Hull Geological Society

Wednesday 15th January 2025 - “Mt Lassen & Other Volcanoes of the Southern Cascades” Another Look at the Products of Subduction by John Connor.

Abstract – Mt Lassen is the southernmost of a long chain of active volcanoes that stretches from northern California to southern British Columbia – a distance of about 1250 kms. By “active” we mean that several have erupted in living memory, and all have periodic seismic activity that could be the precursor to an eruption. The whole chain’s origin is closely related to the collision and subsequent subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American plate, with these volcanoes’ magma forming when the Pacific Plate’s rocks have descended far enough and deeply enough to melt.

The material erupted from these strata-volcanoes results in almost the whole range of volcanic rocks. This talk will describe the Cascade Volcanic “process” and illustrate with photos the current structural topography of several of these mountains at the south end of the chain, plus their erupted volcanic rocks now at the surface. Specifically, there will be a detailed look at Mt Lassen, with photos from several hikes up & around this peak.

The Committee has decided that the annual subscription for 2025 will be £10.00 for all members (including Family Membership). Please assist the Treasurer by paying your subs promptly. We will also be asking members for their current contact details and preferences so that we can update out databases.

Thursday 21st November 2024 - Zoom talk by Tony Felski about "The Permian Geologyof the Wakefield district".

Abstract: Most of the Wakefield district is underlain by the Coal Measures of the Carboniferous Period. The sandstone’s siltstones and coals being deposited in hot, wet and humid tropical swamps. However to the east of the Wakefield district the geology is totally different having been deposited in arid deserts and from sub -tropical seas.

This presentation shows the rocks of the Permian. In the Wakefield district and gives some details of the depositional environment.

Tuesday 8th October 2024 - extra meeting - lecture by Laura Burrel Garcia of the British Geological Survey on "Geological Mapping of the Yorkshire Wolds Chalk aquifer"

The BGS, in collaboration with the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water has been undertaking a five year mapping project focusing in the Yorkshire Wolds Chalk aquifer. The project integrates field mapping techniques including feature and brash mapping, remote sensing, LiDAR and other geophysical surveys, borehole analysis, seismic interpretation, structural modelling and biostratigraphy.

The results of the surveys and the resultant new map has greatly enhanced our understanding and has identified a large number of previously unidentified faults. The E-W predominant fault trend in the northern Wolds is in an area of high structural complexity as the inland expression of the Flamborough Head Fault Zone, which has undergone numerous phases of reactivation. These faults are intersected by the NW-SE-trending Hunmanby trough, a graben that crosscuts and offsets main fault trend. Moving southwards in the region the main E-W trending faults transition into a NE-SW trend, likely related to those observed in the faults affecting the Jurassic sediments of the Vale of York.

In addition to mapping structural elements, stratigraphic boundaries between the different chalk formations have been updated reflect up to date research and also to fit the modern topographic contours of the area. This has led to new estimations for the thickness of the chalk formations and their lateral variation. When combined with our better understanding of the regional fault networks and their properties will be key to determine if they enhance secondary permeability or rather inhibit groundwater flow.

Understanding the geometry and characteristics of the Quaternary deposits overlying the chalk is also fundamental to understand factors like the rates of infiltration of meteoric waters into the aquifer. The new mapping of the Quaternary includes the distribution of head, alluvial, lacustrine deposits, and Devensian glacial till. The composition of pebbles in the glacial sediments is vertically and laterally variable, indicating a number of bedrock sources of proximal to the region, but also from the Southern North Sea, Southern Uplands and Midland Valley of Scotland.

The results arising from the new mapping are incredibly important, not only for their scientific value but also for the impact they will have in the understanding of groundwater flow. The Chalk aquifer regionally is responsible for supplying high quality water to almost a million people, and also supports an abundance of commercial/industrial needs. This study marks a milestone in the understanding of the Yorkshire Wolds Chalk aquifer and will result in a more sustainable management of our valuable water resources. In this talk we will discuss the different mapping methods used in the project and will show the preliminary results on the mapping of the Chalk stratigraphy and structure.

Wednesday 28^th August 2024 – Evening Zoom Talk by John Connor - “Cave Oolite, Bog Iron & Pantiles: Some useful geologic products from the Southwest Wolds area ”

Abstract – The Yorkshire Wolds are rightly known for the rolling chalk landscape, dry valleys and of course for the magnificent chalk cliffs of Flamborough Head. But there’s more to the Wolds than the Cretaceous Chalk, albeit in much smaller quantities. Along their southwestern edge there are thin outcrops/subcrops of Jurassic rocks, some of which have, or have had, significant economic value. Perhaps foremost is the wonderful Cave Oolite building stone, seen in many buildings from Sancton in the north to Welton in the south – much of it in churches but also in private houses and farm buildings. Back in the Iron Age, the marshy land to the west of the Wolds – the post-glacial Humberhead Levels – yielded material that was smelted in primitive kilns to produce one of the earliest forms of workable iron. Thirdly, and stretching it a bit to call them “rocks” or from the “SW Wolds”, are the extensive Holocene clay deposits that today are used for the main British production of pantiles – that most efficient and attractive type of roofing tile, common in the east of England and Scotland. This talk will review the geology of these rocks and show examples of their use.

