Margarita Segou, a seismologist at BGS, has been a member of Geophysical Journal International (GJI) editorial board since 2019 and will begin her new role as editor-in-chief from 1 March 2024.

Margarita has conducted research in institutes and universities in the USA and Europe, and has worked at BGS for the past nine years. She is well known for her work in earthquake physics and the development of testable, physics-based forecasts in evolving seismic sequences.

Since January 2024, GJI has been fully open access, which enables everyone to have free, immediate, and unrestricted access to the high-quality research published within it. GJI’s mission is to promote the understanding of the Earth’s internal structure and physical properties, the processes operating in, on and around it, and its evolution. It is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society and the Deutsche Geophysikalische Gesellschaft.

It with humility and enthusiasm that I assume the role of editor-in-chief of GJI, a journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. GJI is one of the most long-lived journals in earth sciences, with uninterrupted publication over 100 years, and I’m honoured to lead the editorial team at GJI in the open access era.

Margarita Segou, BGS Seismologist.

Dr Marie Cowan has been director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI) since 2014 and, in addition, is the team leader for the energy, minerals and waste team. Marie is both a member of the 51���� Senior Management Board and is an official of the Department for the Economy (DfE). 

She has been at the forefront of GSNI’s work in liaising with all 11 of the Northern Ireland district councils on their draft Local Development Plans, including consideration of energy resources. She has led a new science strategy for GSNI, which prominently features natural resources and the energy transition, and has provided geoscientific advice and expertise to senior officials in DfE.

Marie has been instrumental in leading the recent change in the direction of energy geoscience in Northern Ireland and the prominence of geothermal as a consideration by the Northern Ireland Government. Marie set up and chairs the Geothermal Advisory Committee established by DfE and convened the inaugural Northern Ireland Geothermal Energy Week in June 2022.

I am absolutely honoured and privileged to have been nominated for and awarded the Energy Group medal of the Geological Society of London.

Geothermal energy has been harnessed across the world for many decades and can provide us with 24/7, low-carbon, sustainable and affordable heat and power.

Geologists play a critical role in society as our work helps to deliver the energy transition, achieve net zero, mitigate against climate change and create green jobs.

I will continue with re-affirmed resolve the collaborative work with colleagues, government officials, partners and other stakeholders in Northern Ireland and across Great Britain and Ireland. This will provide strategic scientific leadership, support and evidence that informs policymakers on geothermal energy and its use for our homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, communities and cities.

Dr Marie Cowan, Director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland.

Melinda has served UK hydrogeology for 47 years, developing many of the hydrogeological maps, datasets and services used by groundwater professionals, policymakers, academia and the general public. She has also conducted research internationally, mainly in Malawi and Zimbabwe, studying basement aquifers.

She is one of the longest-serving members of the BGS groundwater team, based in Wallingford, where she worked until her retirement in 2022, and continues to serve as an honorary research associate.

The Whitaker Medal is awarded in memory of the distinguished geologist, William Whitaker, and Melinda is believed to be one of only two women to receive the distinguished medal since it was first awarded in 1930.

She follows in a long line of eminent BGS hydrogeologists who have previously been awarded the prize by the Hydrogeology Group of the Geological Society, including Mike Price (1996), Mike Edmunds (1999), John Chilton (2008) and, most recently, John Barker (2009).

Melinda was thrilled to receive her medal on 28 February 2023 at the Geological Society in Burlington House, London.

I feel very honoured to be recognised in this way, for doing a job I have thoroughly enjoyed and working with so many, both helpful and friendly, colleagues.

Melinda Lewis, BGS Honorary Research Associate.

We’re extremely proud of Melinda. This award recognises a significant lifetime contribution to hydrogeology and commitment to the highest level of expertise. Melinda played a major role in the 1990s, developing the first suite of national groundwater vulnerability maps for England and Wales, for the National Rivers Authority and Environment Agency and for key aquifers in Scotland and Lithuania, in association with each country soil survey.

