When Continents Collide: exploring the geological history of the Scottish Borders.
Duns is not renowned for its earthquakes. However, a look at the rocks which underpin the town and the Scottish Borders, reveal a terrain faulted and folded into long lenses of ancient ocean-floor sediment and speckled with volcanoes. This talk by Dr Ian Kille will illustrate the pre-history of the area and its influence on its beautiful landscape and explore the extraordinary mechanism which built mountain ranges and closed an ocean to make the first physical union of England and Scotland.
When Ian moved to Northumberland in 2006 he became actively involved in community geology work, setting up Northumbrian Earth including geodiversity walks for the Northumberland Coast AONB. Since then he has worked on many projects including the Northumberland and Berwickshire Coast Rocks! projects, and Flodden 500, and was the Community Geologist for the Peregrini Lindisfarne landscape partnership scheme.
Ian trained as a research geologist at Oxford and Imperial College, investigating sheeted intrusions which form part of the volcanic complex on the Isle Of Mull. He was raised (as a geologist) on the Wealden Chalk and the Jurassic rocks of the North Somerset coast and has maintained a life-long fascination with geology despite an intervening career in the telecommunications industry. He has recently become a member of the Newcastle University academic staff as a Community Geologist running the Stone Sourcing and Dispersal project for the Hadrian’s Wall Community Archaeology Project.
Duns and District u3a 