Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
11 April 1883. At that time, before an unfortunate 1970s refurbish-
ment of the meeting room in Burlington House in Piccadilly, the
attending Fellows (and non-members) at the meetings of the
Geological Society sat in two rows of benches opposite each other -
very much in the pattern of a college chapel at Oxford or Cambridge or
as in the House of Commons at Westminster. It is likely that Hicks
and Geikie sat on opposite benches, which would have added to the
dramatic confrontational effect. After the March meeting, Hicks took
the opportunity to return to Wales in the company of some students
fromCambridge and revisited the areas under question. He held to his
reasoning and conclusions, and was present again at the April meeting
to hear the second half of Geikie's discourse. Again the paper provoked
heated debate and ended with Geikie stating that he hoped that he and
Hicks might continue to be friends! The debate was only resolved
when the ground was mapped again by Green who published his
findings in 1908. While his conclusions were a hybrid of Hicks' and
Geikie's conclusions, he did recognise, like Hicks, that the rocks of
St David's comprised Precambrian rocks overlain unconformably by
Cambrian sediments.
THE COLOUR REPRESENTATION OF GEOLOGY ONMAPS
While the geological column provided stratigraphical firmness,
further stability was bestowed on geology when a visual language
was adopted. This was in the way that geology was represented
on maps.
It is thought that the first representation of geological data on a
map dates from 3,000 years ago, when in Egypt some scribe mapped
out a district in Upper Egypt on papyrus and highlighted the different
rock types present in different colours. This important document is
now in a museum in Turin. Today if you walk into any office of your
national geological survey you should be able to purchase an attractive
wall map showing the geology of the whole country. If you cannot find
such a map you should complain! The map will be printed in bright
colours, each corresponding to a particular geological Period whose