Flamborough Roadshow Sunday 30th June 2024 - Report by MaryHoward with additional information from Peter Carpenter and Stuart Jones – The Rock and Fossil roadshow at Flamborough Village Hall was warmly welcomed by both residents and visitors from further away. Excellent displays, book sales and delicious cakes kept the crowds happy. The finds table was busy, with guests bringing their treasured stones to be identified by Terry on the Finds Desk. Dinostar, the dinosaur experience from Hull, brought a fascinating collection of specimens. A rich collection of rocks and fossils was also on display from members of Hull Geological Society – Brenda and Jack, Lorraine, Mary and Stuart. Brenda and Bronwen had baked cakes for the event. Bronwen and Chris sold the refreshments. Rosie and family, Elayne and Peter and Angela were also there to help. The event was busy until about 2-30pm, perhaps because visitors were wanting to watch the European Football Championship on the television? Stuart told me that it was ‘the best we’ve done’.

Thanks to all those who made today possible, and to everyone who came and joined in.

Wednesday 5th June 2024 - talk on Zoom - John Connor on "Moughton & the Elusive Unconformity".

Searching for the angular contact between the Silurian metamorphics and the Great Scar Limestone.
The oldest rocks to outcrop in Yorkshire are from the Lower Palaeozoic, most of them roughly in the area between Ingleton & Horton-in-Ribblesdale, being upthrown to the North Craven Fault. The strata in these locations are highly folded and faulted - generally overlain by the Carboniferous Great Scar Limestone. This contact is often a marked angular unconformity, best displayed in several locations on the flanks of Moughton, the flat-topped hill famous for its limestone pavements, between Crummackdale and Upper Ribblesdale. This talk will feature photos taken on several hikes around Moughton, in attempts to tie down the precise locations of the unconformity. It is best displayed in the quarries on the west side of Ribblesdale, northwards from Helwith Bridge to Horton. As well as the photos, various internet images will be used to describe the history of these quarries and the uses that the Horton Flagstone was put to, in the past.

The sun came out along with a range of prehistoric creatures on Humber Street to mark the 20^th anniversary of popular attraction Dinostar. Families thronged the Fruit Market area on April 14 where they took part in hunting in boxes of sand for tiny fossils, created mini terrariums and children had their faces painted in various dinosaur patterns. The Hull Geological Society had a fascinating display of rocks and fossils including ammonites, belemnites, pyritic rock, and even an ichthyosaur vertebra found by a HGS member at Easington in 2022. Visitors had narrow escapes from the raptor which was roaming the street, stopping only to have its picture taken with willing participants! [L Behrens]

Extract for Clark et al. (2022) showing the Last British and Irish Icesheet around 21,000 years ago.

This summarises Yorkshire about 21,000 years ago with ice coming down off the Pennines, in from the North Sea and down the Vale of York. As it did so rivers were blocked and vast amounts of meltwater produced creating huge lakes. All this has left an imprint on the landscape we see today and an awful lot of glacial till. This talk will show some of the landscape and geological evidence for how far these ice lobes advanced, the extent of the lakes and the latest dating of when all this happened.

Thursday 29th February 2024 - lecture by Dr Anna Bird of the University of Hull, on " Why does it rain in the desert? The dust record in Tunisia".

Why does it rain in the desert? The dust record in Tunisia. A. Bird; I. Millar; D. Wagner; K. Fenn; R. Smedley; B. Mauz; M. Mansoura; M. Rogerson; M. Luetscher; M. Lone; N. Elmejdoub

North Africa is one of the regions identified by UNESCO as experiencing severe water stress, and further drying could be devastating for region that is also insecure. Tropical semi-arid regions, such as North Africa are highly sensitive to climate change, and climate predictions for this area suggest that this region will experience drying in the next decades and centuries. This contrasts with findings from palaeo-studies which show that, during the Pleistocene, global warming often correlates to humid phases. This project uses speleotherm records with palaoedust (loess) archives to assess the climate record over humid and dry periods to improve our understanding of past climate change in the sensitive but under-represented central northern Africa region. This presentation will focus on findings from the most important loess deposit in northern Africa, at Matmata in Tunisia.

The loess sections within the Matmata Plateau have loess and soil horizons relating to a series of humid and arid phases during the Quaternary, a sequence that provides valuable insight into the origins and dynamics of desert deposits and the interplay between continental and maritime weather systems. Previous work, in the 1990s, on the Matmata loess has shown onset of loess deposition to be during a humid phase (~70 ka) with loess deposition continuing as the climate becomes more arid into the Upper Holocene. It is currently assumed that the source of this material is the Grand Erg Orient, based on a relatively old study (1987). However, new OSL data presented here shows that the onset of loess deposition was much older than previously thought (~300 ka), with the top of the sections dated at ~24 ka. It appears that deposition was not continuous with a large gap in the record from 143 – 45 ka. Gaps in sedimentation for the section older than ~140 ka are difficult to determine due to limited reliability of older OSL ages.

