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Former names | Amalgamation of the Department of Geology, Department of Geodesy and Geophysics and the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology |
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Established | c. 1731 |
Head of Department | Richard Harrison (2019- |
Location | Cambridge , United Kingdom 52°12′11″N0°7′20″E / 52.20306°N 0.12222°E |
Website | www |
The Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge is the University of Cambridge's Earth Sciences department. First formed around 1731, the department incorporates the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. [1]
The department's history can be traced back to 1731 when the 1st Woodwardian Professor of Geology was appointed, in accordance with the bequest of John Woodward. The present Department of Earth Sciences was formed by an amalgamation of the Department of Geology, Department of Geodesy and Geophysics and the Department of Mineralogy and Petrology in 1980.
The main location of the department is at the Downing Site, Downing St. The Bullard Laboratories, located in West Cambridge on Madingley Rd is a satellite department of the main building. The department incorporates the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences [2] and the Godwin Laboratory.
The department is the home of the Sedgwick Club, which was founded in memory of Adam Sedgwick in 1880, and is the oldest student run geological society in the world. [3]
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named after the British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish. The laboratory has had a huge influence on research in the disciplines of physics and biology.
The Woodwardian Professor of Geology is a professorship held in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge. It was founded by John Woodward in 1728 under the title of Professor of Fossils. Woodward's will left to the University a large collection of fossils and also dictated that the professor should be elected by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, the President of the Royal Society, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, the Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge, and the University Senate.
Sir Frederick McCoy, was an Irish palaeontologist, zoologist, and museum administrator, active in Australia. He is noted for founding the Botanic Garden of the University of Melbourne in 1856.
Harry Govier Seeley was a British paleontologist.
The Savile Club is a traditional gentlemen's club in London that was founded in 1868. Located in fashionable and historically significant Mayfair, its membership, past and present, includes many prominent names.
John Woodward was an English naturalist, antiquarian and geologist, and founder by bequest of the Woodwardian Professorship of Geology at the University of Cambridge. Though a leading supporter of observation and experiment in what we now call science, few of his theories have survived.
Alfred Harker FRS was an English geologist who specialised in petrology and interpretive petrography. He was Lecturer in Petrology at the University of Cambridge for many years, and carried out field mapping for the Geological Survey of Scotland and geological studies of western Scotland and the Isle of Skye. He and other British geologists pioneered the use of thin sections and the petrographic microscope in interpretive petrology.
Thomas McKenny Hughes was a Welsh geologist. He was Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge University.
William Bernard Robinson King was a British geologist.
Oliver Meredith Boone Bulman was a British palaeontologist. He was Woodwardian Professor of Geology at the University of Cambridge.
Adam Sedgwick was a British geologist and Anglican priest, one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Cambrian and Devonian period of the geological timescale. Based on work which he did on Welsh rock strata, he proposed the Cambrian period in 1835, in a joint publication in which Roderick Murchison also proposed the Silurian period. Later in 1840, to resolve what later became known as the Great Devonian Controversy about rocks near the boundary between the Silurian and Carboniferous periods, he and Murchison proposed the Devonian period.
The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, is the geology museum of the University of Cambridge. It is part of the Department of Earth Sciences and is located on the university's Downing Site in Downing Street, central Cambridge, England. The Sedgwick Museum is the oldest of the eight museums which make up the University of Cambridge Museums consortium.
The Godwin Laboratory is a research facility at the University of Cambridge. It was originally set up to investigate radiocarbon dating and its applications, and was one of the first laboratories to determine a radiocarbon calibration curve. The lab is named after the English scientist Harry Godwin.
The Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy (DMSM) is a large research and teaching division of the University of Cambridge. Since 2013 it has been located in West Cambridge, having previously occupied several buildings on the New Museums Site in the centre of Cambridge.
James Anthony Jackson CBE FRS is Professor of Active Tectonics and head of Bullard Laboratories, Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University. He made his name in geophysics, using earthquake source seismology to examine how continents are deformed. His central research focus is to observe the active processes shaping our continents.
David A. Hodell, FRS is a British–American geologist and paleoclimatologist. In October 2008, Hodell was appointed to the position of Woodwardian Professor of Geology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, where he is also a fellow of Clare College. He is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States. He is also the Director of the Godwin Laboratory for Palaeoclimate Research. Previously, he taught at the University of Florida from 1986–2008, earning the rank of full professor in geological sciences. Hodell was also the director of the Stable Isotope Laboratory from 1996–2008. Hodell earned his Ph.D. in 1986 in oceanography from the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island after earning his bachelor of arts in 1980 in geology from the University of Vermont.
Sir Alan Hugh Cook FRS was an English physicist who specialised in geophysics, astrophysics and particularly precision measurement.
Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the scholarship program as a way to "offer exceptional students unique opportunities to broaden their intellectual and personal horizons, in ways that are more important than ever in an era defined by global interaction.". In 2007, 163 applications were received, of which 10 were ultimately selected, for an acceptance rate of 6.1%.
The King's Birthday Honours 1950 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of King George VI to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate the official birthday of the King, and were published in supplements to the London Gazette of 2 June 1950 for the British Empire, Australia, Ceylon and New Zealand.