Event Reminder: Role of the geosphere in deep nuclear waste disposal – an England and Wales perspective
Date Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Time 19:30
Zoom Details:
Dr. Jonathon Turner, Nuclear Waste Services
This talk discusses how understanding of geological features, events and processes relevant to the UK will be used to select a suitable site for a Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) for the UK’s longer-lived and higher activity radioactive wastes. What are the properties and processes that need to be understood and taken into account in determining ‘suitability’, and how will a GDF be engineered to match and evolve with the properties of the surrounding geological environment.
The UK GDF Programme benefits considerably from lessons learned from deep geological disposal programmes in other countries, many of which are further ahead than in the UK. However the focus of this talk is on the geological environment that we have to work with in England and Wales. I will cover the primary containment and isolation functions of a GDF and a description of how long-term containment and isolation will be provided by means of the multibarrier system of highly integrated engineered barriers working together with the natural rock barrier.
Whatever the characteristics of the geological environment in which a GDF is constructed, it will need to provide a stable cocoon protecting radioactive waste from natural processes such as glaciations and earthquakes, a low-flux groundwater environment, geochemical conditions that minimise degradation of the engineered components of the GDF, and to promote retention of mobilized radionuclides.
Places Remaining: Interpreting the World’s geology via Google Earth; October 1st
Down To Earth Extra! September
Event Reminder: Interpreting the World’s geology via Google Earth; October 1st
Event Reminder: The Early Evolution of Birds (now with event Date & Time)
Date Wednesday, September 28, 2022
Time 19:30

Zoom Details:
Early Evolution of Birds, Zoom Link
Dr. Daniel Field, Cambridge University
Dr Field is an evolutionary biologist and vertebrate palaeontologist at Cambridge University where he is Director of Studies for Earth Sciences, University Assistant Professor and Strickland Curator of Ornithology. He is interested in the evolutionary origins of birds and other tetrapod groups. In 2020 he published the work which he and his team had done in discovering Asteriornis maastrichtensis (aka “the Wonderchicken”), the oldest-known modern bird fossil and an early relative of the group that gave rise to living chickens and ducks.
Daniel will be talking about this work and how birds survived and diversified following the mass extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. This includes looking at aspects such as how the modern bird skull evolved into its distinctive form. Daniel’s studies include the use of fossil, anatomical and molecular data and his talk promises to give us a very up-to-date insight into this fascinating field of research.