Her encyclopaedic knowledge of UK hydrogeology helped produce the physical properties manuals for the major and minor aquifers of England and Wales. These have been essential information resources used on a daily basis by all sections of the UK hydrogeological community.

Her commitment, knowledge and attention to detail has been highly valued by us all at BGS and has enabled the UK to build an unrivalled understanding of groundwater resources and hazards, seeing the UK through some difficult challenges.

This award is thoroughly deserved and I know all her colleagues would like to thank Melinda for her years of exceptional service to the hydrogeological community.

David Macdonald, Head of BGS Wallingford.

Throughout her career, Melinda maintained strong links with colleagues in the Environment Agency, water companies and the research community, including the . Through these links, she developed an unrivalled understanding of the national status of groundwater resources and hazards, which was an invaluable resource for supporting other colleagues and projects, and during national crises such as floods and droughts.

Melinda dedication and her value to the UK community was further exemplified by the time she spent supporting national and local governments and environmental regulators during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, to identify potential animal burial sites. For many years, she also played a leading role in interpreting data and producing the groundwater aspects of the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme .

She also ran the BGS Hydrogeological Enquiries Service for the last 20 years. In that time, she answered thousands of enquiries from the general public, drillers, water professionals and students and academics, ensuring the highest quality of service.

Helen Glaves, Senior Data Scientist at the 51���� (BGS) will begin her term as President of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) as from today, at the 2021 taking place online from 19th to 30th April. 

The EGU is the leading organisation for Earth, planetary and space science research in Europe and the event brings together geoscientists from all over the world to present research and discuss ideas in their fields of expertise.

Having been officially invested during the EGU Plenary Meeting in May last year, Helen will serve as EGU President until April 2023. She previously served as EGU Vice-President for 12 months.

Helen, who is based at the BGS headquarters, Keyworth, Nottingham, began her career at the BGS more than 30 years ago as a geoscientist with a focus on coastal geomorphology.

Over the years her role has transitioned and she is now focused on geoinformatics with a particular emphasis on data infrastructures to support open science.

Helen is editor of the open access Earth and Space Science (ESS) journal published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and was awarded the EGU Ian McHarg Medal in 2016 for her contribution to marine informatics.

The following year she was elected EGU Division President for the Earth and Space Science Informatics.

A role model and advocate for diversity in geoscience, key issues she hopes to address as EGU President include improving diversity, equality and inclusivity with European geosciences for scientists at all stages of their career.

Having the opportunity to lead EGU is a real honour and will provide me with the opportunity to promote equality, diversity and inclusivity throughout the geoscience community.

Inclusion and diversity has been brought into sharp focus during the COVID-19 pandemic through the Black Lives Matter movement.

There is also a greater recognition that many parents now equally share caring responsibilities for dependents. This should be more widely accepted and reflected in the mechanisms and systems that are in place to support women and men who have caring responsibilities, which should never be a barrier to achieving the very highest in their academic careers.

I also hope to advocate for better integration of the different geoscience disciplines to support multidisciplinary research.

Helen Glaves, 51����Senior Data Scientist

Meanwhile, Helen will continue to lead the BGS’ contributions to two Horizons 2020 projects focused on sharing and re-use of environmental data. She will also remain part of the leadership team for the European Plate Observing System (EPOS) as Strategic Director for the Integrated Core Services.

On an international level, Helen will remain actively involved in the field of open data policy and data sharing through a number of roles including as a member of the GEO Data Working Group, and member of the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) for the Research Data Alliance, which promotes data sharing and re-use.

Mary Anning is known as one of the most celebrated fossil hunters in the UK. Her pioneering work was undertaken around the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, where she found, amongst many others, ichthyosaur, pterosaur and plesiosaur fossils. Here, BGS Conservator, Simon Harris, talks us through a letter from Anning, sent in 1822, and what this letter can tell us about her life and work at the time.

