Helen Connolly
I became involved in editing the Rockwatch website more than 15 years ago through a friend who works at the Geologists’ Association. Although I’m not a geologist, over the years I’ve fallen in love with Rockwatch and the amazing team that runs the Club and happily I have a much better understanding and appreciation of our world as a result. It’s always a delight to see the enthusiasm and love of geology in the...
Seabury Salmon
I spent years writing about nature conservation and wildlife and reporting on environmental projects in towns and cities. While researching an article about The Lizard peninsula, Cornwall, I found the varied wildlife there was directly related to the soil and rock types of this small area. Ever since, I have seen geology as the most important influence on, not just our plants and animals, but also on where and how we live. I have also...
Michael Oates
I have been a rock and fossil enthusiast since primary school and followed this calling via batchelor and doctorate degrees in Geology from London University. Employment as a geologist in the petroleum industry naturally followed as a new graduate and I thoroughly enjoyed this career, when no two days were alike and which enabled me to visit lots of unusual places worldwide, at someone else’s expense. In 2015 I became...
Jonathan Larwood
I could say I have geology in my blood; my father was a geologist and I have followed in his footsteps. I studied geology in London, followed by Aberystwyth, which provided a world of geological contrast from the building stone trails, museums, and Crystal Palace dinosaurs of the city to the dramatic Palaeozoic cliffs and mountains of mid Wales. I am a palaeontologist working with Natural England, a government organisation responsible...
Wendy Kirk
I have worked in the Earth Sciences Department (formerly the Geology Department) at University College London since 1976. Originally I worked as Curator of the many thousands of specimens of rocks, minerals and fossils in the Geology collections, and spent a number of years teaching in the classroom and in the field, collecting a PhD on the way. I have co-authored the Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals of the World, published by...
Alan Holiday
I graduated with a degree in geology and geography, trained to be a teacher and spent thirty seven years as a teacher of geography and geology in the Weymouth area. I also had a year in the oil industry as a mud logger. More recently I have been chairman of the Dorset Geologists’ Association Group and Dorset’s Important Geological Sites group (geological conservation). In my ‘spare time’ I lead field trips for interested parties in...
Peter Doyle
I started out collecting fossils in North Wales as a boy. With time my collection grew and so did my interest, and I was lucky enough to study geology at university before eventually going on to teach geology at university. Geology has taken me to some amazing places and I love nothing more than to share my enthusiasm in this amazing subject.
Susanna van Rose
I studied geology at St Andrews University, which was a wonderful opportunity to get to know Scotland’s scenery and to contemplate its complex structure. At that time plate tectonics had hardly entered geologists’ thinking, so it was during the next decades, whilst on the staff at the Geological Museum in London’s South Kensington that I looked for innovative ways to open up this novel concept to the public, through the Museum’s new...
David Bone
I started out as a teenage fossil collector in West Sussex and, although I never took up geology as a career, I have always been passionate about our landscape, rocks and fossils. My later interests have moved on to the study of historic building stones and the overlap between geology and archaeology. Fortunately, I am now retired from work, which enables me to spend even more time on geology. I give frequent talks, lead field trips...
Kate Adler
I first encountered Rockwatch when I was 8 on the yearly fieldtrip and went back to Leeson House for years after. I loved heading out and chiselling away to find hidden codes in the rock of ancient life and evidence of long past geological events in the cliff sides. I went on to study Philosophy at the University of East Anglia and became involved in student organisations and have returned to Rockwatch now to get involved in the...
Clare Byrne
We’re delighted that Clare Byrne became Rockwatch Chair in January 2023. Professionally Clare trained as a physicist, teaching GCSE and A Level Physics until her recent retirement. In the meantime she also learnt rather a lot of geology which she enjoyed, so now is happy to put that knowledge into practice. Having joined Rockwatch on a residential field trip more than 20 years ago, Clare became hooked on geology and attended the...