Kenneth Arthur Davies | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1897 |
| Known for | The geology of East Africa |
| Awards | CMG (1952) OBE (1946) Murchison Medal (1954) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geology |
Kenneth Arthur Davies CMG OBE was a British geologist, director of the geological survey of Uganda, and recipient of the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London. He served as the 13th president of the Uganda Society between 1944 - 1945
Davies was born in 1897, and studied geology at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth [1] under William Pugh after the end of the first world war. Davies subsequently went to work for the colonial geological survey in East Africa, where he eventually became director of the geological survey of Uganda. Among other things, Davies worked on economic deposits, including large deposits of phosphates which were an important source of materials for fertiliser, [2] and on the volcanic rocks of Uganda and the rift valley. [3] [4]
Davies was appointed OBE in the New Years Honours list for 1946, [5] and CMG in the New Years Honours list for 1952, for his service with the Uganda geological survey, and as deputy director of the (British) Overseas Geological Survey. [6]
In 1954, Davies was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London for his contributions to the geology of East Africa, and particularly for his studies of the older sedimentary rocks and erosion surfaces, and the volcanic and sedimentary rocks of Mount Elgon, Uganda. [7]
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, and chronostratigraphy.
Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish geologist who served as director-general of the British Geological Survey from 1855 until his death in 1871. He is noted for investigating and describing the Silurian, Devonian and Permian systems.
The Lebombo Mountains, also called Lubombo Mountains, are an 800 km-long (500 mi), narrow range of mountains in Southern Africa. They stretch from Hluhluwe in KwaZulu-Natal in the south to Punda Maria in the Limpopo Province in South Africa in the north. Parts of the mountain range are also found in Mozambique and Eswatini.
Sir Archibald Geikie was a Scottish geologist and writer.
Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor, OBE, FRS, was a British chemist and geologist and the first president of the Indian National Science Academy and a director of the Geological Survey of India (1930-1935). His son was the writer and traveller Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor.
South Wales is an area with many features of outstanding interest to geologists, who have for long used the area for University field trips.
Charles William Hobley, CMG — known as C. W. Hobley — was a pioneering British Colonial administrator in Kenya. He served the Colonial Service in Kenya from 1894 until his retirement in 1921 and published a number of monographs on a variety of subjects.
Knockan Crag lies within the North West Highlands Geopark in the Assynt region of Scotland 21 kilometres (13 mi) north of Ullapool. During the nineteenth century Knockan Crag became the subject of much debate when geologists noted that the Moine schists at the top of the crag appeared to be older than the Cambrian and Ordovician rocks such as Durness limestone lower down. Disagreements over the processes that could have caused this to occur were referred to at the time as the "Highlands Controversy". The argument was primarily between Roderick Murchison and Archibald Geikie on the one hand and James Nicol and Charles Lapworth on the other. Murchison and Geikie believed the sequence was wrong and that the Moine schists must be the younger rocks. The controversy was finally resolved by the work of Ben Peach and John Horne whose 1907 paper on the subject remains a classic text. Peach and Horne demonstrated that the situation resulted from the action of a thrust fault - this being the first to be discovered anywhere in the world. The older rocks had been moved some 70 kilometres to the west over the top of the younger rocks due to tectonic action.
The geology of Hong Kong is dominated by igneous rocks formed during a major volcanic eruption period in the Mesozoic era. It made up 85% of Hong Kong's land surface and the remaining 15% are mostly sedimentary rocks located in the northeast New Territories. There are also a very small percentage of metamorphic rocks in the New Territories, formed by deformation of pre-existing sedimentary rocks (metamorphism).
The Barberton greenstone belt (BGB) is located in the Kapvaal craton of southeastern Africa. It characterizes one of the most well-preserved and oldest pieces of continental crust today by containing rocks in the Barberton Granite Greenstone Terrain (3.55–3.22 Ga). The BGB is a small, cusp-shaped succession of volcanic and sedimentary rocks, surrounded on all sides by granitoid plutons which range in age from >3547 to <3225 Ma. It is commonly known as the type locality of the ultramafic, extrusive volcanic rock, the komatiite. Greenstone belts are geologic regions generally composed of mafic to ultramafic volcanic sequences that have undergone metamorphism. These belts are associated with sedimentary rocks that occur within Archean and Proterozoic cratons between granitic bodies. Their name is derived from the green hue that comes from the metamorphic minerals associated with the mafic rocks. These regions are theorized to have formed at ancient oceanic spreading centers and island arcs. In simple terms, greenstone belts are described as metamorphosed volcanic belts. Being one of the few most well-preserved Archean portions of the crust, with Archean felsic volcanic rocks, the BGB is well studied. It provides present geologic evidence of Earth during the Archean (pre-3.0 Ga). Despite the BGB being a well studied area, its tectonic evolution has been the cause of much debate.
