Biographies

Background of members of Council 2010-11

Philip Allen

I would like to think of the Geological Society as a hub for exciting developments in geoscience and its many applications, including the hosting of key, strategically important meetings on issues of major concern. My main motivation? Get more people involved in the Society, forge better lateral links with other learned societies, be inclusive, be representative, be visible, be influential. I am currently Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial Collect, but have lived and worked in three European countries. I received my bachelor’s degree from the University of Wales in Aberystwyth in 1974 and PhD from Cambridge in 1979. I have been a Fellow for 30 years. My areas of special interest include sedimentology, geomorphology and basin analysis, and I have written text books entitled Basin Analysis and Earth Surface Processes. I am the holder of a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award, and was honoured with the Geological Society’s Lyell Medal in 2007.

Samme Brough

I am a young Geoscientist working in the oil and gas exploration and production sector, and hold a BSc. (Hons) in Environmental Earth Science from the University of East Anglia (2007). Since first becoming involved with the Geological Society, and joining the Education committee in 2009, I have gained valuable insight into the Geological Society operations, and its desire to embrace new developments and promote our passion to the wider scientific community.

These objectives reflect my own efforts to promote the geosciences to younger generations, and the wider society. I have been an active Geoscience Ambassador for several years through my voluntary involvement in STEMNET’s (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths Network) Science Ambassadors scheme. This nationwide scheme relies on its inspiring role models to promote these core subject areas to, and inspire, students of all ages in schools and higher education. In 2009 my commitment was acknowledged with an award for being the “Most Dedicated Ambassador”.

My experiences as a Geoscience Ambassador have highlighted to me the importance of both encouraging and supporting young geoscientists within the Geological Society, and a necessity to build a positive profile into the wider community, where the geosciences are under-appreciated.

As a member of Council, I am privileged to represent young and early career Geoscientists within the Society. I hope that my existing role as an Ambassador for Geosciences, and the Society, will inform and inspire younger generations outside of this learned community.

Malcolm Brown

I am Senior Vice President, Exploration for BG Group. I am responsible for exploration in 20 countries, where we employ 300 geoscientists, an exploration budget of some £800 mm pa and delivery of new resources to drive the company’s growth.

After completing my BSc Geology from Kingston Polytechnic in 1976, I started ‘at the bottom’ as a mud logger in Libya. I then spent two years in Saudi Arabia in directional drilling, before concluding that I ought to get a proper job and returned to the UK in 1981 to complete an MSc in Petroleum Geology at Imperial College.

I joined British Gas in 1982 and during my career I have worked in a variety of hydrocarbon provinces including the North Sea, West Africa and South America. I was Exploration Director with worldwide responsibility from 1996 to 2000, during which time BG had major discoveries in Egypt, Kazakhstan, Trinidad, UK, Bolivia and Indonesia.

I then spent some time in general management roles, but such jobs lacked the challenge of the ‘detective story’ that is hydrocarbon exploration and I returned to Exploration in 2005. Since then BG has enjoyed success in such differing environments as the giant oil discoveries in 2000m of water in Brazil and the challenge of developing coal bed methane to Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) activity in Australia.

I received an Honorary Doctorate from Kingston University in 2007. I am currently on the Advisory Board of the Energy Geoscience Institute and have held positions on the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, UKOOA, IPIECA and Connect Reading, a local charity. I am Sponsorship Chairman for the 7th Petroleum Conference and a member of the Development and Fundraising Committee of the Geological Society.

I believe there are three current challenges where geology has a key role to play. Firstly, the UK has to address the issue of security of energy supply for the first time since the advent of the North Sea some 40 years ago. Secondly, in an energy hungry world, how do we handle the issue of ‘waste’, be it nuclear or CO2 sequestration? Thirdly, how do we inspire enough UK teenagers to want to become geologists? None of these questions have easy answers, but I would very much like to contribute to the answers as a member of the Council.

Rob Butler

After graduating in 1981 from Leeds and completing a PhD in Swansea in 1984, my career has taken me through Durham, the OU and back to Leeds. In 2008 I took up a chair in Tectonics at the University of Aberdeen to establish stronger collaborative links especially between university and industry-based structural geologists.
Although my best-known research is from the Western Alps and Scottish Highlands, I have worked extensively in Italy, where I have held various honorary positions, the Middle East, Pakistan and currently New Zealand, This has focused on studying the deformation of continental lithosphere, especially the structure of thrust belts. Much of my current research is directed at understanding the structural geology of submarine slopes, from shear fabrics developed in the sea bed beneath turbidity currents right up to the evolution of deepwater fold and thrust belts.

