The Royal Society of Tasmania

The advancement of knowledge

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Vale Professor David Headley Green AM FAA FRS, 1936 – 2024

Professor David Green died on 6 September 2024 in Hobart. He was a long-term member of the RST and was awarded the RM Johnston Memorial Medal in 2016. Professor Green’s career in geology (igneous petrology) was truly remarkable for the breadth and significance of his research and achievements, especially his contributions to understanding the formation of magmas deep in the Earth through a radically innovative experimental approach.

Professor David Green receiving the RM Johnston Memorial Medal from Professor Matt King, RST President, in 2016. Photo courtesy of Mary Koolhof.

Professor Green was born on 29 February 1936 (a leap year), in Launceston and awarded BSc Hons (1957) and MSc (1960) degrees by the University of Tasmania (UTAS), followed by a PhD at Cambridge University (1962). For the next fifteen years, he pursued an academic research career at The Australian National University (ANU), returning to the University of Tasmania in 1977 as Professor and Head of Geology. In 1994, he was appointed Director of the Research School of Earth Sciences at ANU, a position he held until retiring in 2001. Professor Green remained actively involved in research for another two decades in his Honorary capacity at both UTAS and ANU.

Professor Green’s achievements have been recognised by numerous national and international awards, including the most competitive and prestigious awards available to geologists: Fellow, Australian Academy of Science (AAS, 1967), FL Stillwell Medal of the Geological Society of Australia (1977), Mawson Medal of the AAS (1982), Honorary Foreign Fellow of the European Union of Geosciences (1985), Honorary Foreign Fellow of the Geological Society of America (1986), Jaeger Medal of the AAS (1990), Fellow of The Royal Society London (1991), Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London (2000), Humboldt Research Prize of the Humboldt Foundation Germany (2001), Honorary Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of London (2001), Honorary Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2001), Member of the Order of Australia (2006), and the International Gold Medal of the Geological Society of Japan (2007).

Professor Green served on numerous professional and government committees and advisory bodies, including the Australian Research Council, Australian Science and Technology Council, and the Geological Society of Australia. He held the position of Chief Science Adviser for the Federal Government and was the Chair of the National Greenhouse Scientific Advisory Committee.

In addition to a vast network of local, national and international professional colleagues and friends, Professor Green and his wife Helen Green had six children, seventeen grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Professor Green’s scholarship, wisdom, curiosity and patience will be missed by all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Jocelyn McPhie
2 October 2024

The 2024 PhD Showcase

Join us for an exciting PhD Showcase, where emerging experts will present their research and innovative ideas. This event highlights the work of future leaders in academia, offering cutting-edge insights into a wide range of fields. All RST members, their guests, and the public are welcome.

Where: Geology Lecture Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay Campus on Sunday 6 October 2024.

Time: 3.30pm for pre-lecture drinks, 4pm for the lecture.

To assist with organization, please use this link to ensure a seat.

Our 2023 PhD medallist, Dr Tobias Stål will join with three emerging scholars, Carla Baker (History), Ciara Smart (History), and Patrick Flynn (Creative Writing) to discuss their current research projects.

Dr Tobias Stål – Deep Antarctica-Exploring Earth Under the Ice

Tobias Stål is a geophysicist with backgrounds in geology, art, and engineering. He is currently a research fellow at the Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science at the University of Tasmania. He focuses on innovative approaches to understanding our planet using computational methods and information theory.

Dr Tobias Stål

Patrick Flynn – “The Convict Stain”

Carla Baker – “Where did Northern Tasmanian apples go?”

Ciara Smart – “Legacies of the ‘colonising’ Irish in Australia and New Zealand”

Artificial Intelligence for society and science – why should you care?

The Royal Society of Tasmania invites you to its September 2024 Public Lecture by guest speaker Dr Matthew Cracknell. All RST members, their guests, and the public are welcome.

Where: Geology Lecture Theatre, UTAS, Sandy Bay Campus on Sunday 1 September, 2024 for the talk.

Time: 3.30pm for pre-lecture drinks, 4pm for the lecture.

Join us for an enlightening journey into the world of Artificial Intelligence, where innovation meets possibility. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) rapidly transforms industries, from healthcare to finance, and even creative arts, understanding its potential is more critical than ever. This talk will explore how AI is reshaping our world, driving progress, and challenging us to think differently about the future. Dr Matthew Cracknell aims to shed light on the profound impact of AI on both society and the scientific community. As AI continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, understanding its implications becomes increasingly crucial.

