It was an experience and enjoyed by our biggest crowd to date–around fifty.  Thanks all for coming, and to Chantry (and Bob) for hosting us.  Our aim is to bring in top level speakers and I am sure you will agree that Chris was certainly that.  Chris knows Iceland probably better than most Icelanders, taking us on a swift comprehensive tour of this land where little stands still, least of all the rocks.  Incredible to know that none of it is older than about 15 million years and that hard sedimentary rock can be and has been produced in around 10-15000 years!  If Erik the Red had set sail a few months earlier Iceland probably wouldn’t have been there (oh OK that bit was literary licence).

They have some unusual tourism attractions in Iceland to fool the visiting Brits–I mean bathing in effluent, really and as for the name of that wretched volcano that stopped all the planes flying, well Chris really enjoyed showing off with that one (listen–Eyjafhallajokull). Much more serious was the fissure eruption of 1783, the year without a summer that resulted in the deaths of millions worldwide and possibly helped trigger the French Revolution. We were left in no doubt that a visit is a must for all aspirant geologists–who’s for a TVGS trip then?

One more reason why it was great to have Chris over: he is chair of the YHA and stayed at my B&B overnight, so it was really fun, satisfying a lifelong ambition (lol), for ME to give HIM a few chores in the morning–before he was allowed to leave.  And I made sure his lights were out by half nine and there was no talking in his dorm.  Great!

On Wednesday morning before he left, Pam and Ian Pennell kindly showed Chris around their unique quarry garden (Scar Cottage) and we also checked out the now flooded temporary trenches at Martley Rock.

Here are Chris’s handouts for the evening: