Chairman’s Report, given at the AGM on March 28th 2007

Mark Evans

Mark Evans, Section C Chairman 2005-7

As I look back over the past year, my second as your Chairman, it seems that we crammed a lot into it. Following the AGM in March 2006, we reconvened for the summer field meetings. Our first outing in May was to Welton-le-Wold, Lincolnshire, where John Aram showed us a varied series of Pleistocene deposits wherein a number of hand axes were found in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Unfortunately, heavy rain in the afternoon made us call a premature end to this meeting. Our next outing was an evening tour of Leicester to examine the city’s varied building stones, led by Albert Horton.

Our annual weekend excursion was to the Mendip Hills of Somerset under the leadership of Andrew Swift. We based ourselves in the small picturesque city of Wells, and visited several sites in the local Carboniferous, Triassic and Jurassic. A baking hot morning in Coleman’s Quarry at Holwell examining the famous fissures was alleviated by a welcome lunch at the nearby Bear Inn. On the Sunday we had the chance to view the De la Beche Unconformity between the Carboniferous Limestone and the Inferior Oolite in Vallis Vale, newly decorated by paintballing local youths! In July we visited Horsehay Quarry, near Duns Tew, Oxfordshire, to see the local Middle Jurassic sequence. The visit was led by Jane Worrall and Ian Brewer of the Oxfordshire Geology Trust, with our own John Hudson making comparisons to the succession at Ketton. August’s trip to the Gault of Munday’s Hill Pit, Bedfordshire, was nearly a non-starter as leader Chris Andrew had the wrong date in mind. However, all came good in the end, as Dennis Gamble dashed off to fetch Chris while Mike Howe filled in. We made a joint trip to the Caledonian intrusives of Croft Quarry in September with the Warwickshire Geological Conservation Group, who also provided a minibus. The trip was very ably led by John Carney from the BGS, and the quarry company provided very knowledgeable escorts. Our final “field” meeting was the customary museum visit, which this year took us to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Our host Derek Siveter made us most welcome and showed us some of the “gems” normally hidden away in this great treasure house.

We began the winter programme of talks at the University of Leicester at the beginning of October, when Karolyn Shindler recounted the fascinating life of pioneering fossilist Dorothea Bate. This was followed by an update on the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and its aftermath by David Tappin of the BGS. Unfortunately our next meeting had to be rearranged at the last minute as John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College was suddenly taken ill, and couldn’t talk to us about the biomechanics of dinosaurs. Mark Purnell and your chairman provided replacement talks on fish tooth microwear and plesiosaurs respectively. Mark Stephens of the University of Leicester’s School of Archaeology and Ancient History gave us a briefing on the local work of the National Ice Age Network, and Alex Page of the University’s Department of Geology told us about graptolites behaving badly! We rounded the year off with a very enjoyable cheese and wine evening at New Walk Museum.

After the Christmas break, we heard about recent work on Leicestershire’s geological sites from Graham Walley of the County Council. This year’s Member’s Evening was well supported, with contributions from Trevor Ford, Andrew Swift, John Dickinson and Bruce Smith. Ian Smalley of the University’s Geography Department told us of his latest observations on loess deposits in Serbia, and Mick Cooper of Nottingham Museums recounted the story of the restoration of the historic mineral collection of Chatsworth House. Finally David Unwin, a recent arrival at the University’s Museum Studies Department, infected us with his passion for pterosaurs. The Winter Programme came to a close with the AGM, and the Chairman’s Address, in which I went on a lightning tour of the palaeontology of our area.

This year’s Parent Body Lecture was an outstanding event. We secured the services of Norman McLeod, Keeper of Palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, who put forward his theories on the significance of mass extinctions. We decided to mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Charnia (the fossil) by making it and the Precambrian biota of Charnwood Forest the subject of this year’s Saturday Seminar in March. In partnership with the University’s Department of Geology we obtained funding from the “Local Heroes” initiative run by the Geological Society and Geological Association. This helped to bring over some keynote speakers from overseas, and our local experts were also on hand to recount the tales of palaeontological discovery. The meeting was also sponsored by Aggregate Industries and the BGS, and the Museum hosted a civic reception after the seminar to round off the day in style. The final happening of the Section’s year was the publication of the new edition of the “Building Stones of Leicester” by the East Midlands Geological Society, in association with ourselves. Members Albert Horton and Diana Sutherland have updated “Mac” Whitaker’s original text, and details of how to obtain the booklet, at a discounted price, can be found in this edition of Charnia.

Finally I would like to thank all who have served on the Committee this year. Although too many to mention, I would like to single out two in particular. Once again Joanne Norris did an outstanding job as both Vice Chairman and temporary Secretary, and I’m sure she will continue in this manner as she takes over the Chairmanship. Graham Stocks stood down as ‘Charnia’ editor after many years. On behalf of the Section I would like to thank Graham for all his hard work over the years. His well-crafted editorials were always entertaining and enlightening, and we hope that he will continue to be a regular contributor in the future.