News - £17m revamp at geological centre (Keyworth)

VISITORS can take a journey back through three billion years at the British Geological Survey's revamped centre in Keyworth.


The centre, which provides expert services and advice in all areas of geoscience, has had a £17.2million renovation.

It now features an eco-friendly office for scientists and support staff, a reception and conference facility, as well as a geological walkway, in which three billion years of the earth's history are squeezed into a 130-metre long stone concourse.

The British Geological Survey's executive director Professor John Ludden said: "BGS enters a new era with the opening of its renovated site.

"It will develop an innovation centre and build further partnerships with industry and research institutions, focusing on the energy and environmental challenges of the future.

"We welcome visitors to the geological walkway, who will be able to take a journey back through 3,000 million years of geological history."

The walkway consists of natural stone paving laid out to represent the different geological time periods, with 40 different types of rock used.

Every step of the way tells a different story, starting from a period before life began through to the age of the dinosaurs and the Ice Age.

Among the large boulders scattered along the walkway is one that is three billion years old and weighs 15 tonnes.

Barcodes along the walk can be scanned with smartphones to help visitors identify the rocks.

The new James Hutton Building, home to 100 BGS scientists and support staff, is at the centre of the walkway.

The building will recycle rainwater, feature a combined heat and power plant, solar panels on its roof and a passive cooling system.

Other parts of the existing site have been redeveloped to create a new reception and a state-of-the-art conference facility with the capacity to host meetings for up to 400 scientists.

The site will be officially renamed the British Geological Survey Environmental Science Centre by the Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir John Beddington, at an open day today.

From: http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/pound-17m-revamp-geological-centre/story-16106517-detail/story.html

Darwin's lost fossils: Treasures that helped shape theory of evolution found by chance in dusty cabinet (Keyworth)

For 160 years they lay forgotten in a dusty cabinet, lost to science because they had been hastily  filed away.

Now a treasure trove of fossils collected by the young Charles Darwin has been discovered by chance.

They were collected in the 1830s in South America during his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle

Experts say the find sheds new light on this formative period for Darwin, then in his 20s, whose study of tropical plants and wildlife set the stage for his ground-breaking theory of evolution.

The fossils, neatly pressed on to slides, some bearing Darwin’s signature, were discovered by Dr Howard Falcon-Lang, a palaeontologist at Royal Holloway, University of London. 

He was searching for some other fossils at the British Geological Survey’s cavernous storeroom in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire. Dr Falcon-Lang came upon an old cabinet, with drawers inside labelled ‘unregistered fossil plants’, and decided to take a look.

‘I can’t resist a mystery so I pulled one open,’ he said. ‘What I found inside made my jaw drop! Inside were hundreds of beautiful glass slides. Almost the first I picked up was labelled “C. Darwin Esq”.

‘This is an amazing snapshot into Darwin’s working life. This was one of the most exciting periods in the history of science, forming the mind of the man who would develop the theory of evolution, which would change the world.’ 

The 314 slides found by Dr Falcon-Lang include 40million-year-old plants from a remote island off the coast of Chile.

Another shows a towering tree-sized fungus which covered the Earth 400million years ago when the climate was so hot there was no ice even at the Poles

The slides were made by slicing and polishing the fossils into translucent sheets and then placing them between two glass plates so they could be studied under a microscope. Dr Falcon-Lang added: ‘There are 100 million-year-old fossil trees from the latter age of the dinosaurs. It’s real Jules Verne stuff, and scientists are only now starting to study it and understand its scientific importance.’

The fossils were lost because Darwin’s best friend, the botanist Joseph Hooker, did not catalogue them properly. He had been given the job while working at the British Geological Survey in 1846.

But before he was able to put them in the official specimen register, he was offered the chance to go on a voyage to the Himalayas so simply stored them in the cabinet. 

It was moved to the group’s first headquarters in Charing Cross in   London in 1851. The cabinet moved to the Geological Museum in South Kensington in 1935 and half a century later to Nottinghamshire – but it was never opened.

Dr John Ludden, of the Geological Survey, said: ‘This is quite a remarkable discovery. It makes one wonder what else might be hiding in our collections.’ The discoveries can be viewed on the British Geological Survey website from today.

From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2087622/Darwins-lost-fossils-Treasure-trove-chance-dusty-cabinet.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Event - Open weekends at 70 churches (Nottinghamshire)

MORE than 70 churches in Notts are to take part in two open church weekends across the Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham.

Some churches in the city, Rushcliffe and Broxtowe will open their doors to the public on Saturday and Sunday as part of the project being run by the diocese.

They include St Mary Magdalene, in Keyworth, which will be open from 10am to 5pm on both days.

St Mary the Virgin, in Bunny, will also be open from 11am to 6pm on both days, while All Saints, in Stanton-on-the-Wolds, will be open from 10am to 2pm on Saturday and 2pm to 5pm on Sunday.

The Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham is planning to host a second open weekend covering churches in Ashfield, Mansfield, and Gedling on July 16 and 17.

It held the initiative for the first time last year.

For more details about the churches taking part in both weekends visit www.nottsopenchurches.org.uk.

From http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Open-weekends-70-churches/story-12890921-detail/story.html