Provenance analysis has been undertaken on many of the dated samples to establish past transport directions. Detrital zircon U-Pb data suggest that there is dominant Algeria-type source with some input from the north. The amount of this input varies over time with samples older than 200 ka showing a larger input from the north. ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd isotopes from different grainsize fractions tell a similar story, with a dominant west African source.

Thursday 1st February 2024 - Zoom talk by Tony Felski on " The Geology of the Italian Part of Lake Maggiore. "

Lake Maggiore straddles the Swiss / Italian border with some 70% of the lake being in Italy. The Italian shores of the lake are composed of intrusive igneous rocks, various grades of metamorphic rocks and sedimentary rocks. These rocks also exhibit various structural and defamation features. This presentation shows the various rock types to be found and some of the structural features that can be seen and occasionally examined.

Thursday 30th November 2023 - talk by Nemi Walding of the University of Hull, on "The Pyroclastic Density Current Problem"

Pyroclastic Density Currents (PDCs) are high-temperature, rapidly moving flows that can form extensive deposits. As a PDC propagates, entrainment from both internal and external environments can decrease temperatures and introduce water vapour (e.g., exsolving juvenile magma, external hydrological factors, combusting plant matter, water-laden sediment). As a PDC flows away from source the comminution of grains will lead to fragmentation and subsequent higher ash content. These factors are expected to affect cohesive and frictional behaviours within the flow, and the resulting deposits.

Fluidisation within PDCs plays a substantial role in their high mobility and is accepted as an outcome of excess pore pressure from exsolution and entrainment. Defluidising material may alter the profile of a deposit by remobilising grains through gas escape structures (i.e., gas escape pipes) and can cause secondary eruptions in a deposit. The ability for gas escape to reorganize the deposit will be affected by the mechanical properties of the deposit, which will include cohesion.

Experiments investigating the cohesive behaviour of analogue and ignimbrite material have been undertaken to explore how static packs of sediment respond to gas escapes under a range of conditions. Material properties including angle of repose, bulk and tapped density and fluidisation behaviour have been recorded under varying moisture content conditions to better understand the static and dynamic behaviours of these materials.

Results show just small amounts of moisture (0.25 – 0.50%) greatly affect the behaviour of analogue and volcanic material. Increasing moisture content results in higher angle of repose and minimum fluidisation velocity values. As materials becomes fluidised, cohesional variations within the deposit affect bubble and channel formations and can create vertical pressure profiles. These results begin to explore the impact of capillary cohesion and its implications for PDC dynamics, deposit architecture and validity of different analogue materials in experimental modelling.

Saturday 14th October 2023 - Role of Geology in Achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Joint meeting of the Yorkshire Geological Society, the University of Hull and the Hull Geological Society, convened by David Bond and David Hill. Speakers -

Natasha Dowey, Sheffield Hallam University, on Working towards sustainable and equitable geoscience for the future

Alex Finlay, X-Ray Mineral Services, on Can the UKs mining legacy provide a Green source of critical Rare Earth Elements?

Peter Styring, Alex Newman, George Dawson, Edward Platt and Hannah Handford-Styring of University of Sheffield, on Custodians of Carbon

Neil Hyatt, Nuclear Waste Services, on The Role of the Geological Disposal Facility in Achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Nine members attended the field meeting at South Ferriby Foreshore. We were a little restricted on what we could see because the reed bed was well grown over and the beach was high covering previous exposures. We did see some impressive cryoturbation in the chalk gravels in the cliff and find several pieces of broken Deltoidea oysters. Many thanks to Mary for arranging the trip. (photos by John Clark)

Some of the exhibitors and helpers at our July Rock and Fossil Rpadshow at Flamborough Village Hall

Wednesday 21st June 2023 - Zoom talk by Niall Clarke on "The Granite Intrusion of Galway, Ireland"

The talk is in two parts. The first part looks at the current ideas around the evolution of the granites of Galway and the rocks they are intruded into. These are Late Silurian to Mid Devonian age granites intruded to Dalradian and Ordovician rocks; the intrusion being associated with the closure of the Iapetus Ocean. The second part is a virtual field trip around the margins of one of these bodies, the Omey Granite, in the northwest of Galway. The virtual trip is based on the area where I undertook my BSc mapping project in the mid 1980s revisited in 2019. So new ideas from the literature and (importantly) new photographs!

Regarding me, although I have a geology degree, I am very much an amateur, having recently retired from 30 years in the water industry working for United Utilities in the northwest of England where my role had nothing to do with geology. I am a long-time member of the Manchester Geological Association but having recently moved to Barnsley, I have joined some Yorkshire groups.

Ten events were planned for Yorkshire Geology Month this year and eight of them involved HGS members as leaders, organisers or speakers.