Transcript

Dear Madam

I cannot give you a correct account of the fossills found in the neighbourhood Lyme has I dont know any thing of shells, but I will write down the names of all those fossils that I can reccolect.

Blue Lias, Ichthyosarus vulgaris, Icthyosarus platydon Tenuirostis, Plesiosarus, dorsal fins resembling the radie of Balistis, dapedium politum, fragments of three other distinct species of fish, Crustacions insects, vegetable impressions, pentacrenite, a variety of Amonites, Natulis, Belemnites, palates of fish Wood, and almost every kind of shell, Iron pyrites, barytes, Calcarious spars, Cupids wings, green sand, Lobsters, cray fish, crabs, teeth, fern Echinets, wood, a variety of fossil shells, gupsum selenite Chalk, teeth, palates, vertebral colums of pentacrenite four kinds of Echinetes, a greate variety of shells madrepore’s, Alceoniums,Terabratulae Pectens

Alluvium, tusks of the mammoth, teeth of the Rehinocerus, teeth of a species of Bullock, flints Chalcedony agates, jaspers, wood echinetes, alceonium a variety of shells Amonites,

I have included all the fossils found between Charmouth, and Axmouth,

I am very sorry to hear your journey to Exeter, has been of so little service to you, I fear you will not be better till the spring, as I cannot think this usesonable weather is good for invalids, I am greatly obliged to you for your kind present, and also for your kind intentions of speaking to your doctor but I was too ill to undertake the journey, it seems an age since I had the pleasure of seeing you, I fear you will not be able to reade this horrid scrall, I can scarcely hold any pen everything seems an exertion

I remain dear madam your
obliged servant
Mary Anning

Mary Anning
Collector of Fossils
Lyme Regis

The subscription was written by Mrs Robt. Kennaway of Charmouth Dorsetshire, to whom this letter was addresses in the year 1822.- and who herself is a scientific geologist, and collector of fossils.
J.H.S.

 

 

This is a fascinating letter. Although we do not have the letter which prompted this response, it clearly answers the question which thousands of visitors to the Jurassic Coast ask to this very day, namely: ‘What fossils can I find here?’

Even in her early twenties, Mary Anning demonstrates in her letter a thorough knowledge of the rocks between Axmouth and Charmouth, around a 10 mile stretch of coast with Lyme Regis at its centre, which probably represents the furthest she would have been able to walk in a day, not having access to any other form of transport.

In the letter, she correctly and concisely lists fossils that would be familiar to collectors today:

• the three most common species of ichthyosaur found, Ichthyosaurus vulgaris (now called I. communis), I. platyodon, and I. tenuirostris
• the Plesiosaurus, which was at that point still very new to science — in 1823 Anning would discover a spectacular complete specimen, which would enable the full description of Plesiosaurus dolichodeirus to be completed by William Conybeare
• the existence of at least four different kinds of fish
• much of the invertebrate fauna, including the ever-present ammonites, belemnites and crinoids (‘pentacrenite’, known today as Pentacrinus)
• the presence of wood and vegetable impressions (probably leaf impressions, which are found occasionally), which indicate that there was land not very far away from where the fossils were being formed

She is also aware that certain fossils are found in certain rocks, and not in others, demonstrating an underlying knowledge of the local stratigraphy.

Anning uses scientific terms wherever possible and, where not, tries to draw on the similarities with modern species with which she is familiar through her limited access to books and scientific papers, which we know she sometimes was able to borrow and would labouriously copy out by hand. For example ‘dorsal fins resembling the radie of the Balistis’ may refer to the modern Balistes, a triggerfish. The fossils themselves may be the rarely found spines of cartilaginous shark species; later she would discover remains in the rocks near Lyme Regis that would permit a fuller description of these fossils.

