DR. ALFRED WHITTAKER - CURRICULUM VITAE

---

Dr. Alfred Whittaker - Curriculum Vitae

Membership of the Ussher Society (Geoscience in SW England); Editor 1974-1977

   “        “         Vice Chairman 1989 & 1992

   “        “           Chairman         1990-1991

Service in the Geological Society of London (GSL) and member of Council for 2 or 3 years in approx. 1980, followed by 2 years activity on the GSL Stratigraphy Committee and similar as Secretary of this Committee.

My music interests began from my Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music studies on piano and clarinet before school. I was awarded BGS (Blyth Grammar School) Music Prize after GCE exams in 1955.  Many of my most recent articles on Mozart and my geologist/mineralogist friends stem from this early interest in music, especially that of Mozart and his opera The Magic Flute.

I was awarded the Lebour Prize in Field Geology after final year exams at King’s College in 1961 (2:1 degree awarded). 

My BSc degree was awarded by Durham University (before: Newcastle’s Armstrong College/King’s College became independent) then King’s College became separate from Durham University. 

When I eventually graduated PhD in November1963-4, I was actually the first graduate in Geology from the newly established University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I joined the British Geological Survey in 1959 and travelled to Northern Ireland to join the Belfast office field work in the Dungannon Sheet and then began work on the Magilligan borehole and then the Larne Borehole for a while. I then transferred at own request to the BGS HQ London office in 1962 to work because of family illnesses.  I became a member of the B.G.S. in London in 1959 to work initially on the Stratford on Avon sheet with Brian Williams and transferred to the Exeter office in c.1966 to work eventually on Weston super mare sheet with Gilbert Green and Brian Kelk. 

In 1972 I was awarded the E J Garwood Fund of the Geological Society of London (GSL) to work on the stratigraphy of the Jurassic-Triassic boundary sections in South Wales, Somerset coast, and the Lyme Regis area. Further work was done on the biometrics of Psiloceras planorbis in all these areas from which 2 papers were published in the Proceedings of the Ussher Society and one in the Geological Magazine. I retired from BGS in 1998 but have been unable to walk since 2002.

I was elected to the Council of the Geological Society of London (GSL) in 1976 and served for 3 years. As an appointed member of the GSL Stratigraphy Committee in 1978 I served for 3 or 4 years until appointed Secretary of this Committee by its members, and served in this capacity for 3 or 4 years. I served as Chair of the East Midlands Regional Group of the GSL for 3 years or so in 1997. I then served as a member of the Council of the East Midlands Geological Society for 2 years until suffering my major stroke in 2002. 

My publications number 138 to date, plus one in press. I was a member of EAGE (European Association of geoscientists and Engineers), AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geology) and FGS (Fellow of the Geological Society), C.Geol. (Chartered Geologist) +EuroGeol ( Chartered European Geologist) for a time and was invited to contribute to a Dutch Geological Survey publication in addition to many published BGS memoirs on British Geology. Many book reviews were invited and published. I became the official representative of the UK for the IGCP (International Geological Correlation Project number 86) (the SW border zone of the East European Platform) which involved much travel into and in the field of various parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia, and I eventually participated in many joint publications of accounts about European geology (including the UK). I also engaged in published accounts and study of parts of Hong Kong territory (mainly in connection with earthquakes and their possible prediction). I performed much consultancy work and advice on British earthquake risk, in addition to study of the oil geology of India, the Falkland Islands, Papua New Guinea, and the British North Sea and onshore areas. I was an invited Committee Member of the French Geologie Profonde programme for many years

I retired from the BGS in 1998, having reached the positions latterly of Head of the Deep Geology Unit (DGU) and subsequently as Head of the Petroleum Geology and Basin Analysis Group (PEGBAG).

---