The main points that are discussed in the geology of Iran include the study of the geological and structural units or zones; stratigraphy; magmatism and igneous rocks; ophiolite series and ultramafic rocks; and orogenic events in Iran.
Sir William John Pugh was a British geologist who was director of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and of the Museum of Practical Geology, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
The Highlands controversy was a scientific controversy which started between British geologists in the middle of the nineteenth century concerning the nature of the rock strata in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. The disagreement stemmed from the apparent ages of the strata, particularly the, now confirmed, existence of older rock above younger rock as well as duplicated and inverted strata, which could not be satisfactorily explained by contemporary geology. This rock formation and surrounding controversy were the impetus for Albert Heim's theory of Thrust faulting, which, in conjunction with anticlines and imbrication, are now commonly accepted as the primary geologic mechanisms that created the Northwest Highlands rock strata.
The geology of Uganda extends back to the Archean and Proterozoic eons of the Precambrian, and much of the country is underlain by gneiss, argillite and other metamorphic rocks that are sometimes over 2.5 billion years old. Sedimentary rocks and new igneous and metamorphic units formed throughout the Proterozoic and the region was partially affected by the Pan-African orogeny and Snowball Earth events. Through the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, ancient basement rock has weathered into water-bearing saprolite and the region has experienced periods of volcanism and rift valley formation. The East Africa Rift gives rise to thick, more geologically recent sediment sequences and the country's numerous lakes. Uganda has extensive natural resources, particularly gold.
The geology of Eswatini formed beginning 3.6 billion years ago, in the Archean Eon of the Precambrian. Eswatini is the only country entirely underlain by the Kaapvaal Craton, one of the oldest pieces of stable continental crust and the only craton regarded as "pristine" by geologists, other than the Yilgarn Craton in Australia. As such, the country has very ancient granite, gneiss and in some cases sedimentary rocks from the Archean into the Proterozoic, overlain by sedimentary rocks and igneous rocks formed during the last 539 million years of the Phanerozoic as part of the Karoo Supergroup. Intensive weathering has created thick zones of saprolite and heavily weathered soils.
The geology of the Isle of Mull in Scotland is dominated by the development during the early Palaeogene period of a ‘volcanic central complex’ associated with the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. The bedrock of the larger part of the island is formed by basalt lava flows ascribed to the Mull Lava Group erupted onto a succession of Mesozoic sedimentary rocks during the Palaeocene epoch. Precambrian and Palaeozoic rocks occur at the island's margins. A number of distinct deposits and features such as raised beaches were formed during the Quaternary period.
Coalbrookdale Formation, earlier known as Wenlock Shale or Wenlock Shale Formation and also referred to as Herefordshire Lagerstätte in palaeontology, is a fossil-rich deposit (Konservat-Lagerstätte) in Powys and Herefordshire at the England–Wales border in UK. It belongs to the Wenlock Series of the Silurian Period within the Homerian Age. It is known for its well-preserved fossils of various invertebrate animals many of which are in their three-dimensional structures. Some of the fossils are regarded as earliest evidences and evolutionary origin of some of the major groups of modern animals.
Edgar Sterling Cobbold D.Sc. was a British amateur geologist, who was an authority on Cambrian fossils. He was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1921, and an honorary DSc by the Victoria University of Manchester in 1930.
Frank Dixey KCMG FRS was a British hydrologist and geologist, who spent his career working in the colonial geological surveys. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1958, and knighted in 1972.
Arthur Lewis Hall FRS was a British geologist, who worked in South Africa for most of his career. He was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London in 1930 for his work on the Bushveld Igneous Complex, and elected to the Royal Society in 1935.
