geologists-from-england

".. even at the age of eight I had a great love for science, and I knew that I wanted to be a scientist."

"From my perspective as an and as a presenter on television I would love people to know and understand the amazing story of the s under our feet. The fact that without these rocks, the beds of , , clay or even s we would not have the or that we have today. We wouldn’t have the s, trees and wildlife without these rocks. Everything about the countryside is dependent on the rocks that sit underneath the soil, and I would love for people to know and make the connection that the nature they see all exists because of the rocks beneath. The rocks also have an ancient story of earth hidden within them that require us to use our imagination, we have to go back hundreds of millions of years to work out why they are there and can even tell us about the future of climate change."

"This whole journey started with '. Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote such an amazing book to connect botany and ecology with traditional knowledge. I also very much looked at other nature writers. ’s book was really interesting. He didn’t necessarily talk about the science of geology, but he did talk about what it felt like to be underground. There are moments in that book which terrify me because it makes me feel so claustrophobic. He makes you feel quite powerful emotions about being with him while he goes on that journey. Another book that really taught me how to structure the stories is by and it’s called Mudlarking. She’s this brilliant, interesting person who walks along the foreshore of the at and each chapter is about the different categories of the things that she finds. And finally the last book which I thought was so powerful as a woman writer was ’s The Living Mountain. She really lives in the moment of observing nature and natural processes. And not just the living processes of nature—what I love about that book is how she observes the rocks, the mountain and the landscape. She feels it in her heart, in every fiber of her being. And through reading that I knew what I wanted to achieve."

"... The Whispers of Rock: Stories from the Earth ... is a love letter written with such passion that you can’t help but be moved. Khatwa has devoted much of her life to spreading the gospel of geology, and here she offers clinical, scientific substance to back up her extraordinary depth of feeling. Throughout the book, she is methodical in her explanations of subjects such as how mountains, s and are formed, while also weaving in fascinating details. We learn that the Taj Mahal in India, an iconic symbol of love, was constructed with ivory-white , the origins of which date back to when several primitive land masses collided nearly 2 billion years ago. A recipe incorporating those , , and led to the rock used in this extraordinary monument, a much more complex process than might be realised at first glance. ... Khatwa’s love of rocks emerged as a child, when she walked over . In her book, she takes us with her around the world and across aeons, all the way to her home of 20 years in , UK, where the and its 185 million years of geological history are her neighbours."

"Provisional age data now show that between 2000 and 3000 BCE, flow along a presently dried-up course known as the Ghaggur-Hakkra River ceased, probably driven by the weakening monsoon and possibly also because of headwater capture into the adjacent Yamuna and Sutlej Rivers."

"The earth on which we live has too great an influence on ourselves, directly and indirectly, to justify ignorance on the subject of its nature and constitution, or the laws which govern its material existence. The history of the present is too nearly connected with, and too directly derived from, the events of the past to allow us safely to neglect it; and the mode of arrangement of the materials of which the outer film of matter, sometimes called the "," is composed, too deeply involves the question of the daily and yearly change that takes place in what we see about us, to permit with safely any indifference in the comparison of results, often hardly to be distinguished except in degree, and in the probable date of their occurrence. In all these matters the investigations concerning the earth's history, which are most generally understood by the term Geology, are found to be very interesting and important in a general sense, and afford much useful information ..."

"... Owing to the very minute proportion in which gold is often associated with rocks and mineral substances, it does not generally pay the cost of working; and the districts therefore known as auriferous or "gold-producing," in the the commercial sense of the term, are not so numerous ... Nearly all the gold of commerce has for a long time been obtained from , Brazil, Transylvania, Africa, the East Indian islands, and Carolina in the United States; the whole annual supply being estimated at about 80,000 pounds weight, and its value being about five millions . This however must be regarded as only an approximate value of the average of several years, as the supplies have for some time been increasing rapidly from the Russian mines."

"Nature offers many of her books for our study; for every department of knowledge, large or small, may be looked on as a separate volume. Astronomy supplies not a few, Chemistry many more, Zoology and Botany each its quota. Of these a number have been read and studied with more or less success. In a few cases we seem to have learnt something of the general plan of Nature; in others, mere glimpses are made out of local and partial phenomena. Many departments have only lately attracted attention; many, probably, there are which are not yet known to exist. Some, on the other hand, have been in course of development ever since man was an intelligent and observing animal, recording his own experiences for the benefit of future races."

