Jon Noad* urges everyone to get out there and spread the word.
Geoscientist 19.2 February 2009
Michael Welland recently described explained how a treasured geological book "fired his fascination" with geology1. I too had such a book (
The Age of Reptiles by Zallinger), but of even greater significance were those people who fostered my love of geology.
My parents always supported of my near obsession with rocks and fossils. They spent many hours driving me to quarries as far away as Dudley, Dover and Dorset. Dad was keen on ammonites, though Mum preferred to birdwatch as I ran around chalk quarries in search of Micraster. Wherever we went on holiday there seemed to be fossils in abundance, and my long-suffering family would end up spending days on sodden beaches. A holiday in Portugal yielded my first fossil find, and I left Malta with half the island in my luggage.
Later a family friend would chat to me when we visited our local pub. I must have been around ten then, and would bring fossils to show him. I remember him once explaining how he had bought some fossils for a showcase in his home, but that one ammonite was too big - would I take it off his hands? You can imagine how I jumped, little realising that he must have bought it specially. Other friends of my parents would return with specimens from holidays in locations like Morocco.
One of my school friends invited me to her house and introduced me to her dad, another keen fossil hunter. I was taken to the Harrow and Hillingdon Geological Society, where I was the youngest by several years. The subjects were sometimes esoteric, but fired my imagination. It was a happy evening 20 years later when I returned to deliver their monthly talk on my PhD research in Borneo.
Another very important influence were staff of the Natural History Museum. You could (and still can) take in fossils to be identified, free. I could have done with a London Underground pass, as I seemed to be there almost weekly, depositing a haul of fossils, always carefully wrapped, to be classified. Often experts would take me into the collections to explain what I had found. Once a curator showed some Darwin material; South American mammal bones with his own notes - a tremendous thrill, matched only by those times when a curator would add a note asking if "the finder would care to donate the specimen to the National Collection".
So, I appeal to all you geos out there to foster the interest of young people. Give presentations at your kids' schools. Talk engagingly when they ask what you do. Take friends and their children fossil hunting. Have rock specimens on hand as presents. Supporting Rockwatch2 will also encourage youngsters to join an admirable club. I owe an enormous debt to my parents and others, and it is great to be able to repay it - while bringing pleasure, and possibly igniting a lifelong passion in the youth of today. I urge you to do the same.
* Staff Geologist, Shell Canada Limited
- Welland, Michael 2008 Beginnings. Geoscientist 18.8 August
- www.rockwatch.org.uk