Geology
Status: Active - Open to new members
We meet on the 3rd Friday from 10.00-12.00.
Venue: Malvern Cube Community Centre - WR14 2YH - Click here for further details
Meetings in the Cube only take place in the winter months - October to May. During the warmer months, we organise outdoor visits to areas of interest in Malvern and surrounding areas. We encourage the study of geology especially in the Malvern area and in adjacent counties. This includes looking at the interaction between geology and landscapes and related topics such as the stones used in our buildings and monuments. We aim to learn more about the subject by organising lectures/talks by visiting speakers, visiting areas of interest both locally and further afield, encouraging study and research in small groups, providing a library of geology maps, leaflets and books and arranging residential field trips in the UK and overseas. In addition, we provide a series of introductory talks in the early autumn for newcomers to the subject. We have a comprehensive website that gives details of our previous activities. Visitors are always welcome to group meetings.
Indoor Lecture Programme
17 Oct 25 Dawn of the Modern World: Life, Death and Rain in the Late Triassic (Dr Michael Simms)
21 Nov 25 Orogenic Gold Mineralisation (Peter Treloar, Group Member)
19 Dec 25 The View from Baltica (Sue Hay, EHT & Group Member)
16 Jan 26 Dinosaur Footprints (Mark Baggott, Group Member)
20 Feb 26 Terrestrial Meteorite Craters (Phillip Bustin, TVGS)
20 Mar 26 Geological Evolution of the Himalaya (Prof Mike Searle, Oxford Uni)
17 Apr 26 Use of AI in Geoscience (Prof Paul Cleverley, Infoscience Technologies Ltd)
See our Geology Website for further details of the group’s past activities.
FOSSIL SUB GROUP
We currently have around 20 members with an average of 12 attending our indoor meetings at the Cube Community Centre. The subgroup has a mixed level of expertise from those who have been studying fossils for some time to beginners who have no scientific background. Our aim is to expand our knowledge and understanding of the world of fossils, using what expertise we have available within the group or from outside contributors. We plan to run 2 field trips a year. New members are always welcome whatever their level of expertise.
For more information, please contact Christopher Wright: Mobile: 07732 571973 email: cnw48@outlook.com
2025-26 Programme of Indoor Meetings
5 indoor meetings have been booked in the Orange room at the Cube. 9.45am for 10am prompt start – 12 noon. There will be no meeting in October or December this year. £2 per meeting plus any visiting speaker fees.
Wednesday 26 November - Visiting speaker Rachel Kruft Welton – “The Amber Spiderglass”
Spiders in the fossil record – talk will cover fossilisation processes and the techniques that allow us to piece together fragments of the past to tell some of the story of 8 legged evolution.
Wed 28 January 2026 - Alan Gray – Fossilisation talk
Members invited to bring along specimens with good preservation
Wed 25 February - Dave Green – Talk on the Carboniferous area north of Bristol (followed by a field trip to the area, possibly spring/summer 2026).
Dave Green is a semi retired teacher of geology with over 50 years’ experience, mainly in schools and in further education. His main interest is in field geology and landscape development, for which he runs many trips, both at home and abroad. He is the author of The Quantocks and North Somerset Coast: Landscape and Geology. Dave has previously visited the group for talks on fossils in a range of geological periods and settings and has led us on field trips.
Wed 25 March - Visting speaker Dr. Steve Kershaw, Brunel University – Stromatoporoids
Researcher in shallow marine, coastal and terrestrial environments including palaeoenvironment reconstruction of organic reef deposits. After the talk, members will be invited to join Steve for lunch in Cube café followed by a local field trip to observe Silurian patch reef deposits probably at the Park Wood quarries. Car sharing from the Cube to top of the Purlieu near the Wyche Cutting, Malvern Hills. This post lunch field trip will run weather permitting.
Wed 22 April - Mark Baggott – Talk and update on 2025 Mammoth Dig, Cerney Wick