The Geological Society

Past meeting resources

Available below are resources associated with past meetings organised by the Geological Society, particularly those with a bearing on public policy issues and areas of popular interest.

If there are resources from meetings which you would like to see included here, please contact us.

Flagship Society meetings

The Bryan Lovell Meeting

As a Geological Society flagship conference, the Bryan Lovell Meeting focuses on major societal challenges such climate and environmental change and water availability. Bringing together experts and practitioners from across multiple geoscience specialisms and other disciplines, the meeting is linked with the Society’s annual science themes.

The William Smith Meeting

This meeting is held annually on any branch of geological science. The event runs over two days and incorporates the William Smith Lecture, which is open to all Fellows of the Society.

The Janet Watson Meeting

Held on an annual basis the conference focusses specifically on early career geoscientists presenting their research, both to their peers and to potential industry employers, in a discussion-led environment.

The Lyell Meeting

The Lyell Meeting is an annual flagship event for the Joint Committee of Palaeontology (JCP). The JCP is a joint liaison body of the Palaeontographical Society, Palaeontological Association, The Micropalaeontological Society and the Geological Society of London.

The Fermor Meeting

The Fermor Meeting is held every two or three years and usually runs over two to three days. The meeting can cover any aspect of geology relating to the Precambrian.

Founders' Day

Founders' Day is celebrated by the Geological Society to mark the inauguration of the Society.

Arthur Holmes Meeting 2016: The Wilson Cycle

This meeting marked the fiftieth anniversary of Tuzo Wilson’s landmark paper “Did the Atlantic close and then re-open?”. This paper was one of a series he published which led to the “Wilson Cycle” concept in which the repeated opening and closing of ocean basins is a key process in the assembly and breakup of supercontinents.

Other Society meetings

GSL Public Lectures

The Geological Society hosts monthly Public Lectures at Burlington House. The lectures aim to open up geological subjects to the general public and are free to attend. On the day there is a live stream and presentations are available to view after the lectures have taken place.

GSL President's Day

An annual event held by the Geological Society in June each year. View short talks from the recipients of the major medals and presentations by the Wollaston, Lyell, Murchison and William Smith medallists.

Library Events

The Library holds regular public events focusing on items from the collection

Policy-related meetings

Information on selected Geological Society meetings addressing public policy issues, or concerning areas of science with particular policy relevance. Including research meetings, or events aimed at a mixed or non-specialist audience.

Higher Education Network

View the details and presentations from previous events hosted by the Higher Education Network.

2020

The Future of Geoscience summit

This virtual summit delved into the perception and communication of geoscience and addressed the decline in student uptake through a series of keynotes and panel discussions.

2019

Responsible Investing in Natural Resources

What is responsible investing, how should we measure it and how can we shape its future? These are some of the questions that investors, operators, policy makers and NGOs gathered to discuss at a two-day conference in October 2019.

2018

Diversity in Geoscience UK (DiG-UK): inaugural meeting and launch event

Geology and the safe disposal of radioactive waste

Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) has developed a range of materials to explain the science behind the National Geological Screening exercise, which examined how geology can contribute to the safe disposal of radioactive waste. This event looked at the techniques involved and the explanatory materials developed.

Lithium: from exploration to end-user

Our understanding of the different deposit types for lithium, methods of processing, requirements of end-users, and potential long term environmental impacts of mining and using lithium are becoming increasingly important.

2017

Managing risks across the mining and oil and gas lifecycle

Industry operators including Anglo American, Rio Tinto, Shell, BP, and others came together to explore our understanding of risks and methods by which we can better manage them!

Ground related risk to transportation infrastructure

This conference focused on best practice for managing geotechnical infrastructure and is supported by the UK Geotechnical Asset Owners Forum.

Sharing an uncertain world thumbnail image

Sharing an uncertain world: lessons in managing risk

This conference brought together leading Earth Scientists and practitioners from a range of other sectors to share experiences, practices and technologies to collectively learn how we can better manage risk.

Building resilience to geohazards

This meeting aimed to capture the growing activity around the impact of natural hazards on society.

Future Science: a vision for the next 25 years

The aim of this meeting, organised by University Geoscience UK in conjunction with the Geological Society of London, the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Geological Survey, was to explore the future and the research challenges for the UK Geoscience Community over the next generation.