Since 1980 I have been Junior Associate, then Fellow of the Society and have been honoured with a President’s Award (1986) and the Wollaston Fund (1995). I currently serve on the Awards Committee and have acted as chair of the Tectonic Studies Group (1995-6). I am Director of the Virtual Seismic Atlas – an open-access community internet resource that, while sharing the geological interpretation of seismic data, showcases remarkable subsurface imagery. I also hold memberships of the American Geophysical Union, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of New Zealand and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain.

I am a passionate advocate of core geoscience skills – especially of excellent field training. I believe it is important to promote the major advances in our science both for their own sake and for their societal relevance. Funding councils and university managements should be encouraged to value more these sustaining activities. The UK is blessed with excellent links between industry and academia that should be fostered: there remains much that we can learn from each other. I look forward to a Society that is increasingly inclusive and outward-looking.

Mike Daly

As BP’s Group Vice President for Exploration I am responsible for the renewal of BP’s oil and gas resource base. This includes accessing new resources, identifying new areas of exploration potential, and leading the company’s exploration drilling programme.

A graduate of UCW Aberystwyth, I began my career as a field geologist in the Geological Survey of Zambia. I then joined the Research Institute for African Geology at Leeds University and completed a doctorate on The Tectonic and Thermal Evolution of the Irumide Belt, Zambia. Since joining BP as a structural geologist in the mid 1980s, I have had a broad career as a geoscientist, explorer and business leader in the energy industry.

It occurs to me that geology has never been more relevant to society and yet increasingly suffers from a lack of popularity. In my world of bringing energy security to an energy-hungry planet, we face a major dilemma – a dilemma in which geoscience must play a leading role. The every growing demand for fossil fuel driven energy is in increasing tension with concern over man’s impact on the climate through increasing CO2 emissions. Excellent and innovative geoscience is required to solve this dilemma. Not only do we need to continually find new hydrocarbon resources to diversify our sources of supply, but also to understand the process of climate change and find a long term solution to CO2 storage. My intent would be to make a contribution to the Society’s leadership in issues such as these, both in clarifying them and encouraging young scientists to engage in them.

Andy Fleet

has been Keeper (Head) of Mineralogy at the Natural History Museum since 1996. Before that he worked for BP as a geochemist for 15 years and wan a UNESCO Fellow in oceanography at the Open University for four years. He has co-edited five of the Society's Special Publications and the last 'Barbican' volumes on the Petroleum geology of northwest Europe. Since 1993 he has been a Special Publications Series editor and became Chair of the Books Committee when it was set up in May 2001. He has served on the committees of the Geochemistry, Marine Studies and Petroleum Specialist Groups, on the Publications Management Committee since 2000 and was a member of Council from 1997 to 2000. He is fully supportive of the recently introduced structure for managing the Society's publications and would look to continue to improve the quality of the Society's publications through support for the editorial boards of the journals and books. He sees growing the number and diversity of publications as a critical income stream for the Society's finances to be the key challenge facing the Society's publishing. He believes support and clear direction for the Publishing House staff and their contributing authors and editors will continue to be vital in this. In particular new publishing initiatives are needed but at the same time sustained development of special publications needs to be maintained.

Sally Gibson

I have been a Fellow of the Geological Society of London for 25 years and served on the editorial board of the Journal of the Geological Society of London for 8 years. I have also been a member of the Volcanic and Magmatic Studies Group Committee. I am currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge, following postdoctoral research at the University of Durham, PhD research at Kingston Polytechnic and a bachelor’s degree at the University of Sheffield. My main research interests are concerned with the physical and chemical processes that are involved in the generation of melts within the Earth’s mantle. This has involved research and collaboration with scientists on almost all of the world’s continents and has resulted in over 50 publications. In addition to my academic research and teaching I am also involved in outreach activities.

Richard Herrington

I am a long-term Geological Society member who has had a varied career, commencing in 1980 in the mining industry engaged in exploration, and now at the Natural History Museum in London on mineral deposits research.

