2026-2027
All talks for 2026-27 will take place at the Central Teaching Hub of the University of Liverpool, Lecture Theatre C, but please check the LGS Newsletter to make sure there has not been a change of room for a particular meeting. Entrance will be via the main door.
Talks will start at 7.30pm and finish by 9.00pm.
Please be aware that for security reasons, the building manager may lock the main door to stop access from outside at some time after 7.30pm. If you arrive late or are unable to gain access, you may need to contact someone inside the lecture theatre to let you in.
This is a provisional timetable of lectures for 2026-2027 and may be revised.
October 27th
Professor Andy Biggin, University of Liverpool
‘Huge hot blobs may have made Earth’s magnetic field wonky.’
I will be talking about my group’s latest research into using records of Earth’s magnetic field recovered from continental igneous rocks of all ages to ascertain aspects of global magnetic field behaviour and infer the deep Earth structures and processes giving rise to them. I’ll touch on our latest findings around how fluctuations in the strength of the dominant axial dipole part of the magnetic field are linked to full-blown polarity reversals and how supercontinent-sized structures in the lowermost mantle may be causing deviations from this simple symmetry morphology.
An update on Andy’s talk is given below. The new title is ‘Four phenomena to rule them all: key global geological processes and interactions over the last 540 Myr’.
There exist four global phenomena that largely define the large-scale behaviour of the solid-Earth system since 540 Ma and that, perhaps, have had greater impacts on the climate-life system than any other. It may therefore be somewhat surprising that these things each remain highly contested, misunderstood, and in some cases, even overlooked within geology. These are: the supercontinent cycle, large igneous provinces (LIPs), true polar wander (yes, it truly does entail the geographic poles moving thousands of km relative to the planet), and geomagnetic field collapses. Each of these phenomena involves, as cause or effect or both, every layer of the planet, from the core to the atmosphere and they are all intimately tied to one another through processes that are poorly understood. In this seminar, I will briefly outline the state-of-the-art of current research into their occurrence, cause, consequence, and interaction. I will then make the case that the current uncertainty around them implies that we don’t really understand our planet’s internal dynamics or its influence on global climate and life at all and suggest that a holistic approach will be needed to resolve this situation.
November 3
Silvia Gonzalez (Emeritus Professor, LJMU)
Title: Brymbo Fossil Forest, North Wales, UK.
The upper Carboniferous sedimentary sequence exposed within the Brymbo Fossil Forest (BFF) Special Site of Scientific Interest (SSSI) in North Wales, UK represents palaeoenvironments associated with an equatorial coal-forming, umbral rainforest in association with river deltas and meandering river systems. Results of detailed palaeontological excavations will be presented, including stratigraphy of the BFF, geochemical proxies of siderite concretions (where the best-preserved fossils are included, sometimes in 3D) and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions.
We show that the BFF deposit, due to the large number of in-situ fossilised plants (300+), the abundance of fossil-bearing siderite concretions (5000+ to date) and the swathes of plants preserved as carbon adpressions is a Konzentrat Lagerstätte deposit, adding much needed detail to the palaeoecology of the region during the upper Carboniferous.
November 17
Professor Peter Styles, Keele University
Kefalonia – a new plate boundary and perhaps the site of Homer’s Ithaca.
Kefalonia is a justifiably popular holiday destination island located just to the west of mainland Greece, but few people realize that is also one of the most seismically active regions in continental Europe with a magnitude 7.3 Mb event in 1953!. Only Messina with a 7.1 in 1908 and Vrancea (Romania) with a 7.7 in 1940 compete for this title. This is because as part of a major plate tectonic boundary, the Kefalonia Transform Fault accommodates the collision between North Africa’s northward movement with the European and Adriatic plates , giving rise to the Alps and the other southern European mountain belts, and lies just offshore. I suspect, however, that it is trying to move eastwards and tear off the western portion of Kefalonia, a bit like the San Andreas Fault!
In 2006 FUGRO the major geoscience consulting company carried out a huge survey of Kefalonia using airborne LIDAR, Electrical and Magnetic imaging which was intended to help search for a possible site of Odysseus’s Ithaca but has never been interpreted tectonically. I have had access to this data set and have produced a new tectonic interpretation but in passing with colleagues from Aberdeen and Oxford, may have discovered a Bronze Age settlement; it remains to be proven archaeologically if it is a candidate for Ithaca! Time will tell!
December 1st
Dr. Vanessa Banks, BGS
Geohazards in the Peak District.
A review of the natural and anthropogenic geohazards that are encountered in the shallow and deeper near surface geology of the Peak District. The review will embrace around fifteen geohazards including mass movement, karst, flooding, and anthropogenic hazards for example related to mining.
December 15th
Mike Stoddart
Xmas Quiz
Cheese & Wine
2027
January 12th
Members’ Evening
This depends on you volunteering to talk about something that you are interested in, for 10 – 15 minutes.
Without your input – there is no meeting.
Please contact Chris Hunt [ chris1972scfc@outlook.com ]
January 19th
Professor Peter Falkingham, Liverpool John Moores University.
“Fossilized footprints record the motions of long extinct animals, but making sense of their 3D shapes is difficult because so much information is beneath the surface. I will talk about the range of technological solutions my team and I have brought to bear on the challenge of reverse engineering dinosaur footprint formation.”
February 2nd
Peter Williams, University of Liverpool
Radon – UK’s big geohazard
Earthquakes in Venezuela have killed about 15000 people in the last 100 years.
Radon is responsible for more than 1000 deaths in the UK each year.
February 9th
Dr. Joanne Egan, Edge Hill University
This study employs high-resolution palaeoecological analyses, including stratigraphy, tephrochronology, radiocarbon dating, pollen, diatom and ordination techniques, to reconstruct Holocene environmental change within a watershed in the Pacific Northwest of North America. By integrating terrestrial and aquatic records from both central and marginal basin locations, the research examines ecosystem dynamics across multiple spatial scales. Particular attention is given to the environmental influence of tephra deposition associated with the climactic eruption of Mount Mazama (~7,600 cal. years BP), alongside older Mazama and Glacier Peak eruptions. The study evaluates volcanic disturbance within the context of longer-term vegetation, aquatic and climatic change.
February 23rd
Dr. Maggie Williams, University of Liverpool
Practical session: Bubbles, lava lamps and density fireworks.
In this practical session you will be using simple laboratory experiments to investigate what goes on in volcanic plumbing systems.
