Geology

The World as Turnip

Happy 300th birthday to James Hutton, Scotland’s genius geologist. [1500 words, 6 mins

Jun 3 • Ronald Turnbull

Chamber of Clouds

Ben Nevis, the only mountain ever to have earned a Nobel Prize. [1800 words 7 mins

May 13 • Ronald Turnbull

How pinky-brown was my valley

“Home is where one starts from,” says TS Eliot. Home in my case being the Permian-age New Red Sandstone of the valleys of southwest Scotland. [1800…

Apr 8 • Ronald Turnbull

Schiehallion and the Weight of the World

It’s 250 years ago this year that Mr Charles Hutton did some very difficult sums and also came up with the contour line.

Jan 14 • Ronald Turnbull

Bacterial sludge: Stromatolites

A tale of two planet-destroying organisms [1700 words 7 mins

Nov 5, 2025 • Ronald Turnbull

Gordale Blimey!

At the end of October, putting back the clock by a full 200 years, while walking from the limestone to Lancashire [1600 words 6 mins

Oct 15, 2025 • Ronald Turnbull

Is basalt an ocean bottom rock?

An Auvergne investigation along the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail [1900 words 7 mins

Oct 8, 2025 • Ronald Turnbull

The Big Brecon Ridge

Not jaggy, but flat. Not volcanic, but made of the Old Red Sandstone. Even so, this could be Britain’s biggest cliff. [1400 words 6 mins

Mar 26, 2025 • Ronald Turnbull

The Tertiary Volcanic Province

where else in the UK would you go for your hilly holidays? [1400 words 6 mins

Jan 8, 2025 • Ronald Turnbull

Utah and the Line of Beauty

Canyonlands National Park and the shapes of scenery [2100 words 12-15 min

Dec 25, 2024 • Ronald Turnbull

spectres, spectra and weird optical effects

Dec 11, 2024 • Ronald Turnbull

Lovable limestone

and a moment of déja view in the Yorkshire Dales [1200 words 5 mins

Nov 6, 2024 • Ronald Turnbull

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