Meetings programme

Schedule of upcoming meetings

The Society's meetings are open to Fellows, guests and members of the public.
Entry is free, but fellows and guests are reminded that if they wish to partake of refreshments before the meeting, there is a $4.00 charge to cover this.

Meetings are held on the second Thursday of each month, March to November inclusive. Meeting commence at 6.30 pm and are preceded by wine and nibbles at 6.00 pm. 

An invited lecture is normally arranged for each meeting. For ordinary meetings, the reading of papers and the presentation of exhibits of scientific interest.  

These meetings are usually held in the Society's Rooms. Meetings are occasionally organised jointly with other kindred societies and may be held elsewhere. Occasional Symposia on topical issues are also organised by the Society.

Thursday 12th March
Patrick De Deckker: Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University
Research School of Earth Sciences. Spectacular Australian deep-sea canyons: their formation, associated biota, physico-chemical processes and past environmental changes
The Murray Canyons Group are located offshore Kangaroo Island opposite the present-day mouth of the River Murray. The first description of these canyons was made by Reginald Sprigg in 1947. The talk will cover their antiquity, formation and current physical processes, the biota that inhabits them or frequents them, plus chemical processes, some of which would be of interest to the petroleum industry, also through animations [fly through] document their spectacular nature, being deeper than the Grand Canyon in the USA!, the vast amount of palaeoclimatic history we obtained from deep-sea cores obtained along the margins of the Murray Canyons.
Finally, a briefly mention of the similarities with the Baudin expedition that occurred almost to the day some 200 years before we studied the canyons on board the RV Marion Dufresne in 2003. In fact, during the Baudin expedition using the Goëlette Casuarina and the Corvette Géographe, the first attempt at unveiling information on the geological nature of the sea floor around Kangaroo Island was made as displayed in an amazingly accurate map.

April Amy Roberts
May  Mike Thomson