Thanks to TVGS correspondents Kim and Owain Bell for their account of the annual Herdman Lectures.
The Herdman Society is the undergraduate society of the Earth and Ocean Sciences Department at Liverpool University; William Herdman was founder and benefactor for the original Department of Geology. Each year the undergraduates organise a day of lectures at the University and we have attended these for five years. This year, as we headed expectantly into the auditorium for the first lecture, who should we see but Alasdair and Janet Maxwell Stewart!
Lectures cover topics at the cutting edge of Geoscience with reference to Biology, Astronomy, Classical Civilisation and the Media.
This year the students and their staff mentor Jim Marshall, had arranged an excellent galaxy of speakers.
First we were treated to an exuberant and enthusiastic presentation by Prof. Sanjeev Gupta (Imperial). Sanjeev is a Participating Scientist and Long Term Science Planner on NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory ‘Curiosity’ Rover mission (quite a job title!). He showed us fabulous pictures of the Martian landscape with conglomerates–evidence for the presence of water albeit aeons ago–cross-lamination and mountainous hillsides. Will they find signs of ancient life? Are microbes at the heart of the current methane fluxes? If you haven’t already taken a look at the photos and learned about the science, follow the project HERE
Dr. Juliet Biggs (Bristol) took up the challenge of following on from Sanjeev treating us to an insight into the use of ‘InSAR’ remote satellite monitoring of volcanoes to assess risk…an opportunity to increase the number of high risk volcanoes being monitored. We were delighted to recognise the map of Kilauea’s current eruption which we had studied with Thomas Jones at our January meeting!
The third speaker was Prof. Andrew Aplin (Durham) who said that after many years of quiet study of unconventional hydrocarbons his field is now ‘flavour of the month’! He outlined the gap in UK energy supply and demand and gave an even-handed evaluation of the likely usefulness of the U.K.’s shale gas resources and its possible environmental impacts.
Dr Karen Bacon (Leeds), standing in at the last minute, had the graveyard slot following lunch. She kept us well awake though informing us about how observed changes in plant physiognomy are used as indicators of historic and current atmospheric constituency and climate change.
We were all transfixed by Dr Esther Sumner’s (Southampton) brilliantly delivered exposition of her work with ‘Turbidity Currents’ including experiments to quantify their composition. These are currents under the sea that transport materials sometimes for many miles, often at great velocity and in turn this can seriously affect underground cables, shipping lanes and so on, so an understanding of them is critical and fairly new science. Who would believe this topic could be so absorbing!
Finally well-known Prof. Iain Stewart (Plymouth) who brilliantly identified the target audience he seeks to reach via television and also the web. He ably parried questions about fellow TV scientific ‘star’ Brian Cox!
The 300+ audience of A-level and university students, staff and society members such as ourselves, had been treated to a wonderfully stimulating day. Plans started on the morrow for next year’s symposium and we two eagerly await the opportunity to be there!