The UK is still a natural major supplier of geoscience graduates for this sector and the Geological Society is a natural home for these graduates both in industry and academia. I feel that the Geological Society can play a stronger role in providing a voice for and supporting geoscientists currently engaged in and seeking careers in the minerals industry as well as those academics that are providing graduate and postgraduate geoscientists to industry. We need to better understand industry needs particularly with the diversity of new skills demanded by industry in the 21st Century, as well as preserving core skills fundamental to the industry. Through dialogue, the range of available graduate courses, ongoing professional education and training courses, supported technical meetings and conferences can be reviewed with the Geological Society providing lead guidance where appropriate. The renewed growth in the mining sector brings many new technical challenges for professionals in the sector and the professional needs of geoscientists have changed along with that. I believe that my direct experience in the minerals industry and current close links with industry through funded research programmes will bring a balanced set of skills and experience to the Geological Society Council to further some of these aims.

Education: BSc ARSM 1980 Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, Mining Geology Class 2:1; PhD DIC 1991 Royal School of Mines, Imperial College, Economic Geology

Honorary positions: Honorary Research Fellow, University of Southampton; Society of Geology Applied to Ore Deposits (SGA): European Regional Vice President Society of Economic Geologists; Honorary Lecturer, Member of Lindgren Award Committee.

Richard Hughes

I graduated from the University of Wales (Cardiff) in 1980 and was awarded a PhD by the University of Cambridge in 1984. I have been a Chartered Geologist since 1998, and am a member of the Society’s Information Management Committee. I have over twenty years of varied professional geoscience experience in the UK and internationally, including the developing world. I am a member of the British Geological Survey Board and Senior Leadership Team. In my current role as BGS Director of Information and Knowledge Exchange I oversee the National Geoscience Data Centre, information management, the creation of national digital data-sets, websites, press, outreach, libraries and the delivery of a wide range of information services that serve all sectors of our diverse user community.

There is a pressing need for a much higher level of public understanding of the societal relevance of geoscience in order to inform debate on critical environmental and resource challenges from local to global scales. Raising the visibility of geoscience is also key to ensuring a continued flow of high calibre geoscience graduates to serve the needs of all sectors of the geoscience community, and to underpin the future success of the Society. I think it is particularly important for the Society to look at how it can reach out to the next generation of geoscientists and become more relevant to their needs. To achieve this goal it will need to consider new approaches including, for example, more web-based collaboration and networking. In standing for election to Council I am especially motivated to contribute to the realisation of these goals.

Adam Law

I have been an active member of the geoscience community since an undergraduate at University College London. I completed my PhD at Cambridge in 1993 and then worked within the oil and gas industry, holding a variety of positions within British Gas plc and Amerada Hess Ltd.

I became a Principal of Equipoise Solutions Ltd in 2003.

Throughout my industrial career, I have continued to foster a keen interest in geology as a whole. I have published a number of papers reviewing aspects of geology and geophysics within the oil and gas sector, and have also helped organise a number of conferences through the Society’s Petroleum Group. Latterly, I have been a member of the Petroleum Group Committee and am Treasurer of the Petroleum Group until 2008. I would welcome the chance to become a member of Council because of the opportunity it presents to serve the wider geological community, fostering the enthusiasm we all have for our science, and for the Society.

Alan Lord

BSc Geology, Hull 1964; PhD Micropalaeontology, Hull 1968. FGS 1964. Academic posts at UEA, Aarhus, Aberystwyth, and UCL – Professor of Micropalaeontology, Dean of Mathematical & Physical Sciences, Pro-Provost – 33 years and 33 successful research students. Current post: Section Leader, Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.

Research interests: post-Palaeozoic micropalaeontology, stratigraphy, environmental change. Current research: Holocene ostracods and climate change in the Skaggarak; Neogene biostratigraphy and Neotectonics of central Cyprus.

Scientific service: past Chair, Micropalaeontological Society, past Chair International Research Group on Ostracoda, past Vice President Geologists’ Association, and Council service for Geological Society of London, Palaeontological Association, etc. Long-term association with Hydrocarbon Industry via UCL Micropalaeontology MSc programme, research projects and funding, and spouse who is a geophysical database manager.

In seeking election to Council I have three priorities in mind: firstly, to help build upon and sustain the momentum in Society affairs generated by the Bicentenary Year; secondly, to ensure that services to Fellows and to the Earth science community at large continue to develop, as this is the key to growing our membership; and finally to promote sedimentary geology sensu lato within the Society.