"Europe and Asia are not naturally separated; that is, there is no large ocean and no unbroken chain of lofty mountains serving as a barrier to prevent the inhabitants of the one from entering the other. A , not much higher than those of Scotland, and a , are the boundaries that separate them geographically. The two countries of Russia and Turkey, which alone approach the boundary line, possess territory on both sides of it."

"Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus, whose astonishing concept of the Earth's duration has been traced back to Manusmriti, a sacred book."

"Long before it became a scientific aspiration to estimate the age of the earth, many elaborate systems of the world chronology had been devised by the sages of antiquity. The most remarkable of these occult time-scales is that of the ancient Hindus."

"A serpent threaded through the shell of a turtle."

"The cliffs of Ballybunian are even less remarkable for their dimensions, than they are for the singular form of rocks, which seem as if carved by the hand of man; and, independently of the lofty mural precipices, whose angular proportions present every variety of arrangement, as in Smuggler's Bay, where they oftentimes are semicircularly arranged, like the groin-work of an arch, or the tablets or small strings running round a window, or are piled above one another in regular succession, presenting a geological phenomenon of great grandeur and magnificence, they have also other distinct beauties, which originate frequently in similar causes."

"After a large earthquake the earth "rings" like a bell; this motion can be observed on sensitive instruments up to a month after a large event. These oscillations have specific frequencies which are properties of the whole earth and which can be measured very accurately indeed. The lowest frequency oscillation has a period of about one hour. Any combination of seismic waves can be represented as an equivalent combination of normal modes. In practice the mode representation is most useful at low frequency — for seismic waves above about 40 s — since at higher frequencies the number of modes becomes prohibitively large."

"Earthquakes generate elastic waves when one block of material slides against another; the break between the two blocks being called a fault. Explosions generate elastic waves by an impulsive change in volume in the material. Small explosive charges are used in controlled-source seismic experiments in which the waves penetrate only a few kilometres into the earth."

"Two recent studies of the geomagnetic field in the last 1Myr have found 14 excursions, large changes in direction lasting 5–10kyr each, six of which are established as global phenomena by correlation between different sites. The older picture of the geomagnetic field enjoying long periods of stable polarity may not therefore be correct; instead, the field appears to suffer many dramatic changes in direction and concomitant reduction in intensity for 10–20 per cent of the time. During excursions the field may reverse in the liquid outer core, which has timescales of 500yr or less, but not in the solid inner core, where the field must change by diffusion with a timescale of 3kyr. This timescale is consistent with the remarkably uniform duration of well-dated excursions. The disparity of dynamical timescales between the inner and outer cores, a factor of 10, is consistent with the 10 excursions between full reversals."

"Earthquakes radiate waves with periods of tenths of seconds to several minutes. Rocks behave like elastic solids at these frequencies. Elastic solids allow a variety of wave types and this makes the ground motion after an earthquake or explosion (called an event) quite complex. There are two basic types of elastic wave: one involving compression and rarefaction of the elastic material in the direction of propagation of the wave, and one involving no compression but shear of the elastic material perpendicular to its direction of propagation. These are called P and S waves respectively, for primary and secondary since the P wave travels fastest and arrives first."

"... since the Second World War ... the proton magnetometer has revolutionized measurements, satellites have given new impetus to magnetic surveying, discoveries of large mineral deposits have maintained activity in conventional magnetic prospecting, and geomagnetism has continued to play a central role in major scientific developments such as plate tectonics (where the time scale of reversals of the polarity of the Earth's magnetic field still provides the main source of information on the movement of the plates.)"

"Physics, chemistry, astrophysics are obviously the ideal field for the tidy mind ...in the biological and geological sciences the tidy mind often goes astray and the passive, unmathematical approach may be more suitable. ...The sciences that deal with natural process, geology or geography, or with life, zoology or botany, have an immensely more complicated task than physics or chemistry. ... A particular danger, I believe, lies in an oversimplified use of mathematical or statistical methods of investigation, in which obviously erroneous results may be obtained by a selection of only a few of many relevant factors to be considered."