2016

5th Deep Geothermal Symposium

The 5th Geothermal Symposium had presentations on geothermal heat and power generation schemes delivered by representatives from industry, government and academia.

Rain, rivers and reservoirs

Following in the footsteps of the first successful Rain, Rivers and Reservoirs workshop in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September 2015, this workshop brought together geoscientists and civil engineers with different backgrounds to generate new interdisciplinary approaches to key problems in our adjacent subject areas.

2015

Confronting barriers to inclusion - opening the gate to accessible fieldwork

This event explored the issues involved in making fieldwork accessible to learners with a diverse range of abilities through a combination of invited speakers, a panel and small group discussion.

Celebrating 25 years of Chartership

This event in September 2015 marked 25 years of the Chartership title (CGeol).

key speakers including John Mather and Paul Younger. - See more at: http://cms.geolsoc.org.uk/?sc_itemid=%7BB35EFB6F-BD59-4095-98FA-125C835C7F1F%7D&sc_mode=preview&sc_lang=en#sthash.wydWusMv.dpuf

Key speakers included John Mather and Paul Younger.

key speakers including John Mather and Paul Younger. - See more at: http://cms.geolsoc.org.uk/?sc_itemid=%7BB35EFB6F-BD59-4095-98FA-125C835C7F1F%7D&sc_mode=preview&sc_lang=en#sthash.wydWusMv.dpuf

EFG Meeting 2015: Mining in a crowded country

Mining is at the heart of the North of England’s history and development, yet this is a heavily populated region, with differing views about the acceptability of mining in the 21^st Century. This workshop discussed future mining prospects, and explored the legacy of past metal mining as well as current good practice.

Sustainable exploitation of the subsurface

The subsurface is an important and limited resource, from construction space and geo-materials to groundwater and geothermal. This meeting explored the geology, engineering and environment of our underground asset, coordinated by the Engineering Group of the Geological Society, the British Tunneling society and IAEG.

2014

The lost world of Ladakh: reclaiming the past, sustaining the future

Following on from the sustainable resource development in the Himalayas conference and associated work, an evening of talks and a discussion session drew upon wider expertise in this fascinating region, as we considered how an understanding of the past can help to build a sustainable future.

Radioactive Waste Management Ltd technical meeting

The first of an ongoing programme of meetings to discuss the Government's National Screening Exercise for siting of a Geological Disposal Facility. It was aimed at geoscientists, engineers and safety case experts, but was open to all.

Deep Earth processes: windows on the working of a planet

This international meeting drew together the latest interdisciplinary ideas and results to identify the processes shaping the inaccessible depths of our planet.

Sustainable Resource Development in the Himalaya

The Society collaborated with the University of Jammu in 2014 for a three-day conference in the Ladakh region of the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, to explore geoscience research relevant to the opportunities and challenges faced by the Himalaya region and to identify lessons for sustainable resource development.

Communicating contested geoscience: new strategies for public engagement

A one-day conference on communicating key geoscience challenges with the public, focused principally on radioactive waste disposal, shale gas/fracking, and geological carbon storage.

Geological carbon storage: meeting the global challenge

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to avoid dangerous climate change due to CO2 increases by capturing and trapping it safely underground. This was the third in a series of international conferences on CCS held jointly with AAPG Europe.

2013

Petroleum and engineering at Imperial College

This 2-day meeting was held in September 2013 to celebrate 100 years of petroleum-related science and engineering education at Imperial College.

2012

Dan McKenzie and friends: highlights from the Bullard labs

This film, by Richard Thomas, is a rare insight into the early history of the theory of plate tectonics, one of the most important scientific theories of the twentieth century. It was made possible by a gift from a longstanding Fellow of the Geological Society of London.

2011

Life and the Planet

The Earth that sustains us today has arisen out of planetary scale co-evolution of the physical and biological worlds, whose complex interactions necessitate a multidisciplinary ‘Earth System Science’ approach. This event launched a NERC research programme to investigate further.

2010

From dinosaurs to early birds: an evolutionary turning point

This lecture was an exciting and rare opportunity to hear first-hand how dinosaur discoveries are made, and their importance in understanding the evolutionary history of our planet, from both a famous figure and a rising star in the world of palaeontology.

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