Bryan Lovell, OBE

As Senior Research Fellow in Earth Sciences at Cambridge University, I work with Nicky White and colleagues on control of surface elevation of Earth by episodic variations in mantle convection. (The path followed on the way to this happy occupation is described in Proof in the Puddingstone, a three-part essay published in Geoscientist in 2008.) As a former international exploration manager with BP, I had to apply such science wisely. I also had to keep a grip on the engineering and finance involved in some hefty projects, while leading negotiations with governments for whom a British company might not be first choice. In such circumstances quality of staff is crucial. In the early 1990s I led the development of a new programme of graduate recruitment and early training in BP. I am still involved with that Challenge programme as consultant, and over the years have directed field-based training for international recruits from a range of academic disciplines, in many different locations worldwide. The carbon cycle has naturally featured in that training, more so as environmental pressures on the oil industry have mounted.

As a member of the Board of the British Geological Survey in the 1990s I was introduced to the notion of putting back underground the carbon that as an oil man I was then striving to take out. This early interest in carbon capture and storage was revived as our Cambridge research on the North Atlantic Paleogene led me to take a hard look at the 55 Ma warming event as a guide to present concerns on climate change. Challenged by Carbon: the Oil Industry and Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2009) reflects these various converging interests. This book aims to bring geology into centre stage in developing both the conviction that we have a problem with anthropogenic climate change, and the means to cope. In writing this I have drawn on experiences going right back to student days at Oxford and Harvard in the 1960s, through lecturing, consulting and politics at Edinburgh in the 1970s, to Chief Sedimentologist and then exploration management with BP in the 1980s and 1990s. Throughout these years the Society has provided an increasingly welcome home for those of us who try to combine our academic passion for geology with business. The broad embrace of the Society is an immensely valuable quality in an organisation. Those of us fortunate enough to be on Council have much to promote and protect.

John Ludden

As Executive Director of the British Geological Survey, I direct about 800 staff and a budget of about £50 million. I serve on the NERC Executive Board (NEB) and, as such, have influence on the research council that is the principal provider of funds for the geosciences in the UK.

I strongly feel that the Society and NERC need to join up their ideas in looking at the future of geoscientific research and training in the UK. I will be in a position with the Society and NERC to influence such a “forward look”.

I have experience in similar positions. I am currently the Past President of the European Geoscience Union (EGU) and Vice President of EuroGeosurveys. I have served on numerous international committees and EC, ESF selection and strategy committees and French, Canadian and UK national committees in the field of geosciences.

The main axis of my research has been the study of the sources of mafic magmas through geological time. This research has been based on geochemical studies of mafic rock systems from the Precambrian shields, from the modern oceanic basins and from ophiolites. My research has addressed fundamental problems of the evolution of the Earth’s mantle and the lithosphere, the latter notably through Lithoprobe’s geophysical studies of the Canadian Shield, for which I was the leader of the Abitibi-Grenville project, and the Ocean Drilling Programme, for which I have twice sailed as a co-chief scientist. Most recently my research has been associated with fluxes associated with the “Subduction Factory”.

I have trained 18 PhD students, about 20 MSc students and 10 post-doctoral fellows. My total referred publications number about 115 plus more than 20 book chapters. My ISI citation is approximately 2900 and my Hirsh factor is 33.

Paul Maliphant

My career has encompassed coal mining (1985-1993), local authority services (1993-1996) and consultancy (1996 to date) and I am now Associate Director (Engineering Geology) and Market Sector Director with Halcrow Group Ltd serving on the management team of its business in Highways and Transportation, UK & Europe. My qualifications include BSc (Hons) (Edinburgh/Bristol, 1985), CGeol (1992), MSc (Cardiff, 1995 (distinction)), EurGeol (1995). Society experience includes:

• Founder Honorary Secretary (1992-1993), chairman (1994-1996 and 2007 to date) and committee member (1996 – 1999) of the Southern Wales Regional Group (which has chosen to create an annual Early Careers Geologist award in my name);
• Chairman of the meetings subcommittee of the Engineering Group (2004-2007) and committee member (2007 – 2008);
• Member of the Professional Services and Regional Groups committees (2007 to date); and
• Active chartership scrutineer.

My interests within the Society centre around the critical roles of the specialist and regional groups in developing the professional (rather than academic) side of the society supporting geologists working in commercial practice; the societal value and professional status of geologists; the enhancement of links with other professional bodies; and a long standing interest in supporting geologists in the formative years of their careers. I would bring to the Council significant experience of Society matters at regional and specialist group level combined with extensive managerial and commercial geology experience harnessed to a desire to implement and effectively manage change, where appropriate and required, for the betterment of the Society and the geological profession.