Don’t miss this opportunity to dive into the cutting-edge of technology and discover the advancements and ethical considerations surrounding AI and our world. Click here to register.

Dr Matthew Cracknell is a Senior Lecturer in Geodata Analytics for the Discipline of Earth Sciences and the Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Sciences (CODES) at UTas. Prior to his current position, he held many short-term research and teaching positions at CODES, the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) and the School of Humanities, University of Tasmania. He also currently leads the CODES Research Program for Geophysics and computational geosciences.

Dr Matthew Cracknell

Matthew received a BSc (Hons) in geophysics in 2009 and a PhD in Computational Geophysics in 2014, both from UTas. Before entering academia he was employed as a consultant geoscientist and GIS analyst for a variety of public and private bodies.

50 years of the Aboriginal movement in Lutruwita (Tasmania) and some reflections on the next 50 years

The Royal Society of Tasmania invites you to its August 2024 Public Lecture by guest speaker Heather Sculthorpe, CEO of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. All RST members, their guests, and the public are welcome.

Where: Piyura kitina/Risdon Cove Aboriginal Land on Sunday 4 August, 2024 for the talk.

The event begins at 3.30pm with refreshments and an introduction to piyura kitina.

piyura kitina
Risdon Cove Aboriginal Land.

The talk by Heather Sculthorpe, CEO of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, will begin at 4:00pm..

Heather Sculthorpe,
CEO of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre.

Heather Sculthorpe is the outgoing long-term CEO of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC). She has an Arts degree and an Honours degree in Law from the University of Tasmania; a graduate Diploma of Environmental Management and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She has been involved in the campaigns of the TAC since the 1970s and has unique perspectives on the challenges facing the organisation and community today.

Nominations open for The Royal Society of Tasmania Medals on offer in 2024

The Louisa Anne Meredith Medal and The Peter Smith Medal

The Louisa Anne Meredith Medal is awarded every four years to a person who excels in the field of arts or humanities or both, with outstanding contributions evidenced by creative outputs. The medal honours Louisa Anne Meredith’s contributions to the areas of natural history art, scientific art, literature, history and to The Royal Society of Tasmania. The medal will be awarded in 2024 for the first time having been established by the Society in August 2023.

The awardee receives a medal and will be invited to deliver the “Louisa Anne Meredith Lecture”.

Louisa Anne Meredith (née Twamley) was a remarkable woman, a prolific artist, writer and social commentator. She was the first woman to be granted Honorary membership of The Royal Society of Tasmania in 1881. The RST has a large number of her sketches and watercolours in its Art Collection, as well as a number of her books in its Library.

Meredith contributed a great deal to the work of The Royal Society of Tasmania. Over several decades, she sent interesting specimens to the Royal Society Museum and presented beautiful and accurate watercolours of many specimens to the RST. These artworks were much admired at Society meetings as being ‘beautifully executed’. The Royal Society of Tasmania also purchased a number of her illustrations at the time.

Further details and nomination guidelines for the Louisa Anne Meredith medal are at this link.

The Peter Smith Medal is awarded biennially to an outstanding early career researcher in any field. The awardee receives a medal and will be invited to deliver “The Peter Smith Lecture” to the Society.

For the purpose of the medal, “early career” means within the first seven years since the award of a PhD, at the time of the nomination deadline. Extensions to the seven years post-PhD eligibility requirement will be offered to applicants whose career has been interrupted to accommodate carer responsibilities, illness or other circumstances.

Further details and nomination guidelines for the Peter Smith medal are available at this link.

Nominations for these medals open on 30 June, 2024.

Further conditions of these medals are:
• Nominations may be made by anyone, although self-nominations are not accepted.
• Nominations must be received by cob on 31 August, 2024.

All nominations should be submitted by email as a single pdf file to the Honorary Secretary of the Society at admin@rst.org.au by the due date given above. Please give the name of the medal in the subject line.

Guidelines for medal nominations are available at https://rst.org.au/guide-for-medal-nominations/.

Information on the previous winners of the RST medals is available at https://rst.org.au/awards/past-recipients/.