"My fossils, ferns and porcelain (i.e. my hobbies) are an island of sanity in a mad world, an island found by others of my profession who devote a quiet hour to their postmarks, butterflies, stamps or poetry. My palaeontology was a sure restoration of equanimity after the frustrations of working for and with some politicians."

"Dr. Mantell, a number of years ago, sustained a severe injury on the spine, in consequence of a fall from his carriage, and an incurable tumor arose, which, by its pressure upon the nerves of the spinal chord, produced at first temporary paralysis, and subsequently through life, frequent and intense neuralgic suffering, attended by great emaciation. Still his powerful and enthusiastic mind rose above his sufferings, although they often deprived him of sleep. He wrote several of his works while he was a martyr to pain; at the same time he continued his professional visits, and at the bed side of his patients, and when in society at home or abroad, he assumed a degree of cheerfulness which might have led any one to suppose that he was in perfect health. During the last week of his life he suffered intensely, and was deprived almost entirely of sleep; still, although observed to look unusually ill, he gave a public lecture, with his usual animation, two days before his exit, and visited his patients the very day before he died."

"Living in the midst of a most interesting geological district, his quick appreciation could not fail to be struck with its interesting characteristics. As on his professional visits, he rode or drove over the South Downs and Weald of Sussex, he was continually searching for the organic treasures imbedded in the quarries or lying by the roadside, which afforded him an inexhaustible source of delight and instruction; and he thus accumulated materials which eventually enabled him to establish the fresh-water character of the Wealden,—a discovery which alone will hand down his name to the latest posterity as one of the great founders of the science of Geology,—and brought together the fragments of fossil bones which afterwards gave him the power of building up the skeletons of those gigantic reptiles, the hyleosaurus, iguanodon, pelorosaurus, and others, with which he astonished and delighted, not only the public generally, but the scientific world. The number of specimens so collected amounted to upwards of 1,200, and with these he founded the Mantellian Museum, which was visited, while he lived at Lewes, by the most eminent men of the day; among others by Baron Cuvier, and by the Royal Princes. This collection he afterwards removed to Brighton, when he went to reside there, and he made great efforts to have it established in the county from the strata of which it had been gathered, as the nucleus of a local geological museum, but the requisite funds were not forthcoming, and it was ultimately sold to the British Museum..."

"Geology... possesses the great advantage of presenting subjects adapted to every capacity; on some of its investigations the highest intellectual powers and the most profound acquirements in exact science are required; while many of its problems may be solved by any one who has eyes and will use them; and innumerable facts illustrative of the ancient condition of our planet, and of its inhabitants, may be gathered by any diligent and intelligent observer."

"Thirty years ago, his splendid quarto... devoted to the geology of Sussex, his native county in England, made its appearance. It was followed, at the end of five years, by a thinner quarto, equally a finished production... of the geology of the south-east of England, including Sussex and Tilgate Forest. These original works, abounding with interesting and instructive observations, established the author's reputation throughout Europe as an able geologist, and as an acute and successful expositor."

"Every part of the earth's surface presents unequivocal proofs that the elevation of the bed of the ocean in some places, and the subsidence of the dry land in others, have been, and are still, going on; and that, in truth, the continual changes in the relative position of the land and water, are the effects of laws which the Divine Author of the Universe has impressed on matter, and thus rendered it capable of perpetual renovation:— Art, Empire, Earth itself, to change are doomed; Earthquakes have raised to heaven the humble vail, And gulf's the mountain's mighty mass entombed, And where the Atlantic rolls wide continents have bloomed."

"Our beautiful planet is indeed worthy of our study; it was once our cradle—it will soon be our grave: between the dawn and the night of life, it is the scene of our busy action, and from it we shall rise to another state of being."

"A work upon the plan originally contemplated by the Author seems still to be required, to initiate the young and uninstructed in the study of those MEDALS 0F CREATION—those electrotypes of nature—the mineralized remains of the plants and animals which successively flourished in the earlier ages of our planet, in periods incalculably remote, and long antecedent to all human history and tradition. With this conviction the present volumes are offered... as a guide for the Student and the Amateur Collector of fossil remains; for the intelligent Observer who may desire to possess a general knowledge of the subject, without intending to pursue Geology as a science; and for the Tourist who may wish, in the course of his travels, to employ profitably a leisure hour in quest of those interesting memorials of the ancient physical revolutions of our globe, which he will find everywhere presented to his observation."