David Manning

I served on Council from 2003-2006, during which time I was Chair of the Regional Groups Committee. I have been a Chartered Geologist since 1993 and act as a Scrutineer for applications for validation as a Chartered Geologist.

I am also a member of the Society’s Accreditation Panel, which accredits university degrees. I am Professor of Soil Science in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University and my academic career as a geochemist has encompassed experimental petrology, clay reactions in petroleum reservoirs, industrial mineral raw materials and soil/mineral organic matter reactions. I ran Mineral Solutions Ltd successfully from 1996-2006, providing minerals consultancy and product development and have also worked closely with the minerals and waste management industry. My university teaching focuses at MSc level on development of consultancy skills and chemical aspects of groundwater, landfill and contaminated land. My research concentrates on carbon sequestration in soils, developing innovative instrumentation to trace carbon through different soil pools.

I am committed to developing the profession that the Society represents. By serving on Council and as Secretary for Professional Matters, I hope to improve ways in which the Society serves the profession, especially promoting activities within the regions that engage academic and non-academic sectors, and by representing Fellows’ interests as appropriate to external bodies.

Susan Marriott

I am a sedimentologist working mainly on alluvial sediments and soils in ancient and modern environments. I studied geology courses part-time with the Open University before undertaking a BSc (Hons) in Geology at the University of Bristol, followed by a doctorate in Sedimentology from the University of Reading (Postgraduate Research Institute for Sedimentology). I have published research on alluvial architecture, palaeosols and environmental change. My employment experience is in academia at Keele University and the University of the West of England, Bristol, where I am continuing to develop courses in geology as part of environmental management, geography and engineering degrees and CPD courses for industry partners. I hold editorial positions on two international journals in sedimentology and I am the book series editor for the Geologists’ Association. I have been a Fellow of the Geological Society and Chartered Geologist for eight years, recently taking on a role as mentor for women in geology. I am engaged in outreach activities with local schools and RIGS group. The Geological Society has a major role to play in communicating geoscience at all levels and in forging and maintaining strong links between policy makers, industry and academia. I believe that this is particularly important in relation to response to environmental change and sustainable use of natural resources. As a member of Council my teaching and learning and communications skills will support the range of the Society’s activities, bringing the importance of the study of geoscience to as wide an audience as possible.

Stuart Monro, OBE

Stuart Monro, Scientific Director of Dynamic Earth with continuing responsibility for the scientific content, is a geologist who graduated with a First Class Honours degree at Aberdeen University in 1970 and has a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. He spent most of his career with the British Geological Survey (BGS) working on sedimentary rocks, the evolution of sedimentary basins and on environmental geology but is now heavily committed to public engagement. He retains academic links with the Open University where he is a tutor in Earth Science and with Edinburgh University where he is a Visiting Professor in the School of Geoscience. He has a strong interest in schools science and the role of Earth Science in the curriculum and is on the management group of the Scottish Earth Science Education Forum and Chair of the Earth Science Trust which raises funds from Industry and Trusts for Earth Science education. He is a Trustee of the National Museums Scotland, a non-executive Director of the Edinburgh International Science Festival and Independent Co-Chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Council that advises Scottish Government on science policy. He was awarded an OBE for services to science, December 2006.

John Tellam

I am a professor of hydrogeology at Birmingham University with about 30 years of research and teaching experience. My main research concerns the mobility of inorganic pollutants in groundwater, increasingly with an emphasis on particulate pollutants, especially viruses and manufactured nanoparticles. My teaching has covered a range of subjects, including hydrogeology, engineering geology, geophysics, and basic geological fieldwork. Through research, the Hydrogeology MSc Course at Birmingham, CPD courses, reviewing, and consultancy, I have strong links with water industry regulation, supply, and consultancy organizations. Amongst other academic and research roles, I have served as head of department at Birmingham Earth Sciences, on the steering group of the UK Groundwater Forum, on the editorial boards of international journals, in NERC and EPSRC review colleges, and as a specialist advisor in the recent higher education Research Assessment Exercise.

