LECTURE VENUE
EMGS Lectures are held in the School of Geography Sir Clive Granger Building on the Nottingham University Park campus (for full directions click here).
If travelling by car, please park in the Main University Visitors Car Park (Google Maps) – parking is free on Saturday evenings. The Sir Clive Granger Building is on the left as you enter the car park. Please enter the building by the rear doors, accessible via a gentle ramp adjacent to the car park entrance.

The Society is indebted to the School of Geography at the University, who are sponsoring our lectures, for the use of these facilities.

Non Members are welcome

The global population is projected to rise from 8 billion in 2022 to 10 billion in 2050; Africa’s population will double in that period, from 1.3 to 2.5 billion. The challenge of feeding so many people, while doing what we can to mitigate the effects of climate change, is enormous.

New approaches are required which go beyond the conventional, and minerals have a vital role to play. From the point of view of food security and crop production, crushed silicate rocks have considerable potential especially in tropical soils, where chemical fertilizers are lost through rainfall and demand a high price. Brazil has pioneered the use of crushed silicate rocks as sources of crop nutrition, with an established and growing internal market that has reduced dependency on imported fertilizers, especially for the small farms that produce food sold in markets for everyday consumption. There is abundant scope for transferring that knowledge to Africa.

The natural weathering of silicate rocks to provide crop nutrients also removes CO2 from the atmosphere. As the rock dissolves through contact with water, cations are released – and need to be counterbalanced with an anion, bicarbonate. This process transfers carbon from the biological to the geological cycle, and so it plays no further part in global warming.

The rocks used to achieve these goals are all around us. Looking at some examples, the scientific rationale behind their use in crop rotation and CO2 removal will be explained. All of us can take advantage of this approach through our own gardens or community gardens and ground near where we live.

This talk will present the results of recent geomorphological and sedimentological investigations in the Gaick, Central Grampians, Scotland. The Gaick has proven to be an enigmatic and controversial glaciated landscape, which is dominated by a dissected upland plateau. Previous studies of the glacial landforms in this area have resulted in conflicting interpretations that are difficult to reconcile with sequences of events reconstructed elsewhere in the Central Scottish Highlands. Systematic geomorphological mapping and sedimentological analyses, combined with a glacial landsystems approach, have revealed evidence for multiple glaciations: (1) unzipping of local and regional ice masses during deglaciation of the last British Ice Age; (2) extensive pre-Younger Dryas plateau icefield glaciation; and (3) spatially restricted plateau icefield glaciation during the Younger Dryas. This new model of glacial events in the Gaick has important implications for understanding glacial events in the wider region.

Ecton was initially worked in the Bronze Age about 3500 years ago, either for pigment or for both pigment and copper. No copper working then took place until the mid-1600’s though there are some Medieval lead workings on the hill. Dutchmen Level is the location of the first or second use of gunpowder for blasting in a British mine (the other location is Cromford Sough though they were close) in the 1660’s, though the mine was not a success at that time.

On land owned by the Chatsworth Estate the mine was leased out to ‘adventures’ in early 1700’s who followed the vein down from the top of the hill. In 1724 they had reached about river level and in 1724 started Deep Ecton Level to drain the workings. About 20m below the level the mine became very rich and the adventurers renewed their lease in 1731 before it expired in order to benefit from the rich deposit. The mine was taken ’in house’ by the estate in 1760 and worked to a depth of about 300m below river level before the ore values decreased. In House mining ceased in 1823 and through the rest of the 19th century the mine was worked by a number of companies, sometimes in conjunction with the adjacent Clayton Mine, most of which were share scams based on the mine’s past wealth. The mine was finally abandoned in 1889.

In the 1960’s Geoff Cox bought the mine and mineral rights and the mine was used for a variety of mining related educational purposes. Following his death the mine and mineral rights were vested in Ecton Mine Education Trust (EMET) and the educational related activities in the Ecton Hill Field Studies Association (EHFSA). EMET have responsibility for the mine, other property and their safety and continued maintenance while EHFSA use the mine for educational activities from older primary school level upwards in subjects relevant to the mining industry. In 2019 EMET was part of the EU funded UNEXMIN project developing autonomous underwater vehicles for the exploration of flooded abandoned mine workings and the mine was one of the test sites. This resulted in a series of submersible dives in all the flooded openings allowing a more thorough understanding of the workings and their geology to be developed. A follow-up project, UNEXUP, also used the site in 2022 to test a redesigned submersible and there have been several ROV dives in the mine. Despite these explorations much of the mine remains unexplored below water level.

The presentation will include a brief history of the mine, a summary of the results of the underwater explorations with a focus on improved geological understanding of the deposit and, technology permitting, a short video of the underwater conditions.