Four people took part on the walk around Hull, unfortunately there was a choir at our meeting place in Queen Victoria Square so I do apologise if anybody got caught up in the audience and missed us. We restarted our walk at Beverley Gate, waked up the side of Princes Dock then to Prince Street, Holy Trinity Church and returned via Whitefriargate. As well as examining the building stone and shop fronts we looked do to see the “granite” sets and up to admire the architecture.

Sixteen people attended the Zoom lecture by Tony Felski about coal. I n his comprehensive talk Tony took us through the palaeogeography of the Westphalian, the formation of coal, different types of coal and their uses, the history of coal mining and the nature of coal seams, the hazards in a mine and the future for coal extraction and use.

Six people went on the walk in Western Cemetery in Hull. We looked at how the popularity of different rock types and designs of monuments and headstones has changed over time. We also took in some history when we stopped to view the graves from the Baltic Fleet Outrage of 1904 and the memorial to the 44 people who died in the R38 Airship Disaster of 1921.

Wednesday 20th July 2023 - by Paul Hildreth on Hyaenopolis - the tale of the site of a 120 000 year-old hyaena den and the research into its important mammalian remains”,

Abstract - 2022 saw the 200^th anniversary of the publication of an William Buckland’s opus, Reliquiae diluvianae, in which he described the organic remains of mammals from Kirkdale Cave in North Yorkshire. His interpretation of how they were emplaced caused Buckland much soul-searching and sometimes ridicule from many of his scientific colleagues. This talk aims to tell the story of the Kirkdale finds and outlines their significance in steering geological thinking.

Wednesday 3rd May 2023 - Tony Felski on “Coal – the rock that made Barnsley rock!”.

Thursday 20^th April 2023 – Lecture by Paul Hildreth on “The Geology and Birds of Flamborough Head”

Abstract - Flamborough Head is well-known for both its geology, offering important exposures and sections of Late Cretaceous Chalk and Pleistocene deposits, and for its birds, particularly nesting seabirds. This illustrated talk looks at the distribution of both rocks and birds and attempts, sometimes rather tongue-in-cheek, to find a correlation and show that geology is a factor in determining where certain avian species choose to live and breed.

Thursday 16th March 2023 - lecture by Graham Kings about the Terras de Cavaleiros Geopark in northern Portugal.

This talk describes a visit, in 2020, to the Terras de Cavaleiros Geopark, in Portugal. Unfortunately it was just at the start of the Covid 19 Pandemic. The tour was arranged by Chris Darmon of Geosupplies Ltd (Down to Earth publishers).

The geopark provides evidence of the Variscan Cycle, which began in the Cambrian, when the Rheic Ocean formed as the Iapetus Ocean closed. In the Devonian the Rheic Ocean closed with the collision of the Amorica and Avalonia continents. Portugal provides evidence of this collision and the subsequent Variscan Orogeny.

The presentation will describe the organisation of the geopark, the findings at the sites visited and their relevance to the story of the Variscan and Wilson cycles.

Emphasis is made of the relationship of surface vegetation to underlying geology.

Wednesday 15th March 2023 - John Connor on "The Geology & History of Point Reyes, California"

To the relief of some of you, there will be very little in this talk about subduction. The Point Reyes “peninsular” has a completely different geological history from the subducted/accretionary-wedged Franciscan Terranes to its east and southeast, having been transported northwards an estimated hundred kilometres or more, in about the past 10 million years, by strike-slip (right-lateral) movement of the San Andreas and related faults. Since the SAF is still very active, is there reason to think that Pt Reyes (on the Pacific Plate) could move another 100 kms or so in the next few million years, continuing to slide north past the North American Plate … as far as the Mendocino Triple Junction ?

As what became this peninsular moved northwards, younger rocks accumulated on its crystalline basement, such that there is now a variety of mainly Tertiary sediments there, relatively undisturbed when compared with the geologic complexities of the Franciscan Terranes. We’ll examine about a dozen locations on Pt Reyes in this talk, illustrating both the basement rocks and the overburden.

Point Reyes also has an interesting more recent history, from Francis Drake’s encounter with the Miwok indigenous people in the 16^th century, to the largest observed surface offset of the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, to being added to the US National Park system in 1962. From the mid-1800’s there has been extensive ranching on Pt Reyes – initially for butter & cheese; nowadays for both these dairy products and for beef.

The Felix Whitham Medal for 2023 is awarded to Patrick Boylan for his continued efforts to share his interest in local geology especially the Quaternary, in particular his recent talks about Kirkdale Cave and the Neanderthals.