George Tuckwell

I have ten years' experience working as a geophysicist both in academia and industry. I graduated with a PhD from Southampton University in 1997, took the post of Lecturer in Geophysics at the University of Liverpool and in 2000 moved to teach geophysics in Keele University. I have published numerous papers on geophysics, structural geology, plate boundary processes, geomechanics, and fluid flow. Since 2003 I have run the Geophysics Division at STATS Ltd, and was appointed Associate Director in 2005. The division supplies geophysical survey design and site investigation services to the ground engineering, geoenvironmental and civil engineering sectors. I am also an Honorary Research Fellow at Keele University, am a Chartered Geologist and a Chartered Scientist and am a committee member of the Environmental and Industrial Geophysics Group. I believe strongly in the development of strong links and healthy discussion between academia and industry, and between both groups and the public, and see the Geological Society as the natural umbrella under which communication can continue and develop. I would take the opportunity to divert some of my enthusiasm for teaching, learning about, researching and practising geophysics to serve the Society.

Jonathan Turner

After completing my PhD at Bristol University in 1988, on the South Pyrenean thrust belt, I worked for Shell and latterly LASMO. I joined Birmingham University in 1993 where I carried out teaching and research in structural geology, basin dynamics and their applications to petroleum geology. My research has generated over forty papers focusing on rifted continental margins, especially the uplift and denudation of their continental interiors, and I am involved also in the development of innovative methods of interpreting seismic data. I have served as Secretary of the Tectonic Studies Group, have been a series editor for the GS special publications - working with the Publishing House to maintain the international reputation of our books - and am currently Secretary of the Publications Management Committee. Since 2009 I have worked for BG Group as a structural geologist in their Advanced Geoscience team. My role is much like that of an internal consultant, providing structural geological advice and services to the regional assets, and feeding information from the many research and development projects that BG sponsors.

David Vaughan

I am Professor of Mineralogy and Director of the Williamson Research Centre for Molecular Environmental Science at the University of Manchester. I have also served as Head of the Geology Department at Manchester (now a School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences). My research interests centre on the physics and chemistry of minerals, specifically the metal sulphides and oxides, and the application of fundamental knowledge of these materials to understanding the formation of ore deposits, mineral extraction, and environmental contamination. In recent years I have been increasingly involved in interdisciplinary research into environmental problems involving chemists, physicists, materials scientists, microbiologists and engineers; examples include arsenic contamination of drinking water, the fate of depleted uranium munitions in the environment, the environmental impact of engineered nanoparticles, and the factors controlling acid mine drainage systems. I have been active in various learned societies (Past President of the Mineralogical Society, and of the European Mineralogical Union, former Vice-President of the Société Francaise de Mineralogie et Cristallographie) and am currently a member of the Geological Society Awards Committee. As well as research, I have interests in writing, including textbooks and monographs on Earth resources, sulphide minerals, ore mineralogy, and environmental mineralogy, and in editing journals (currently I am Associate Editor of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, and Principal Editor of Elements). These writing activities are complemented by my other interests in communicating with geoscientists and the general public (I have served as Distinguished Lecturer for both the Mineralogical Society of America, and the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain & Ireland). I believe that geoscientists should be centre-stage in our attempts to solve the great environmental and resources problems faced by humankind, and that the Geological Society has a key role to play in fostering debate and communicating the expert views of geoscientists at this critical time.

Nick Walton

A hydrogeochemist by profession, with over 30 years membership of the Geological Society, I am a Chartered Chemist, Environmentalist and Geologist, and have worked throughout the world in many forms of international, national, governmental and non-governmental organisations, as well as private industries, consultancies and as an individual scientist/troubleshooter. I am thus very inter- as well as multi- disciplinary in my work and outlook, which is where the real challenges of the new Anthropocene age lie. Water and the environment have always been my core subjects, and these are where there is a growing need to focus geoscience efforts in the service of mankind for this century. My overseas work in some 25 countries has enabled me to gain social and cultural understandings amongst the many stakeholders in environmental geo-science and water-based projects which are often the key to implementing successful and sustainable scientific projects.

I am currently the Environmental Programme manager of the Environmental Science Programme of courses run by the University of Portsmouth, and am a Board Editor of the Society’s QJEGH journal, and recently retired member of the Hydrogeology group committee. I have organised and convened a number of conferences whilst on the committee, and previously with the Engineering group. My focus, if elected, would be on Education, Education and Education, to try to influence school pupils and teachers into understanding and taking part in the fascinating world of environmental geoscience, which underpins our entire existence on this planet, for the sake of all our futures.