Sunday 24th February 2013

At this well attended meeting Colin Humphrey gave a very interesting talk on the age of the earth.

In an Age of Ignorance, until mid 17th cent, western thinking about the age of the earth was polarised. At first, eternalist philosophers like Aristotle thought the earth had always been here. Later, scriptural literalists like archbishop Ussher took the opposite view. In 1650 he declared in Annals of the Old Testament that creation began on the evening preceding Sunday 23 October 4004 BC. Many authors at the time were priests, constrained to think of the earth as around 6000 years old.

In the Age of Reasoning, philosophers and priests were replaced by polymaths, whose empirical thinking quickly departed from scriptural literalism. The mistaken concept of a cooling molten earth dominated thinking during the 18th and 19th centuries. Newton and Leclerc calculated cooling at 50,000 to 100,000 years. From 1860 Lord Kelvin led with an age of 98 million years, though by 1899 he had reduced this to 24 million years. Other scientists, from Hutton to Lyell and Darwin assumed gradual geological processes like sedimentation and erosion to take several hundred million years. Some thought periodic natural catastrophe to be more important in shaping the earth. All believed the earth to be millions of years old, and all were wrong, but oh how they argued!

The Age of Science began in the 20th century with an explosion of knowledge. In 1896 Becquerel discovered radioactivity. Within eleven years the Curies, Rutherford and others had explained and calibrated radioactivity, and ages up to 2 billion years were being determined for some earth minerals. Another advance came in the early 1950s with much improved mass spectrometry, and with the realisation that earth was the same age as the meteorites from the asteroid belt – 4.55 billion years. Now it only remained for geologists and palaeontologists to support this age with the explanation that earth's history has been alternations of vastly long periods with very little change, interrupted by sudden catastrophe, repeated again and again.

The talk finished with recent geological evidence for Noah’s Flood, an event which puzzled for centuries. 7600 years ago, in an unusually warm and wet period the Mediterranean overflowed into the low-lying Black Sea basin, in just a few months inundating a region nearly half the area of Britain.

The next meeting is on 20th March at 7.15pm when Dr Ian Stimpson will give a talk entitled "UK Earthquakes and the Centenary of John Milne."

If his last talk is anything to go by then expect a riveting talk on earthquakes and seismology.

Monday 4th February 2013

The next evening event will be a talk by Colin Humphrey, on Wednesday 20th February - 'The Age of the Earth: a history'. Philosophers, scientists and religious men argued for thousands of years without getting near the truth. Then the last century saw an explosion in understanding, which has continued even to the present day. There are many aspects to this interesting story, from Aristotle to Ussher, radioactivity and recent investigation of Noah’s Flood, with a lot of nonsense and controversy in between.

Tuesday 22nd January 2013

AGM Follow-up

The AGM was held on 16th January 2013. As a few of the officers had come to the end of their period of service there have been a few changes to the committee. The committee is now as follows:

New committee member - Janey Hasleden

Bill Bagley (outgoing Chair) commented on the very successful Welshpool Heritage Project undertaken in 2012 and a vote of thanks was given to Colin Humphrey for his work in coordinating the project. A vote of thanks was also given to Rheidol Davies for his work as Treasurer.

The AGM was followed by a talk given by Dr Sara Metcalf entitled "Fossils as Therapy". This intriguing talk highlighted how useful fossils can be in Outreach Educational work. Using two case studies:

  1. a centre for adults with learning difficulties
  2. a care home for the elderly

Sara went on to explain how the different groups could use the fossils as a learning experience and the great pleasure both groups gained from the sessions.

That both groups gained a sense of achievement whilst handling, making and discussing fossils. This form of therapy is now being widely undertaken by various establishments.

The next meeting will take place on 20th February - the talk will be given by Colin Humphrey entitled "The Age of the Earth - A History"

Tuesday 8th January 2013

AGM

The next meeting will be on the 16th of January. This will be the AGM, followed by a talk on 'Fossils as Therapy', given by Dr. Sara Metcalf.

In other news: The date for the Grinshill Quarry trip has been finalised to 6th of July, along with Shropshire Geological Society.

Tuesday 4th December 2012

Exhibition in Llanidloes

From 3 to 15 December 2012 Mid Wales Geology Club has an exhibition in the room behind the main gallery at Minerva Arts Centre, Llanidloes. For the first time this features all the club's four models (three of which made by Sue Cain), with interpretation boards, plus a display of some of Bill Bagley's splendid collection of minerals. A few volcanic rocks specimens and some fossils completes a display well worth a visit. This has been an opportunity to wheel out all the club's recently acquired kit, including the audio-slide display and the folding screens.