Final Meeting of 2009: Saturday 28th November at 14.00: AGM and Presidential Address, York St. John University
Mayor's Walk, York,YO31 7EY (meeting entrance is from Clarence Street, opposite the Coach Park)   

PROGRAMME

11.00 - 13.00:  Council Meeting (Snell Building) - Council members only.

13.30 - 14.00:  Tea / Coffee / Mince Pies (Dining Room).

14.00 - 15.00:  AGM & Presentations (Fountain's Lecture Theatre).

15.00 - 16.00:  Presidential Address by Professor Paul Wignall, University of Leeds: "Permian Mass Extinctions" (Fountain's Lecture Theatre).

RECEPTION AND BUFFET

Tickets are required for this part of the Programme: £26.00 per person: please order with cheque payable to "Yorkshire Geological Society"
from the General Secretary, Dr Trevor Morse, 9Thorngate, Barnard Castle, Co. Durham, DLI2 8QB in adance of the meeting.

16.30 - 17.00 President's Reception (Skell Building): Two glasses of house wine and soft drinks, served with a selection of canapes

17.00 - 18.30 Buffet & Speeches (Skell Building)

Sliced roast beef with beetroot and horseradish relish Roast turkey breast and cranberry sauce Yorkshire blue cheese and tomato quiche, served with a selection of salads

Citrus tartlet garnished with fresh fruit and raspberry sauce

Tea and coffee

19.00: Close

Abstract of Presidential Address - "Permian mass extinctions" by Professor Paul Wignall, University of Leeds

 The study of mass extinctions was revolutionized in 1980 by the publication of evidence (an iridium-rich layer) that suggested the sudden extinction of dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous was linked to a giant meteorite impact. This discovery spurred two decades of research on this event and a classic scientific debate between those who think the meteorite impact caused the extinctions and those who prefer the contemporaneous Deccan Trap flood basalt volcanism as the cause. This debate still rumbles on but a lot of recent research effort is now moving on to the older mass extinction events, especially those that marked the end of the Permian and Triassic periods. Unlike the end-Cretaceous extinction, neither of these older mass extinctions coincide with meteorite impact. Instead, they both occurred at a time of intense volcanism that produced flood basalt provinces. In fact nearly all of Earth’s dozen or so extinction events coincide with flood basalt eruptions and so, not surprisingly, a lot of attention is focused on trying to find the link between volcanism and environmental crisis.

 Flood basalt volcanism is generally a very quiet style of eruption, due to the low viscosity of basaltic magma, but it is also very voluminous. Some of the individual lava flows within these volcanic provinces may have had a volume between 1000 and 10 000 km³, making them tens to hundreds of times larger than any historical eruptions. Basaltic lavas hold a lot of gas, especially halogens, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and water vapour. Only the last of these is environmentally harmless, the others are nasty. The task for geologists is to see if there is any evidence for the effects of these gases at the times of extinction.

 Models linking flood basalt eruptions and mass extinctions, often charmingly called “kill mechanisms”, are at their most sophisticated for the end-Permian mass extinction. This is the biggest extinction event of all time and it coincides with one of the biggest volcanic provinces ever erupted: the Siberian Traps. I will talk about this event in my second annual address but my first address will be focused on a little known extinction event 8 million years earlier. This is variously known as the Middle Permian mass extinction, end-Guadalupian mass extinction and the Capitanian mass extinction – the last is my preferred name. This precursor to the great end-Permian wipeout saw the elimination of many shallow-water tropical species together with a huge terrestrial extinction event that eliminated all large-bodied forms. Key evidence for the marine losses comes from the platform carbonates of the Maokou Formation in SW China. This area of China also saw the eruption of flood basalts known as the Emeishan Province, that blanketed the Maokou carbonates. This has provided the unique opportunity to study both the extinction event and the volcanism, that may have caused it, in the same place. Thus, the usual problem of trying to correlate volcanic events with fossil events is avoided because you can monitor them both in the same sections. As I will show, the evidence from China precisely pins down the extinction interval and shows that it coincides with a remarkably violent style of volcanism for a so-called quiet flood basalt province.

See some illustrations from the Presidential Address below:

Scenery north of Pingdi, Guizhou Province, SW China showing Middle Permian limestones overlain by several 100 metres of volcaniclastic deposits and flood basalts of the lower Emeishan lava pile.	Thin section photo showing a fragment of scoriaceous basalt from one of the large explosive eruptions of the Middle Permian Emeishan volcanic province, Lugu Lake, Sichuan, China. This is a typical example of the violent style of eruptions that mark the onset of volcanism.	Contact between the base of the Emeishan volcanics (around the top of the hammer shaft) and the underlying Middle Permian limestones of the Maokou Formation. Numerous fossil species disappear in the uppermost metres of these limestones showing the very close correspondence between mass extinction and volcanism. Xiong Jia Chang, Guizhou Province.

New publishing arrangements for the Proceedings from 2010

The Yorkshire Geological Society has signed a new contract with the Geological Society Publishing House (GSPH), which will put in place new publishing arrangements for the Proceedings for a seven year period from 2010.  The new contract will give the Proceedings an online presence as part of the Geological Society of London’s Lyell Collection, and this will include the entire archive back to volume 1 (1837) in searchable format.