"Dr. Mantell lived successively at Lewes, Brighton, Clapham, and London in all of which places he sustained an extensive professional practice, both in medicine and surgery, and still found time, in consequence of his great industry, to cultivate geology and the allied sciences, especially comparative anatomy, and to give many lectures on these subjects, in compliance with invitations from various towns and cities. As a lecturer, he was lucid, animated, and eloquent; and having the advantage of a noble presence, with a voice of great power and of a fine musical cadence, his appearance was eminently attractive. ...His well deserved celebrity insured on the part of the public a welcome reception to several important works, which, in the course of a few years, he wrote and published."

"I had every reason to believe that my collection would be permanently established in Sussex, and serve as the foundation for a County Museum. In that expectation I have... been utterly disappointed. ...after the death of my noble and lamented friend, the late Earl of Egremont, the munificent patron of the Institution, the proposed measure was abandoned... I have therefore, in compliance with the wishes of my scientific friends, disposed of my entire collection to the Trustees of the British Museum. ...that collection, which would have been of tenfold importance if located in the district from whence it was derived, and whose physical structure it was designed to illustrate, is now broken up, and will be dispersed through the cabinets of our National Institution... a time will assuredly come, when their endeavours to promote a taste for scientific knowledge among the intelligent inhabitants of Sussex, and to direct attention to the investigation of its physical phenomena, will he properly appreciated, and the failure of their attempt to secure to the county a collection so rich in its peculiar fossil and mineral productions, be remembered with regret."

"In the prosecution of these researches... extraneous fossils were no longer regarded merely as subjects of natural history, but as memorials of revolutions which have swept over the face of the earth, in ages antecedent to all human record and tradition."

"Although we may not be able to mark the precise boundary beyond which organic beings do not appear, it is certain that in all geological epochs, subsequent, at least, to that of the primary rocks, animals and plants have existed in successive families; they have been created, have lived their day, and by the operation of physical causes, have perished; while new races have been called into being, and in their turn have ceased to be, in order to give room to other families, requiring, perhaps, a different climate, and a new order of things."

"Every artificial excavation—every well and cellar—every cut for a fort, common road, railway, or canal—every quarry—every tunnel through a mountain—and every pit and gallery of a mine bored into the solid earth, furnish means of investigating its interior. Still more do the inland precipices, and the rocky promontories and headlands along the rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans; the naked mountain-sides ribbed with strata, that bound the defiles, gorges, and valleys; the ruins accumulated at the feet of lofty pinnacles and barriers, and those that have been transported and scattered, far and wide, over the earth; present us with striking features of the internal structure of our planet. Most of all, do the inclined strata push up their hard edges, in varied succession, and thus faithfully disclose the form and substance of the deep interior, as it exists many miles and leagues beneath the observer's feet."

"Petrifactions and their Teachings ...is a very interesting and instructive guide through the British Museum and is fitted to be a pioneer in palæontology generally."

"Every walk we take offers subjects for profound meditation,—every pebble that attracts our notice, matter for serious reflection; and contemplating the incessant dissolution and renovation which are taking place around us in the organic and inorganic kingdoms of nature, we are struck by the force and beauty of the exclamation of the poet— "My heart is awed within me, when I think Of the great miracle which still goes on In silence round me—the perpetual work Of Thy Creation, finished, yet renewed For ever!""

"It is surely unnecessary to dwell on the interest and importance of a study which instructs us that every pebble we tread upon bears the impress of the Almighty's hand, and affords evidence of Creative wisdom; that every grain of sand, every particle of dust scattered by the wind, may be composed of the aggregated skeletons of beings, so minute as to elude our unassisted vision, but which possessed an organization as marvellous as our own;—a science discoveries have realized the wildest imaginings of the poet,—whose realities far surpass in grandeur and sublimity the most imposing fictions of romance;—a science whose empire is the earth, the ocean, the atmosphere, the heavens;—whose speculations embrace all elements, all space, all time;—objects the most minute, objects the most colossal;—carrying its researches into the smallest atom which the microscope can render accessible to our visual organs,—and comprehending all the phenomena in the boundless Universe, which the powers of the telescope can reveal."

"Upon fixing my residence at Lewes, I resolved to devote my leisure moments to the investigation of the "Organic remains of a former world"..."