Wednesday 7th December 2022 - “Bay Area Exotics - Subducted High-Pressure/Low Temperature Rocks found around San Francisco Bay" by John Connor

Abstract –
This talk returns to the topic of Subduction and the rocks that have been through that process. Unlike the cherts found in abundance in and around San Francisco, which have hardly been subducted at all, there are many fewer examples of rocks of the blueschist facies, whose original, un-metamorphosed minerals have been transformed by high pressures and not-so-high temperatures. These rocks are interpreted to have descended as the Farallon Plate was subducted under the North American Plate, being changed in their mineral content at considerable depth, and then “exhumed” to the surface again. The rarest of these very dense rocks is eclogite, found in one or two locations near San Francisco - its mineralogy proves that it has been subjected to very high pressures before being raised to the surface, by mechanisms that are still poorly understood.
In the talk, we’ll review how geologists have developed the pressure/temperature theories that yield these “exotic” rocks, and, to a certain extent, have replicated these high -pressure minerals in the laboratory. There’ll be photos from the half dozen blueschist facies locations near San Francisco, plus some examples of similar subducted rocks from other parts of the world.

The Harker Geological Society at the University of Hull is planning to digitize its archives and has agreed that works about the geology of East Yorkshire can be republished by the Hull G.S. on our website. We thank the Secretary (Jan Silva) and President (Louis Chambers) for their help.

Mike Horne (HGS Honorary General Secretary) has been awarded the Moore Medal by the Yorkshire Geological Society in "acknowledgment of services to geology in the north of England". Click Here to read Mike's Acceptance Speech.

Humberside Geologist - the editors have decided to start a new volume for 2023. At present there are no plans to produce a printed version of Number 16.

Wednesday 16th November 2022 - John Connor on "Coastal Erosion & Accretion in Holderness, the Humber, Lincolnshire and East Anglia; Comparing & Contrasting the Causes of the Loss of Coastal Villages."

Dozens of villages along the coasts of the eastern counties of England, whose existence had been well documented in various medieval manuscripts, such as Domesday Book and the Chronicles of Meaux Abbey, were subsequently “Lost to the Sea”. The cause of this loss was, of course, coastal erosion, but there are apparently big variations along these coasts in the number of villages lost, so there must have been significant differences – geological, geomorphological and probably historical – which account for these variations.

This talk will attempt to illustrate, by comparing & contrasting, a range of factors that together might explain the differences between the 4 coastlines and describe what (if anything) has been, and is being, done to mitigate further loss of these coastlines.

Wednesday 9th November 2022 - Mike Horne on the "Rocks under Kingston upon Hull"

Understanding the local rocks is crucial in planning how we prepare for increased subsidence, flooding and coastal erosion due to climate change in our area. The potential of fracking for shale gas within the deep geology is providing us with a topical controversy. However, the most important role of the rocks is to provide a never-ending interest for the members of the Hull Geological Society!

Winter Programme 2022-2023- "Due to continuing uncertainty about the Secretary’s health the Committee has decided not to restart indoor Club Nights and lectures until the Secretary has fully recovered from the treatment. We still plan to continue to run some meetings on Zoom, Club Nights on Facebook and pop-up field meetings, which will be advertised on our website and by e-mail. We apologise for the inconvenience caused to members, especially those who do not access e-mail or the internet."

Wednesday 14th September 2022 - Zoom talk at 7-30pm - John Connor on "Geology of Red Rock Canyon, Nevada"

Abstract –
Not far to the west of the gambling dens and fleshpots of the Las Vegas Strip is the Red Rock National Conservation Area – a wonderful place to admire the geology by hiking along the many trails that wind across the desert, into, and then through several mountain canyons.
Although it’s the name “Red Rock Canyon”, coming from the strongly coloured Miocene Aztec Sandstone, which most attracts the day-trippers from Las Vegas, it’s the Keystone Thrust that geologists come to admire, putting Palaeozoics on top of Lower Mesozoic rocks.
This talk will feature photos taken on three visits to the area in the winters of 2015, 2018 and 2019, with an attempt to explain its long and complex structural and stratigraphical geologic history. There’s also evidence of more recent movements – that of the first indigenous people arriving to inhabit these cool canyons, around 11,000 years ago.

The Secretary apologizes for having to postpone the August and September Club Nights, but he will not be available to facilitate them, nor lead the field trip to South Ferriby. Hopefully they can be re-arranged later.

Wednesday 20th July 2022 - Zoom talk at 7-30pm - John Connor on "More Chert Than You Can Shake A Stick At".

Chert, along with Flint, is probably the most common form of the mineral Silicon Dioxide. Chert itself has more than one form – the subject of this talk will be radiolarian ribbon chert, which is deposited, according to a definition by USRA, as “a type of quartz formed when single-celled radiolarians living in the ocean die and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Their skeletons are made of silica (SiO₂) and they accumulate in beds hundreds of feet thick”.

There’s a lot of chert in the San Francisco Bay Area, essentially all of it coming from deep-sea sedimentary deposits near the ocean-floor spreading centre of the Pacific and then transported eastwards to impact the North American continent. During this collision the chert is partly subducted/mainly crumpled into the “accretionary wedge” that forms the structurally very complex geology in and around San Francisco.

This talk will describe the current geologic thinking about the formation, transport and deformation of the Bay Area ribbon chert. Because this rock is very resistant to weathering, it forms ridges and is often seen in outcrop. While these outcrops occur over a wide swath of the Bay Area, we’ll concentrate on the Marin Headlands, immediately north of the Golden Gate, where the outcrops are most dramatically displayed.