The new contract brings with it benefits for the Society, its members, the Proceedings and authors.  Under the terms of the new contract, the business arrangement between the Yorkshire Geological Society and the GSPH will change completely.  Without going into details, the main benefit for the Society is that the cost of producing the Proceedings will be reduced very significantly.  This in itself will benefit members because a much larger proportion of the Society’s income from subscriptions will be available to support new activities and new initiatives, but there are also more tangible benefits for members that will follow from the new arrangements.  In addition to receiving print copies of the Proceedings, members of the Society will have free online access to current and all archival content of the Proceedings in full text form, and will be able to purchase Geological Society of London publications at a discount price.  The full text archive of the Proceedings will be in searchable PDF format, and end-paper references will include hyperlinks that will enable users to access source material, subject to certain conditions.  Online future content will be in both PDF and HTML format.  For the Proceedings, an online presence will increase its visibility to the geological community at large, a benefit that is equally important for authors.  Authors will also benefit from all the advantages offered by electronic publication, including linking and indexing through GeoRef, ISI, CrossRef and Google, and citation alerts.

The new contract is the result of negotiations with the Geological Society of London over the past two years, and colleagues on YGS Council and at the GSPH have worked hard to make it possible.  I would like to thank them all for their help and advice over that period.  We all look forward to continuing our relationship with the GSPH and to opening a new and exciting chapter in the Proceedings’ long and distinguished history.

Stewart Molyneux
Principal Editor
Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society

Library Matters

 Professor Jane Francis has kindly donated a large number of Special Reports of the British Antarctic Survey to the Society’s Library.  The President and Council are very pleased to accept this useful addition to our Library and thank Professor Francis on the Society’s behalf.

 The Society’s Library is housed in the Brotherton Library of the University of Leeds.  Members are reminded that they are entitled to access this and other collections in the Brotherton Library.  In order to do this a ‘Letter of Introduction’ must first be obtained from the General Secretary, Dr Trevor Morse .  Contact details for the General Secretary are given towards the back of the Circular.  When writing to him please quote your membership number as given on Circular envelopes. 

Some British Geological Survey Memoirs for Yorkshire to download

In a major new development for the Society, the British Geological Survey (BGS) had made available to the Society's website full facsimile copies (in PDF format, including all illustrations) of some earlier Geological Survey Memoirs, listed below. These are now available for downloading for personal, academic, educational, non-commercial research and other non-commercial use, from the Yorkshire Geological Society website http://www.yorksgeolsoc.org.uk/ only. All users must agree to the BGS terms and conditions before downloading each Memoir.

Yorkshire Rocks and Landscape – the popular YGS Field Guide, Third Edition, is now available

Yorkshire, famed for its scenic beauty and its rich industrial heritage, contains some of the most interesting geology and scenery in England , from the moors to the coast, including the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks. The influence of the geology on the landscape and on the industrial development in the region is profound.  

A major Yorkshire Geological Society Publication!

Carboniferous Hydrocarbon Geology: the southern North Sea and surrounding onshore areas

edited by

John Collinson, David Evans, Doug Holliday & Neil Jones, 2005

Click here for full details and samples
of the full colour illustrations!

Price now reduced to £10 plus £5 p. & p. Cheques should be made payable to Yorkshire Geological Society. Please send your order form to: Dr J H Powell, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG

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Important Notice to Members and others:
Short Communications: Proceedings and Circular/Web Site

Rapid publication of short papers is common amongst journals, particularly those published weekly, monthly or bi-monthly, as a way of disseminating information quickly on topical or contentious issues, exceptional new discoveries or major developments.   Given its publication schedule, the adoption of such a publication strategy is not appropriate for the Proceedings.  Nevertheless, as a way of encouraging the membership to make more use of the Proceedings, and for that matter the Society’s other vehicles for publication, the Circular and web site, Council would welcome more short communications. Short communications submitted to the Proceedings might include anything for which it would be worth having a permanent published record, for example descriptions of new and/or temporary exposures.  Those intended for the Circular or web site could include more topical or newsworthy items, including brief reports of field meetings, new fossil/mineral occurrences, photographs of interesting geological features with a brief description or the work of RIGS groups. Short communications to the Proceedings should not exceed two published pages, approximately 2,000 words (or equivalents including figures) and will be subject to the normal review and editorial procedures, although a Summary will not be necessary. Please send your contributions in the usual manner to the Editors (see ‘Instructions to Authors’ in the PYGS as a general guideline).

For the A5 format of the Circular (and web site), contributions should be 300-400 words, but can include colour photographs and figures; these will also be subject to editorial review. These items should be sent to the Circular Editor in the first instance (see back page of the Circular for details).

Stewart Molyneux, Principal Editor PYGS
Keith Park, YGS Circular Editor
Patrick Boylan, YGS Web Editor

New edition 2004 with minor revisions: price £9.99 plus £2.00 postage and packing Click here for further details

LANCASHIRE GROUP OF THE GEOLOGISTS’ ASSOCIATION: Secretary: Jennifer Rhodes, e-mail: sjrhodes@hotmail.com