View a recording of the lecture by John K Davidson – May 2024

The Earth was formed over four billion years ago and has evolved by three principal evolutions, Continental Drift as the ‘boats’, Plants and Animals as the ‘passengers’ that travelled through the Climatic Zones and evolved under the influence of glaciations.”

Most geologists assign the discovery of Continental Drift to Alfred Wegener in the early twentieth century, but the Minoans could ‘map’ the stars and sail from Crete to the mouths of the Nile River, 4,000 years ago.

The first mapped, movement of continents is seen in the reproduction of Eratosthenes’ of c.220BCE, followed by Ortelius’ 1596 map, then via geological and botanical advances and retreats until Professor S W Carey’s cartographically accurate map presented in Hobart in 1956, which put Continental Drift beyond doubt.

The major steps on this path from the Ancient Greeks to ‘get the Drift’ include a disproportionate number of visitors to Tasmania including the botanist Labillardiere in 1793, Charles Darwin the geologist in 1831, Joseph Dalton Hooker the botanist from 1839 and then ‘the locals’, the most recent being a lecture two months ago to the Royal Society by Dr Keith Corbett.

From this firmer historical basis, John will propose a pulsing Earth with a low but significant rate of expansion, contrary to the current paradigm of Plate Tectonics, an interpretation of Carey’s 1956, New Global Tectonics.

Lynne Uptin OAM FSBA

Congratulations to our RST member Lynne Uptin OAM who was awarded the 2024 Best Botanical Art Exhibit Award and a Gold Medal award for 2024 for her suite of works.

The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in London is staging its annual Botanical Art and Photography Show from 14 June to 7 July 2024. The exhibition hosts exquisite botanical art and photography featuring a rich variety of subjects from medicinal desert flowers to ornamental bananas, and from images of forest slime moulds to urban street plants.

It showcases the work of 23 leading global botanical artists and 18 photographers, representing countries including the UK, Italy, Portugal, Romania, USA, South Africa, Taiwan, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Japan and Australia. The exhibition is held at the Saatchi Gallery in London. Lynne’s works occupy the end wall of Gallery One and are the first works seen as you enter the exhibition.

All entries are reviewed by an expert judging panel during the pre-selection process, prior to the show opening in June, and are assessed on aesthetic appeal, scientific accuracy and technical skill. The judges noted that this exhibition contains the best quality of artworks ever received.

The Show contributes to a long legacy of botanical art collecting and display by the RHS, and complements the work of the RHS Lindley Collections, which holds more than 30,000 botanical paintings and heritage photographs. This prestigious exhibition is open only by invitation, sent to a select few of the best botanical artists in the world.

Some prizewinning artworks by Lynne Uptin (screenshot from the artist’s website).

Lynne was Director of Arts Tasmania, the State’s arts funding body, for 20 years and was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2010 for services to arts administration, particularly in assisting Aboriginal culture.

Hear Lynne speaking about the award with ABC’s Ryk Goddard here.

Note 1: The image for this post is a detail from the artwork, The Genus Richea: A Relic of Gondwana, for which Lynne received the Best Botanical Art Exhibit Award.

Collaboration between The Royal Society Of Tasmania and Wagner Framemakers

A recent collaboration between the Royal Society of Tasmania and Wagner Framemakers has resulted in a carefully selected, limited print series exhibition, of many popular artworks from the Society’s Art Collection. The works have been framed in museum standard materials and are available for viewing and for sale now at Wagner’s new premises at 65 Argyle Street, Hobart. The gallery is open to view the works between 10am and 5pm weekdays with on-site parking.

The available works include prominent artists such as William Charles Piguenit, John Skinner Prout, Louisa Anne Meredith, Guillaume Simpkinson de Wesselow and Thomas Evans Chapman. For further information, consult the brochure using this link.

How present is microplastic in Tasmania waters, soils and food, and what can we do about it?

The Northern Branch of The Royal Society of Tasmania invites you to our next lecture on Sunday 26 May 2024, in the Meeting Room, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) at Inveresk, Launceston.

The lecture is based on a growing concern from the use of plastic, increasing waste in our environment and the fear of toxicity to humans. We have two young presenters who are conducting doctoral research. Carmel Towns and Anyame Bawa Sadique will present. Carmel’s background is in land contamination, while Anyame specialises in water contamination. Together they will cover the pathways that may lead to food contamination from micro plastics.

