Archive for category: Lectures

Tony being presented with Clough Medal 2023-24

Our annual Clough Medal lecture took place on 28th February at the Grant Institute, Kings Buildings Campus, University of Edinburgh and also broadcast online. The audience for this years’ lecture was well over 100 (50+ in person and 54 on line).  Whether the fact that the lecture was preceded by a “pizza and pop” event, kindly supported by a donation from an EGS Fellow, or whether it was cohort of Tony Prave’s supporters from the University of St Andrews, it did make for a great atmosphere on the evening.

Graham Leslie, Chair of the Clough Committee had the honours of explaining that the Clough Medal was established in 1935 and is given each year to a person who has contributed to a geologist whose original work has materially increased the knowledge of the geology of Scotland and/or the north of England, or one working in Scotland or the north of England who has significantly advanced the knowledge of any aspect of geology.

The medallist for 2023/24 was Professor Antony (Tony) Prave (School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews) who gave a lecture entitled “There is nothing left to learn about this scrap of NW Europe”.  He was presented with his medal by Mark Wilkinson, President of Edinburgh Geological Society.

Tony Prave started his academic career at The City University of New York in USA, before coming to the University of St Andrews in 1996 as a Senior Lecturer.  For the subsequent 27 years, he has carried a wide range of research; with two programmes having had particular scientific impact: that concerned with the Neoproterozoic, and that with the Palaeoproterozoic. In each case the modus operandi has been the same: (1) meticulous and painstaking fieldwork conducted from a base of deep theoretical knowledge and an open mind; (2) careful screening of samples through petrography and geochemistry; (3) advanced isotope geochemical analyses; and (4) imaginative interpretation of the data within the geological and field context. The impact of his published oeuvre has been substantial and paradigm changing.

Tony has brought new ideas, fresh thinking and novel approaches to study of the Dalradian sequences in both Scotland and Ireland. The complex geological – and especially metamorphic – history and the paucity of robust geochronology resulted in a wealth of opinion and speculation, sometimes dressed up as coherent theory. One grizzled veteran is known to have grouched about Prave’s “Olympian disregard of 40 years of research on the Dalradian”, but as his lecture demonstrated, it was merely that he pointed out that the evidence-base for previous thinking was weak.  Instead, Tony conceived fresh ideas from carefully selected samples of carbonate that might be suitable for carbon isotope chemostratigraphy – pace the adherents of metamorphic overprint – and in this he was spectacularly vindicated (Prave et al. 2009 J.Geol.Soc.Lond.). He has also had significant projects in Namibia and Death Valley, and was a central player with Simone Kasemann and others in applying novel isotopic approaches (including boron, calcium and magnesium isotope ratios) to some classic “Snowball Earth” sections in Namibia.

For the Palaeoproterozoic and the consequences of the Great Oxidation Event (oxygenation of the Earth’s surface) around 2.4Ga, Tony thorough work originated at the Loch Maree Group, became a key player in the multinational Fennoscandia Arctic Russia – Drilling Early Earth Project (FAR-DEEP). He was closely involved in successful funding initiatives to ICDP and NERC and was co-editor on three substantial volumes (each exceeding 500 pages) published by Springer in 2012/13. He followed this success with a similar-scale international drilling project on equivalent age sequences in Gabon.

The vote of thanks was given by Prof Tony Fallick FRSE, FRSA, FMinSoc (Clough Medal, 2013/14). He paid tribute to Tony’s perseverance in proving the doubters wrong on so many occasions and to ensuring that it’s the rocks that cannot lie.  It had been Tony’s ideas and drive that had brought success to the excellent teams both at University of St Andrews and also further afield, and in so doing he is a truly worthy recipient of the Clough Medal.  He asked for thank you from the audience present and online for the speaker and this was duly done by all.

If Fellows weren’t able to attend physically or virtually, a recording of the lecture is available here.

