Events & Courses

Date, time and location

This online lecture will take place on Tuesday 19 November 2024 via Zoom.

The Zoom 'room' will open at 6.45pm, and the lecture starts at 7pm.

Event details

'Volcano Collapse', presented by Professor Hilary Downes FGS

Volcano collapses are rare events on a human time-scale. There have been several small (<1 km³) volcano collapses (e.g. Anak Krakatau and Stromboli) in recent years, producing locally destructive tsunamis. However, we have not yet seen a major volcano collapse, in which 10s-1000s of km³ of material slides into the ocean. There is excellent evidence from onshore and submarine mapping that such collapses happen frequently on geological time-scales (10,000 to 100,000s of years). Such volcano collapses would cause major tsunamis which could carry destruction for 1,000s of km. 

The talk will include work produced by students at UCL and Birkbeck on a variety of examples of volcano collapses from the South Pacific to the Canary Islands and Cape Verdes.

This event is organised by John Wong FGS, Home Counties North Regional Group Chair, and is hosted by Adrian Marsh FGS.

Speaker

Professor Hilary Downes FGS

Professor Downes is a Professor of Geochemistry at Birkbeck, University of London, where she teaches courses in igneous petrology and meteorites, and was also Head of Department for nine years. She was President of the Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for three years (2016-2019).

Professor Downes' main research interests are in mantle xenoliths, alkaline magmatism and olivine-rich meteorites. She is also a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum in London. In this role, she is working on understanding the petrogenesis of highly undersaturated magmatism in the Cape Verde Islands using both cumulate xenoliths and erupted lavas.

Professor Downes has published more than 140 papers, on a wide variety of topics, and was awarded the Collins Medal of the Mineralogical Society in 2022.

Registration

This event is free of charge, but registration is essential. Places are available on a first-come-first-served basis, and priority will be given to Fellows and Student Fellows of the Geological Society, who are members of the Home Counties North Regional Group. Fellows and Student Fellows of all other Geological Society Regional Groups are welcome to register their places, also free of charge.

To book your place, please email [email protected]

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

This Home Counties North Regional Group event qualifies for your CPD hours spent travelling to/from and attending the event. The content is intended to be suitable for early career through to experienced geologists and related professionals.