On the afternoon of 14th May 2022 a plaque was unveiled by the the family of Martin Brasier at their former home in Marlborough Avenue, Hull. The plaque and event was organised by the Avenues Residents Association.

Martin (1947-2014) was a lecturer in the Geology Department at Hull University from (roughly) 1975 to 1988. Here he founded, with Prof John Neale, a Master’s Degree course in Micropaleontology. When the Department closed he transferred to Oxford University where he became a Professor. He died in a car crash shortly after his retirement. He wrote the textbook “Microfossils” and two books about very old fossils: ”Darwin’s lost world” and “Secret Chambers”, as well as publishing many papers in scientific journals.

The Committee has decided not to hold our usual Winter Programme of guest lectures at the University in 2022-2023. There may be some talks on Zoom and informal talks at the University. (2nd June 2022)

Postponed until further notice - Walk in the footsteps of John Robert Mortimer on the one hundred and eleventh anniversary of his death. Led by Rodger Connell.

"John Robert Mortimer (15/6/1825 - 19/8/1911). Mortimer was born in Fimber, a village on the Yorkshire Wolds, west of Driffield. In business he was a seed, manure and fertilizer merchant. As a young man he travelled to London for the 1851 Great Exhibition. He also visited the British Museum which sparked his interest in archaeology and geology. Alongside his business interests he subsequently excavated many burial barrows on the Wolds. In 1878 (ten years before the Hull Geological Society was formed!) he built a museum in Lockwood Street, Driffield (now the Masonic Hall) to house the many thousands of artifacts he had recovered

"We should meet at the car park at Cross Hill (pay and display unfortunately! See attached map) at 10.30am. An additional pay and display car park can be found at Beckside/Cattle Market. We will walk south down St John's Road, left into Lockwood Street, on to Middle Street South, and finally to Riverhead (altogether about 1km) passing sites related to Mortimers life and work. Afterwards walk back into town via Middle Street South to the car parks. There are a number of cafes on the way for refreshments! The walk could take an hour or an hour and a half I guess."

The Society apologies for changing the start times for the Spring and Summer 2022 meetings at the University to 6-15pm and appreciates that this may not be convenient for some members. This is because we are experiencing problems with access to the building in the evenings and we hope to be able to return to our normal start time of 7-30pm for the Winter Programme. The Committee has agreed to continue to have a mix of virtual and actual Club nights and talks for the forthcoming year. in his Annual Report for the AGM the Secretary commented "I do appreciate that some members do not have access to the internet and that some choose not to use Zoom or Facebook, but it does mean that ‘out of town’ members have the opportunity to participate in some of our activities when they live too far away to attend evening lectures in Hull, or prefer not to drive after dark."

Wednesday 13th April 2022 (rescheduled) – lecture on Zoom by John Connor - “Mud Volcanoes of the South Caspian Sea”

This talk was first given to the Bay Area Geophysical Society, so you can expect to see some seismic sections, and even a few equations, in the process of interpreting the seabed geology.

From the Oil & Gas Industries’ viewpoint, a mud volcano located on or near an oil or gas field that is in the process of being developed is categorized as a Geohazard – that’s to say, a geological, geomorphological or environmental feature, on or near the seabed, that could seriously disrupt the engineering work required for the installation of offshore development platforms and the associated sub-sea equipment needed to safely extract the oil and/or gas.

In the South Caspian Sea there are several such mud volcanoes, which have indeed required the operators of the fields to identify them, and to avoid positioning their offshore equipment on or near them. This talk will show how geophysics can be used to identify areas of the seabed and near subsurface where geohazards are present – it will focus on a particularly big mud volcano called Absheron.

Covid has not gone away. The Committee has decided not to restart indoor meetings in the early months of 2022. We hope that it will be safe to do so in March, starting with the Annual General Meeting.

Thursday 2^nd December, 2021, 19:30 Zoom meeting - Dr Sam Griffirths : Geology and Humans: Chalk and cheese or intertwined….

Abstract - Yorkshire has a rich and fascinating geological history… but what about geo-archaeology? Join us at the Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (CITiZAN) to discuss our local prehistory and explore the deep connections to the geology and sea. From Early Humans to Bronze Age trackways we have an equally rich record of heritage just waiting to be discovered.

Dr Sam Griffiths works for MOLA – the Museum of London Archaeology practice. He was the Discovery Programme Officer and lead archaeologist on the CITiZAN project in the Humberside has a wealth of experience on multi-period archaeological sites across the UK and Europe.

NOTE - The talk was postponed due to technical problems. Sam was unable to re-schedule the talk due to illness and the CITIZAN Project ending in April 2022

In October 2021 Arthur Speed sent a questionnaire to members asking what they valued about the HGS and for suggestions for the future.

