinent particularly in the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian when it lay between 35o and 75o S. Petroleum prospectivity within this domain is still in an early phase although in excess of 100 fields have been discovered and are appraised at some 20 billion bbl of oil in place, mainly in Arabia, and 7-10 TCF of gas, largely in Australia. Hydrocarbon occurrences are most common within intracratonic basins with some restricted to foreland and rift basins. Source rocks tend to comprise older or younger mudrock sequences; trap styles are variable, and seal and reservoir rocks occur within the glaciogenic realm.
Glaciogenic facies comprise deposition in a bewildering kaleidoscope of environments and subenvironments assigned to supraglacial, subglacial, terminoglacial and proglacial settings although seal and reservoir facies are normally restricted to the latter two depositional realms. Basin infill-architecture is complex due to rapid changed in facies, both spatially and temporally, and the influence of periodic ice sheet advance and retreat producing multiple phases of erosion.
Current research, centred on Oman and West and South Australia, is addressing these key issues relating to the global evolution of the Permo-Carboniferous ice sheet, climatic versus tectonic control on sedimentation, characterisation of reservoir units and integration of outcrop with subsurface data.
The WEGA lecture will be in G8, and will start at 20:00. The regular WEGA wine and cheese event will be held at 19:30 following the WRG lecture

Monday 4 November 2013

Glaciation of the Polar Regions

November 7th - Glaciation of the Polar regions, James Cresswell, Geoworld Travel
James Cresswell has spent the last six years working as an expedition guide in the Polar Regions. This visual presentation, full of photos and video clips, gives an overview of the different forms and changing nature of 'ice' in these regions. The presentation discusses the great ice sheets, the floating ice shelves, as well as icebergs and sea ice. With the recent collapse of several Antarctic Ice Shelves, negative mass balance recorded for both the West Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, and 2012 being the year with the minimum ever recorded extent of Arctic Sea Ice; it is clear that polar ice is currently undergoing dramatic change.
7.30 p.m. at BRLSI, 16 Queen Square, Bath
Everyone welcome, visitors £4 - free refreshments