We see relatively few uses of folklore terminology for fossils despite the fact that, at this time, use of these descriptions to explain the strange anomalies found in the rocks would have been commonplace. Think, for example, of the terms nakestone‘ to describe ammonites, ea dragons‘ for marine reptiles, ‘Cupid’s wings’, possibly referring to some species of bivalve or brachiopod shell, or ’fairy loaves‘ for sea urchins. This demonstrates that Anning had built an impressive scientific understanding of her finds, even without access to the level of formal education held by the men of science with whom she would correspond.

There are very few notable omissions from Anning list, but one to mention is of ’bezoar stones‘ or as we now call them, coprolites (fossil faeces). We know that it wasn’t until 1824 that Anning began to make the connection between these unusually shaped stones and the animals that made them, although it is probable that she had encountered them many years before.

This letter still stands as a remarkably complete account of fossils that are found around Lyme Regis to this very day. If you were to ask a local collector the same question today, you would receive an answer that was not very much different! It shows us that Mary Anning was an extremely skilled and knowledgeable fossil collector, who made every effort to learn as much about the things she was collecting as she possibly could.

About the author

Dr Monaghan is currently science lead for the UK Geoenergy Observatory in Glasgow, focusing on shallow mine water geothermal and heat storage, environmental change and impact. The observatory is a unique facility for the science community and users to take forward research that is vital to understanding the role that shallow mine heat energy could have in decarbonising our energy supply and the environmental management regulation needed.

Dr Monaghan MBE said: “I am honoured and very surprised to receive this award. The application of geology for public good and open information are at the heart of my work. For me, this award is for all the multi-disciplinary teams I have worked with in BGS, academia, Government and industry. The subsurface and geoscience are key in our transition to a sustainable, decarbonised economy and we need to combine scientific excellence with collaborative working to achieve that.”

Starting her career with BGS as a field geologist and 3D modeller, Dr Monaghan role and experience has developed through a variety of projects such as basin analysis in energy geoscience, urban geology and coalfields, primarily in Central Scotland and offshore UK. She was involved in developing early stages of the National Geological Model and has wide knowledge of onshore and offshore UK Carboniferous basins and geochronology. She also led research into the shale resource estimation of central Scotland (2014) and the 21CXRM Palaeozoic Project with the Oil and Gas Authority and industry (2014-2016).

A graduate of the University of Cambridge and with a PhD obtained at the University of Edinburgh, she has been a chartered geologist since 2002.

I am delighted that Alison has been honoured with an MBE. Alison work leading the scientific delivery of the UK Geoenergy Observatory in Glasgow from inception, enabling open data and early academic involvement, together with her work on Palaeozoic basins onshore and offshore UK are essential for the delivery of the BGS strategy to find geoscientific solutions towards net zero.

Dr Karen Hanghøj, Director of the 51����

It is fantastic to see Alison recognised for her years of hard work. She is an admirable scientist who is a leader in her field and drives the teams she works with expertly, motivating and inspiring her colleagues. Alison is a fine example of the high-calibre scientists we have working at BGS and at the Lyell Centre.

Dr Tracy Shimmield, Director of the Lyell Centre

 

The publication is organised every two years by (WIM), celebrating women who are recognised by their peers as being trailblazers for the mining industry; those who make a positive impact, demonstrate leadership, and empower others.

It aims to recognise women of all roles and levels of seniority, from office workers to technicians and specialists out in the field, researchers, academics and CEOs. 

This year, over 1000 nominations were received in total, the highest number since WIM launched the publication in 2013.

Following a careful shortlisting process, Kathryn, who is based at the Lyell Centre in Edinburgh, has been selected from over 600 other women to now feature in the publication, with the process placing the BGS among 365 businesses and organisations to be represented across the industry.

I’m delighted to have been selected as one of the WIM100 for 2021. This list includes some incredible women who are playing a fantastic role in developing a more sustainable mining industry worldwide. Mining will be an absolutely essential part of the transition to a low-carbon economy, and this list demonstrates the important role that women will play in that journey.