You said	We did
Attract new members, particularly younger people	Ten new members and families joined in the 2021-2022 season. We are planning Roadshows and other activities in 2022 to attract new members. Members are encouraged to spread the joy of geology.
Encourage student membership	We now have closer links with the Harker Geological Society and they now have a representative on our Committee.
Restart activities after Covid	Indoor meetings restarted in February 2022
Closer links with other societies	We plan to have displays at the YGS event at Caphouse Colliery in May and the Yorkshire Fossil Festival in Scarborough in September. We will be helping the Geologists’ Association at the Annual Conference in Hull in September.
Hold discussion sessions during Club Nights	There is no reason why we cannot hold a debate at a Club Night – please suggest a topic. Club Nights are quite informal and we do chat a lot already.
Develop the relationship with the University	University students and staff are always welcome at our meetings.
Start a project to get members involved	There are two projects ongoing (Flamborough Quaternary and the Bisat Project), but please do suggest another one.
Restart courses on Geology	The geology courses were run by the University’s Centre for Lifelong Learning – they did all the admin and publicity and paid for the insurance and tutors. This would be beyond our capabilities and funding. However we can include some seminars and masterclasses in our programmes.
Field meetings to a wider variety of sites lead by “new faces”.	For the spring of 2002 we have planned a weekend trip to Anglesey led by David Hill and to Wold Newton Lincolnshire led by Martin Longshaw. All members are welcome to volunteer to organise a field meeting – they don’t have to be “experts”.

The Committee has co-opted Peter Carpenter into the role of Membership Secretary. Members addresses, e-mail addresses and subscription history (but not bank details) will be shared with Peter. You can contact Peter by using this e-mail address :

Wednesday 2nd June 2021 - evening zoom talk - Paul Hildreth on "The Good, the Bad and the Beautiful (an overview of the history, importance and future of Middlegate Quarry, South Ferriby)"

abstract - Middlegate Quarry was opened to supply the local works, established in 1938, with chalk, one of the raw materials required for making cement. Clay, the other ingredient, was initially taken from local till and alluvial deposits. A well-known and well-respected member of the Hull Geological Society was responsible, at least in part, for the suggestion of deepening the quarry to exploit an alternative source of clay when the original became exhausted and its extraction threatened to de-stabilise the Humber bank defences. Thus a gem of a geological site was created, a magnet for Mesozoic research and a treasure trove of late Jurassic vertebrates and invertebrates, particularly ammonites. Sadly, the cement works ceased production in early 2020. The quarry has become redundant and this has led to significant consequences for geologists. But not all is lost! This talk presents a short history of the site, the reasons for its geological importance and, though it may never recover its former glory, a report of what remains and a possible future.

It is with sadness that I have to inform you that Barrie Heaton passed away on May 14th 2021. Barrie joined the Hull Geological Society in 1995 and was an active member until recently. He was our Treasurer from 2002 to 2010, Vice President from 2010 to 2012 and President from 2012 to 2015. Barrie was elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Society in 2017.

Wednesday 12^th May 2021 – Zoom talk – John Connor, retired geophysicist – Chevron Corporation, California. Born & grew up off Beverley Road in Hull – School was Marist College

The first thing I should say is that I’m not an archaeologist. The idea for this talk came about when I was browsing the internet for information about existing high-resolution seismic data off the Holderness Coast. This search led me to an Environmental Impact Assessment for the Hornsea Three Wind Farm, which is expected to begin construction in 2023.

Before construction work starts, as part of the EIA, various geotechnical and geophysical surveys are required by the UK Government to be run, reported on in detail, and published for public review and comment. The geophysics in talk is about the offshore side-scan sonar, magnetic and seismic surveys and the results from these surveys, as published in the EIA. There will also be some background data on Doggerland, the timing of sea-level rises in the North Sea, the consequent Holocene sediment deposition, & importantly, whether some of our ancestors lived out there.

At the Bisat Research Group field meeting at Mappleton on 16^th April 2021 the Secretary presented the 2021 Felix Whitham Memorial Medal to Graham Kings (on the right). Graham was awarded the medal “for leading the Bisat groups mammoth exercise of the photography of the glacial sediments of the entire Holderness cliffs (2014-2019). Curating and safeguarding the photo archive. And beginning the detailed stratigraphic logging of new and important sections in the cliffs.” Also in the picture are Dennis (on the left) and Arthur from the Group.

Thursday 8th April 2021 - Zoom lecture meeting - Mike Horne on "the Type Erratics collection"

Abstract – Geologists have been studying the glacial erratics of Holderness and the surrounding areas for about 150 years; is it now time to agree definitions of these and work to the same standard? In this talk Mike will discuss some of the problems and describes his plan to create a “type collection” at the University of Hull.

Wednesday 27th January 2021 - Zoom Talk - John Connor on Geomorphological Aspects of the San Andreas Fault

The geology of the San Francisco Bay Area is complicated, to say the least. There are two main reasons for this – first, and more important structurally, is the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the North American Plate, from roughly 30 to 20 million years ago, though there’s a section to the north, off the Oregon & Washington State coastlines, which is still subducting.

Rocks subject to this subduction from the Pacific oceanic crust have been crumpled into an “accretionary wedge”, forming several small but very varied lithologic “terranes”, which stack up across a roughly 30 mile west-to-east zone comprising the San Francisco Bay Area.