"The following pages contain the result of my labours. They have been composed under circumstances particularly unfavourable to literary pursuits; and such as those only can duly appreciate, who are aware of the numerous and anxious duties, which a country practitioner is called upon to perform."

"It appears that in the lapse of ages, the sea alternately encroaches on and retreats from the land, and the districts it formerly occupied become the habitation of terrestrial animals and vegetables;—but other revolutions succeed, the sea returns to its ancient bed, and the countries from which it retires, are again fitted for the reception of their former inhabitants."

"A mere savage, ignorant and brutal, and the creature of appetite alone, can never rise from his degradation, until he has learned to draw from the mineral kingdom the instruments of arts and civilization, or, at least, to use the aids that are thus obtained. The axe, the hoe, the plough, the loom, are inseparable means and companions of his advancement."

"Whether we speak of the cedar, the oak, the lichens, or the grasses, all equally derive their support from the elements afforded by the mineral world, which, in its widest sense, includes not only the solid earth, but its waters, and all its fiuids—its atmosphere, and all its gases."

"If I have succeeded in explaining in a satisfactory manner, how by laborious and patient investigation, and the successful application of other branches of natural philosophy, the wonders of geology have been revealed—if I have removed but from one intelligent mind, any prejudice against scientific inquiries, which may have been excited by those who have neither the relish nor the capacity for philosophical pursuits—if I have been so fortunate as to kindle in the hearts of others, that intense and enduring love and admiration of natural knowledge, which I feel in my own,—or have illuminated the mental vision with that intellectual light, which once kindled can never be extinguished, and which reveals to the soul the beauty, and wisdom, and harmony of the works of the Eternal, I shall indeed rejoice, for then my exertions will not have been in vain. And although my humble name may be soon forgotten, and all record of my labours be effaced, yet the influence of that knowledge, however feeble it may be, which has emanated from my researches, will remain for ever; and, by conducting to new and inexhaustible fields of inquiry, prove a never-failing source of the most pure and elevated gratification."

"In circumstances where the uninstructed and incurious eye can perceive neither novelty nor beauty, he who is imbued with a taste for natural science will everywhere discover an inexhaustible mine of pleasure and instruction, and new and stupendous proofs of the power and goodness of the Eternal! For every rock in the desert, every boulder on the plain, every pebble by the brook-side, every grain of sand on the sea-shore, is fraught with lessons of wisdom to the mind which is fitted to receive and comprehend their sublime import. "From millions take thy choice, In all that lives a guide to God is given; Ever thou hear'st some guardian angel's voice, When nature speaks of heaven!""

"It seems scarcely credible, that but little more than a century ago it was a matter of serious question with naturalists, whether the petrified shells imbedded in the rocks and strata were indeed shells that had been secreted by molluscous animals; or whether these bodies, together with the teeth, bones, leaves, wood, &c., found in a fossil state, were not formed by what was then termed the plastic power of the earth; in like manner as minerals, metals, and crystals."

"In the latter part of the seventeenth century, there were several eminent men in England who were greatly in advance of the age in which they lived, and strenuously exerted themselves to discover and promulgate the true principles of Geology. Among these Dr. Martin Lister, physician to Queen Anne, was one of the most distinguished. This accomplished naturalist in his great work on shells... figures and describes many fossil shells as real animal productions, and carefully compares them with recent species. He also recognised the distinction of strata by the organic remains they contain; and to him the honour is due of having first suggested the construction of geological maps..."

"I made a hurtful and thoughtless comment on Sunday when I said that "I wanted my life back." When I read that recently, I was appalled. I apologize, especially to the families of the 11 men who lost their lives in this tragic accident."

"The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

"There's no one who wants this Deepwater Horizon oil spill] over more than I do. I'd like my life back."

"I have eaten many strange things, but have never eaten the heart of a king."

"The taste of mole was the most repulsive I knew until I tasted a bluebottle [fly]."

"Life to each individual is a scene of continued feasting in a region of plenty; and when unexpected death arrests its course, it repays with small interest the large debt which it has contracted to the common fund of animal nutrition, from whence the materials of its body have been derived. Thus the great drama of universal life is perpetually sustained; and though the individual actors undergo continual change, the same parts are filled by another and another generation; renewing the face of the earth and the bosom of the deep with endless successions of life and happiness."