About HHGS

The Society was formed in 1973 by a number of enthusiasts who had met at local evening classes.
We are a Local Group of the Geologists' Association and a Member Group of the London Geodiversity Partnership.

Local Events
We are happy to participate in local shows where we can display our minerals, fossils and geology posters.

Find us on YouTube:

Find us on Facebook

HHGS Committee Members
President - Dr David Brook, OBE
Chairman - Guy Fiegehen
Hon Secretary - Jean Sippy
Asst Secretary - Jackie Gill
Treasurer - Hilary Place
Field Trips - Allan Wheeler
Exhibitions - Joan Waters
Membership - John Howard
Field Assistant - Paul Szadorski
Community Engagement - Liz Chiu

First President: Bob Symes
Bob Symes, OBE, known for his work as keeper of the Minerals Collection at the Natural History Museum and for the many books he wrote on Mineralogy.

Bob was born in Harrow and grew up in Eastcote; he played a key role in setting up the Harrow and Ruislip Geological Society, which later changed its name to Harrow & Hillingdon.
Robert Frederick Symes 1939-2016

Outreach
Although we are not currently able to visit schools, please contact us for more information. We are in discussion with both Harrow and Hillingdon boroughs to run sessions for their local schools.

Our exhibitions and Rock Show Online support the Year 3 Science curriculum as well as GCSE / A Level Geography.

Would you like to join us?
THE SOCIETY WELCOMES NEW MEMBERS FROM 16 YEARS UPWARDS, REGARDLESS OF RACE OR GENDER AND WHATEVER THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT.

Online you are welcome to join two Zoom meetings. Regular Zoom visitors will be asked to become members.

HHGS President: Dave Brook
Chartered Geologist, Fellow of the Geological Society, Fellow of the Institute of Quarrying

Dr David Brook OBE

Members' activities

Dr Douwe van der Meer Jackie Gill (Fossils) Allan Wheeler, Field Secretary Robert Maurer (Tectonics) Bryan Cozens Photo archive Colleen (World Geosites) Peter Austin (Marsh Award) Emily Hopper (Seismologist) Archive

Golden Anniversary Highlights - 2023 was an exciting year for us!

~ Earth Discovery Sessions ~ [find out more]
We started a collaboration with Brunel University's Experimental Techniques Centre. This aims to build community interest in Geology, combining HHGS's exhibitions expertise with Brunel's cutting edge research facility.

~ Stanmore Gravel Project ~ [find out more]
Guided by Prof. David Bridgland (Durham University), Dr Phil Collins (Brunel Universary) and Dr Peter Allen, we have set up a Citizen Science Research Project to invetigate our local Stanmore Gravel. The aim is to update knowledge of the gravel at the Harrow Weald geological SSSI.

~ Geopark Lecture Series ~ [find out more]
We invited speakers from the UK's UNESCO Global Geoparks to tell us about the amazing geology this country has to offer. HHGS has already visited some of these fabulous areas and will surely be visiting more in the future.

~ Field Trip Re-enactment ~ See videos of our trip to the Mendips [ below ]

~ Golden Badge Fieldwear ~ HHGS members are looking super-smart at all of our exhibitions, field trips and events, sporting the new shirts and hats.

~ Members' Anniversary Dinner ~ Saturday 13th May 2023 at Mamma Rosa, Ruislip

Be inspired by HHGS and see your creative work displayed here on our website!

Geo-Fun!

During the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 an earthquake crack passed directly in front of three cottages and moved the rose-garden from the middle cottage to the furthest one and the raspberry patch from the near cottage exactly opposite the middle one. History does not relate how the law decided who owned the roses and the raspberries after their rearrangement.
M.E.David, Professor David 111 (1937)
True the billiard tables were of the old Silurian period and the cues and balls of the Post-Pliocene; but there was refreshment in this, not discomfort; for there are rest and healing in the contemplation of antiquities.
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi 215 (1883)

Plate Tectonics Testament

Why is there a wobble in the Earth’s rotation?
An offset centre of mass distorts gyrations.
Like an unbalanced load in a washing machine,
wobbling spin makes it cross the floor, clattering clean.

The Earth’s wobble puts stresses on the crustal rocks.
The liquid athenosphere underneath unlocks
the crust to move under the spin wobble stresses,
As break up of the crust into plates progresses.

Original concept for plate motion to thrive.
Asthenosphere convection mechanism drive.
Accepted in geoscience near 100 years.
But physics of push-pull moving the crust not clear.

Friction coefficient of solid crust above
liquid asthenosphere probably weak, sort of.
Property assumptions are difficult to make.
Proposal to break and move plates, likely mistake.

Earth’s spin wobble effect on crust is our discourse.
Differential circumferential tensile force.
Rifting of supercontinent, Earth’s heavy side.
Break up, magma upwelling, ocean crust supplied.

Continent plates forced apart to lighter flank.
Mid-ocean ridges result from pull apart yank.
Collision of plates creates massive mountain chains.
Fold belts, metamorphism,igneous domains.

Doubling of crustal thickness at plate contact zones.
Thick continental plate rides over ocean stones.
Momentum drives the plate and subduction occurs.
Ocean closure creates thrust obduction elsewhere.

The Sun’s gravity controls planets positions,
plus each of their orbits and speed of rotations.
An offset centre of mass wobbles the spin stride.
Torque drives the crustal plates to split, slide and collide.

Stuart Harker

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Now what has Science not surmounted
Though Strata vary when they’re counted
Defective some – some matter change
Yet these recur and those re-arrange
Some thicken much while others thin
And sometimes chance beds may come in
Some get too hard and others soft
In many colours change and oft
Or course or fine-grained or round
So various in their matter found
That samples which we often see
From rocks the same will rare agree
When tried by tests of chemistry
From different beds in each thick rock
Of many kinds and what a stock
Were we to set about Geology
By meagre-meaning Mineralogy
But Fossils plainly teach the art
Of knowing each discordant part.

William Smith 1825 (unpublished MS)

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