Meeting Report 29th November 2023

Todays attendance was 21 with 5 apologies

Our speaker this week was David MacVeigh whose presentation was called “How Britain became an Island”.

Our Speaker Reporter Paul Young reports:-

David has presented to us twice before and we knew that his presentation would be meticulously researched and well presented. David explained that Britain was once joined to mainland Europe. If any doubters exist David explained that evidence of human occupation has been trawled up from the Dogger Bank under the North Sea. This includes weapons, cooking utensils, etc. In fact archeologists have concluded that what they call Doggerland was an area of lush wooded landscapes.

This was an interesting talk that generated much interest from members. The subject is covered by numerous documentaries available on YouTube.

Our Photographer Tony Taft continues:-

Where do I start? About 225million years ago in the late Palaeozoic era until the very late Triassic the continent we now know as North America was contiguous with Africa, South America and Europe, one large land mass which was given the name “Pangaea”.
With the aid of a lot of diagrams and pictures of drawings David explained in minute detail how this super continent gradually split up into the world as we know it today.
This all happened because of the constant movement of tectonic plates that still goes on today.
The shape of the UK and Europe are like pieces of a jig saw puzzle, it is so easy to see on a map where they all fitted together.
Although the subject of earth quakes was not mentioned it is the rubbing together of these plates that can cause an earth quake.

David showed us some computer generated videos showing us what will happen with the rising of the ocean and the inevitable loss of cities and even whole countries because of it

One city that seemed to be in a good position to avoid this catastrophic loss would be Birmingham but cities near the coast including London will suffer, and when this happens Birmingham could be considered the capital city.

At the end of the meeting many questions were asked. The subject seemed to have kindled a lot of interest with our members.

The meeting ended with the raffle draw. I’m not sure who won the hamper but it wasn’t me.