Join us a Burlington House in London for an interesting and informative evening when Prof Joe Cartwright, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, will tell us all about the Mull Dyke Swarm.
Of the many hundreds of giant dyke swarms known from Earth, Venus and Mars, the Mull Dyke Swarm is arguably the best documented, and certainly the longest studied. At just over 650 km in length, the Mull Swarm is one of the longest on the planet, and its constituent dykes represent an extraordinary intruded volume of over 400 Km3.
In this talk, I hope to convey the incredible richness of the geological information obtained over many long field seasons in harsh conditions by pioneering geologists in the early 1800s (and their mules!) and contrast that with the more recent armchair efforts of a small group of students equipped only with modest computers using data donated by the petroleum industry. I will show how these students have extended the swarm out into the southern North Sea and documented the relationships between the constituent dykes of the swarm and the host rocks transected by those dykes. I will conclude by placing our current understanding of the genesis of the Mull Dyke Swarm into a global context and show how there is still room for basic geological observations to inform those engaged in theoretical modelling of the phenomenon of dyke propagation more generally.
This lecture will be a hybrid event - in-person at Burlington House and online via Zoom. For those attending Burlington House, tea and coffee will be served in the Lower Library from 17.30 GMT and the talk will commence at 18.00 GMT.
Join us after the talk in the Lower Library for pre-Christmas drinks and nibbles!
Non-members are welcome free of charge but may wish to make a voluntary donation online at their discretion:
https://geologistsassociation.org.uk/ga_shop/#!/donations
To attend the meeting via Zoom, members and non-members should register in advance. Members will receive a link for registration via email. Non-members should telephone 020 7434 9298 or email the Secretary (
U2FyYWggfCBnZW9sb2dpc3RzYXNzb2NpYXRpb24gISBvcmcgISB1aw==) for details.
Image: Location of the Mull Volcanic Center, M. Foschi & J. A. Cartwright: Constraints on Magma Pressure Distribution During Long Range Lateral Propagation of Giant Radial Dyke Swarms in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, October 2025, 130(10).
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