Speaking of her nomination, Kathryn Goodenough

Shortlisting is completed by a Women in Mining UK committee and the inspirational women chosen to feature in this year edition were selected based on a number of criteria.

A WIM100 woman makes a positive and impactful change which enables the industry to operate in a more successful, responsible, sustainable and inclusive way.

They demonstrate leadership and offer proactive advocacy to those working in the mining industry and beyond, and empower colleagues to ensure everyone feels heard, welcomed and respected. Finally, A WIM100 woman is resilient and determined and finds solutions to challenges.

Kathryn research focuses primarily on the broad area of magmatism and mineralisation, an interest first developed during her PhD research in the Gardar Province in Greenland.

She joined the BGS in 2001, applying her expertise to mapping projects in Scotland, the United Arab Emirates and Madagascar.

Since 2010, she has been increasingly involved in research on critical raw materials required for decarbonisation. She collaborates with colleagues across the world on projects investigating global resources of the rare earth elements and lithium, which are essential for low-carbon energy generation and storage.

She also leads BGS partnerships with geological surveys in developing countries, working with them as they build their capability for sustainable management of their mineral resources.

Kathryn has published over 60 peer reviewed papers and is regularly invited to speak at international conferences.

She is Chief Editor for the Geological Society new journal Earth Science, Systems and Society (ES³). She is also a member of the Geological Society Council and is the UK representative to the Executive Committee of the International Continental Drilling Programme.

We’re delighted for Kathryn to be recognised in this way. Kathryn enthusiasm and commitment to her research and her dedication as a mentor makes her a role model not only for the mining industry, but academia and geoscience. She is an inspiration for many other women and colleagues across the industry and here at the BGS.

51���� Executive Director, Karen Hanghøj

You can find more . The 2020 (4th edition) of the WIM100 is being sponsored by BMO Capital Markets, Boston Consulting Group, IBM and Heidrick & Struggles.

The Royal Irish Academy has been honouring Ireland leading contributors to the world of learning since its establishment in 1785. Recognised internationally, it is a major national honour.

Past members of the Royal Irish Academy include Seamus Heaney, Dame Nuala O’Loan and former presidents of Ireland Mary McAleese and Mary Robinson. Those elected are entitled to use the designation ‘MRIA’ after their name.

Dr Marie Cowan, the director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI) at BGS, received the accolade for her contribution to society on the island of Ireland including her creation of a multi-lingual communications campaign for OneGeology, a flagship BGS project for UNESCO International Year of Planet Earth.

The project, which reached a global audience of 107 million, aimed to improve the accessibility of global geoscience data to address societal issues including climate change.

“I am absolutely honoured and privileged to be elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy,” said Dr Cowan.

“Geoscience impacts on all our lives, accounting for 34,000 jobs and 6150 businesses in Northern Ireland alone putting it on a par with agriculture.

“Looking ahead, geoscientists will play an integral part in society as we work towards a zero-carbon economy and greater environmental protections.

“I look forward to progressing the Academy mission to champion academic research and promote awareness of how science and the humanities enrich our lives and benefit society”.

Among Dr Cowan other achievements is cross-border collaboration on the multi award-winning Tellus geoscience programmes, working together with the Geological Survey of Ireland to benefit the island economy and research ecosystem.

Its communications campaigns were awarded five industry awards from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and Public Relations Institute of Ireland.

Dr Cowan also initiated the MLA-Geoscientist Pairing Scheme in Northern Ireland and introduced the Scientist and Oireachtas Member Pairing Scheme in Ireland to enrich evidence-based policymaking.

Dr Mary Canning, President of the Royal Irish Academy said ‘‘Ireland should be immensely proud of these women and men who have brought international acclaim to our country. As members of the Royal Irish Academy they will strengthen our capacity to provide the expert advice Ireland needs at this time”.

Dr Karen Hanghøj, Director of the 51����, said “We are thrilled to see Marie honoured in such a way. She is a role model for geoscience and her work has made a huge impact in Ireland and beyond”.