If you have an interest in the subject come and join us, you don’t need to be already knowledgeable.
The meetings are at 2 pm on the 3rd Friday of the month.
Friday 15th February:
We are to have Prof Silvia Gonzalez from Liverpool John Moores University, her talk is entitled
“The early peopling of the Americas: Evidence from Volcanos, Lakes and Submerged Caves from the Mesoamerican Corridor” which is the region from Panama to Southern Mexico.
New geological and biological anthropology evidence discovered during the last 10 years is producing a revolution in the way we understand how the American continent was populated in the very recent geological past.
Our speaker’s research has concentrated on studying past environmental changes during the last 2.5 million years, looking at a wide variety of aspects that include geology, archaeology and geoarchaeology.
Friday 15th March:
Frank Nicholson will be with us again with talk entitled: ‘Iceland – Fire and Ice’.
The combination of volcanoes and glaciers have had much affect in creating the landscape, bringing unusual hazards as well as offering spectacular sights and interesting tourism.
19th April is Good Friday so here will not be a meeting on that date but it is intended to have a visit to Alderley Edge on a Friday 26th April.
17th May 2019 Baku Fortunes
Our member Richard Fletcher is to follow up on his January talk about Baku; this time talking about some of the companies who were early players in the Baku oil industry.
In 1884, Sir Boverton Redwood, the Secretary of the London Oil Association, was quoted at a meeting of the Chemical Industry Society, as saying, “Baku’s oil resources are so extensive that the Russians could supply the whole world with kerosene and oil.” [Mining Journal, 1885].
In 1914, Caspian oil production was controlled by Russian Oil Corporation (28%), Shell (20%) and the Swedish Nobel Brothers (14%). These companies produced about two thirds of the world’s oil and kerosene. Baku supplied 47 percent of the kerosene needs of Britain, and 71 percent of the needs of France.
Nobel Brothers – By 1916, Nobel had become the largest oil company in Russia and was the main competitor to Shell.
Shell (Deterding and Rothschild) – Shell was the largest British oil company in Baku, it managed more than 10 percent of all the Baku oil fields, owned 30 ocean-going ships, and more than 340 oil terminals located between Baku and Shanghai. Deterding was called “The Napoleon of Oil” by his contemporaries.
Leslie, Urquart and Hoover – Charles Leslie, and John Urquhart set up a company in Baku in 1904. When they were forced to leave the oil business two years later, Urquhart and Leslie set up the Anglo-Siberian Company in London and started mining in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The Russian Revolution scattered them all around the world.