On 2 March 2022 at 7pm, the annual Clough Medal lecture took place for the first time as combined physical and virtual event. The medallist for 2021/22 was Dr Tim Smithson who gave a lecture entitled the “A new beginning: recent discoveries in the early Carboniferous of northern Britain reveal rapid faunal replacement following the end-Devonian extinction”. He was presented with his medal by Dr Tom Challands, the President of the Edinburgh Geological Society.

Tim being presented with Clough Medal 2021

A brief outline of Tim’s career was described by Tom: Following his undergraduate studies at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UNUT), 1972- 1975) Tim started his PhD under Alec Panchen at UNUT in 1976 but, being somewhat regarded as a genius in his field, he was offered a post-doctorate position in Montreal to work with Robert Carroll at McGill University before completing his PhD. By the time he had completed his PhD in 1983 Tim had already published four academic papers. Again, before completing his PhD, he was awarded a Sir Jamed Knott Fellowship at UNUT until 1984. Tim’s academic record is all the more impressive given that the major part of his career was spent in teaching and managerial roles in further education and not as a university academic.

During his time in further education (1985-2012), Tim was still actively engaged in fieldwork and research and published 18 research papers including perhaps his most notable work is his discovery and description in 1989 of Westlothiana lizziae (aka ‘Lizzie’) at first considered to be the earliest reptile but now considered to lie on the amniote stem. Besides ‘Lizzie’ Tim has described no less than ten new tetrapods and fourteen new fish taxa from Scotland.

Between 2012-17, he became involved in the highly successful TW:eed (Tetrapod World: early evolution and diversification) project, which was led by the late Prof. Jenny Clack at Cambridge University. He currently holds a position with Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge and continues to publish on all manner of things fossilferous.

Tim’s provided a well-crafted talk telling us about the history of the people involved and also the nature of discoveries. From Prof Alfred Romer (1894-1973), through Prof Stanley Westoll FRS (1912-1995), a previous holder of the Clough Medal in 1976-77, and on until the late Stan Wood (1939-2012); Tim explained how each had played their part in filling the fossil record of the late Devonian/ early Carboniferous period between 359 and 330 Ma.

In his summary, Tim explained that:
• Vertebrates recovered quickly following the end-Devonian extinction;
• There is no evidence for either a fall in atmospheric oxygen or a post-extinction trough;
• Vertebrate diversity is much greater in the Early Carboniferous than previously recognised;
• For tetrapods this diversification probably began in the late Devonian; and
• Romer’s Gap is not a natural phenomenon but is an artefact of previous unsuccessful collecting.

The vote of thanks was given by Dr Dave Millward (ex-BGS) and who thanked Tim for an excellent talk which everyone had enjoyed. He was also thanked for a couple of things; i) being a Zoologist who was also interested in the rocks and ii) for Tim’s (and also the late Prof Jenny Clack’s) word-smithery around the naming of their fossils finds.

If Fellows weren’t able to attend physically or virtually, a recording can be found on our website.

Not quite what it may seem, but BGS’ geologists would appear to be doing some interesting new work beneath Glasgow. We have heard directly about plans for this work as part of our previous lecture programme. This BBC news website article from its science section contains some beautiful images from the cores taken from beneath Glasgow. A link to this article is given here.

BGS’ geologists drilling at UK Geo-energy Observatory in Glasgow

A reminder that this year’s winter lecture programme 2020/21, will contain a talk by the BGS’ Alison Monaghan on ‘Drilling into mines for heat: the UK Geo-energy Observatory in Glasgow’ on 3 February 2021. This will be joint meeting with the Mining Institute of Scotland.

Before then and to kicking-off our winter lecture programme on Wednesday 14th October will be a lecture on ‘The Falklands Plateau: its role in the break-up of Gondwana – and other geological controversies’ to be presented by Dave McCarthy (BGS) . This meeting will be held virtually and more details can be found at our lectures page.

Hopefully these lectures and others over the winter will indicate that the geology beneath Glasgow (and Edinburgh) is far from ‘boring’.