This zone is demarked on the east by the Hayward Fault and on the west, roughly parallel to the coast, by the San Andreas Fault Zone. Between them, these two right-lateral strike slip faults are responsible for moving rocks northwards, perhaps up to 200 miles from Southern California to the Bay Area. The San Andreas Fault is the prime culprit and also the second reason for the complicated geology of the area.

This talk will start by describing the structural setting, followed by photos of local outcrops of some of the terranes. Repeated earthquake movement on the San Andreas Transform Fault over the past few million years has produced an elongate “valley”, onshore & offshore. The remainder of the talk will be a photo tour, from north to south, looking at 6 locations which, although all valleys of a sort, are geomorphologically different.

Wednesday 4th February 2021 - Zoom Lecture - Professor Patrick Boylan, School of Arts and Social Sciences, City, University of London on "New light on the Neanderthals: music, rope-making. and now an apparent genetic link to Coronavirus"

The Middle and Upper Pleistocene Neaderthals have generally had a bad press through more than a century and a half. Until comparatively recently Neanderthals were widely regarded and caricatured as primitive, clumsy and probably brutal, creatures. Knowledge, and more important, attitudes have changed remarkably in the last 20 years or so, through many additional discoveries and new interpretations of this hominin species. We now know that Neaderthals were dominant across most of Europe and beyond from around 400,00 to 40,000 years ago, with significant populations stretching from the Mediterranean and beyond out into what is now known as “Doggerland” – the vast area of land under what is now the North Sea, while DNA studies show that Neanderthal genes survive in many present-day populations.

More and more is also being discovered about the culture and traditions of these populations. I was able to help in a minor way with one of the most remarkable indications of Neanderthal flute made out of the thigh bone of a young Cave Bear. To most people’s astonishment the holes drilled through the bone were in exactly the same relative positions as in a modern instrument, and would have played the musical notes of the modern diatonic (Do, Re, Mi) musical scale. Also, recent work in Gibraltar and elsewhere has found evidence of both art and personal adornment with feathers.

In March 2020 an equally significant technological discovery was made in France during excavations of Neanderthal levels within the Abri du Maras Cave located in the Ardèche valley, a tributary of the River Rhône. Due to preservation conditions organic remains other that bones and teeth are generally very extremely rare. However, one of the stone flakes, 60mm long, was found to have a tiny fragment of 3-ply cord adhering to the stone tool. On microscopic examination the cord consists of fibres derived from the inner bark of gymnosperm plants or trees, most likely conifers.

This was not just the only startling Neanderthal discovery announced in 2020. Medical reports of investigations into possible genetic risk factors for COVID-19 published in September and October 2020 show that a Neanderthal derived gene cluster on chromosome 3 is linked to respiratory failure in severe COVID-19 infections.

There is clearly very much more to learn about the Neanderthals more than 30,000 years after they finally became extinct.

Tony Benfiend (HGS member and former YGS Secretary) has been awarded the Moore Medal by the Yorkshire Geological Society in "acknowledgment of services to geology in the north of England".

We held one geology walk for the Festival of Geology in November 2020 following the Government's Covid Guidelines - one leader and one person from a different household. Mike led Bryony on a guided walk of Hull's General Cemetery. The walk around the city centre was cancelled.

The HGS Committee has decided to waive the annual subscription for 2021 for members who have paid their subs for 2020, because we have not been able to provide the full Summer and Winter Programmes due to the Pandemic. Our running costs have not been reduced substantially so donations would be most welcome!

The HGS Committee has introduced extra Risk Assesments for meetings held during the Covid Pandemic, with effect from 26th August 2020 .

The Yorkshire Geological Society is publishing a series of virtual field trips and guides that you can download. The series includes a guide to the cliffs at Bempton and a self guided tour of Hull's Western Cemetery,

Changes to our Data Protection Policy and Procedure - In light of the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown the Committee has made changes to the Data Protection Policy and Procedure. To avoid a ‘single point of failure’ your personal data will be shared between the Officers of the Society who are expected to keep to the terms and spirit of the Procedure. Officers may share you data with the emergency services if they think your health and welfare is at risk. Leaders and organiser of Society events may collect and keep a paper record of the people attending the event for a specified period at times of a health pandemic. Please see the HGS website for the full details or request a printed copy.

20th March 2020 - we have created a Facebook Club Page so that members can take part in virtual Club Nights. Members who have paid their annual subscription can join: visit https://www.facebook.com/groups/555124668431623/ or look search Facebook for "Hull Geological Society club page"

At the AGM on 12th March 2020 there was a discussion about whether to cancel meetings due to the Coronavirus Pandemic. It was decided that members could be trusted use their common sense about attending meetings and protecting their health. The field meetings would not be cancelled. The Roadshows and Club Nights might be affected if the hosts decided to close their premises. We will use water to dampen specimens to aid identification rather than spit on them this year, wash our hands more frequently and try to avoid shaking hands.