All RST members, their guests, and the public are welcome.

Admission is free for RST members. Admission is $6 for the general public, admission is $4 for students, QVMAG or TMAG Friends, and members of the Launceston Historical Society.

Time: 1.30pm.
Where: Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk.

A flyer suitable for printing can be downloaded here.

The presentation outlines microplastics as a growing concern stemming from plastic use. It highlights their presence in the food chain, water and soil and enduring environmental impact as well as uncertainties regarding toxicity to humans. Recommendations focus on research and mitigation to address this emerging contaminant effectively.

Carmel Towns

Carmel Towns is the holder of the Dr Joan Woodberry postgraduate fellowship in Engineering at the University of Tasmania. She has worked as an environmental consultant for 15 years, predominantly in contaminated land assessment. Prior to that she worked in local government for 14 years in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. Her current research is in the areas of microplastics and pathways into the food chain.

Anyame Bawa Sadique

Anyame Bawa Sadique has experience in stormwater, wastewater, and water treatment projects. His current research focusses on understanding microplastics contamination in Tasmanian soil via wastewater treatment plant biosolids application and developing mitigation technology.

Generously supported by

Tasmania and Revival of Continental Drift

Our guest speaker for June is international consultant and geology expert John K Davidson who will speak on Tasmania and Revival of Continental Drift.

This free lecture concerns the history of human recognition of the movement of the Earth’s continents, now referred to as ‘continental drift’. It focusses on the last 4,000 years of recorded recognition of the Drift processes, the last one millionth of the age of the Earth.

The lecture is scheduled for Sunday 2 June 2024.

Please join us for the occasion. Drinks in the foyer of the Earth Sciences Building UTAS from 3.30pm, with the lecture to follow in the Geology Lecture Theatre beginning at 4pm.

Please click this link to register your attendance. Details of the venue are provided in the link. Members and guests are welcome to this free lecture.

John says of his talk that “the Earth was formed over four billion years ago and has evolved by three principal evolutions, Continental Drift as the ‘boats’, Plants and Animals as the ‘passengers’ that travelled through the Climatic Zones and evolved under the influence of glaciations.”

Most geologists assign the discovery of Continental Drift to Alfred Wegener in the early twentieth century, but the Minoans could ‘map’ the stars and sail from Crete to the mouths of the Nile River, 4,000 years ago.

The first mapped, movement of continents is seen in the reproduction of Eratosthenes’ of c.220BCE, followed by Ortelius’ 1596 map, then via geological and botanical advances and retreats until Professor S W Carey’s cartographically accurate map presented in Hobart in 1956, which put Continental Drift beyond doubt.

The major steps on this path from the Ancient Greeks to ‘get the Drift’ include a disproportionate number of visitors to Tasmania including the botanist Labillardiere in 1793, Charles Darwin the geologist in 1831, Joseph Dalton Hooker the botanist from 1839 and then ‘the locals’, the most recent being a lecture two months ago to the Royal Society by Dr Keith Corbett.

From this firmer historical basis, John will propose a pulsing Earth with a low but significant rate of expansion, contrary to the current paradigm of Plate Tectonics, an interpretation of Carey’s 1956, New Global Tectonics.

John K Davidson

John Davidson graduated at the end of 1969 with a first class Honours Degree in Geology. He joined Esso Australia in Sydney the following January and attended Exxon’s structural geology course in 1972 during which he was asked to invite Professor Carey to Houston and to accompany him to the second global conference on Continental Drift at Princeton. Prof. Carey introduced him to Lewis Weeks who used data Carey sketched for him when Carey held John Rogers’ Chair at Yale in 1960. It was an opportunity to meet Weeks and other earliest adopters of Prof’s 1956 Hobart Symposium.

 In 1974-75 John conducted Exxon’s corporate 3-week structural geology twice a year in the field from West Texas to the Canadian Rockies. He  had four years in London and a year as project leader of Exmouth Plateau where he had the Scarborough gas field drilled. He left Exxon in 1980 and commenced a 40 year career of worldwide consulting on the detailed application of his undergraduate structural geology studies under Prof. Carey. He conducted a North Sea based oil exploration course in the field, within the section William Smith introduced in 1815.