AGM 2025 and Lecture (Geology Section)

The Section’s Annual General Meeting to be followed by a lecture from Professor John Winchester, entitled “The 1960’s Australian Mineral Boom – a Personal Experience of its End”.

Arriving in Australia in 1970 to work for an American company, John Winchester witnessed at first hand the peak and incipient decline of the 1960s Australian mineral boom. This is an account of his experiences as a novice exploration geologist, often in strange circumstances, seeking base metals first in the Mount Isa area of NW Queensland, then in central New South Wales. This was followed by a quest for nickel in the centre of Western Australia which eventually yielded – uranium.

Educated at Marlborough and Oriel College, Oxford, John Winchester emerged with a D.Phil. in Geology, based on a project in NW Scotland. He has been a Fellow of the Geological Society since 1968. From 1970–1972 he worked as an exploration geologist for an American mining company in Australia. He held a NERC postdoctoral fellowship at Durham from 1972 till 1974, when he was appointed a lecturer at Keele University, where he remained until retiring as Professor and Head of the School of Earth Science and Geography in 2008. His research covered the geochemistry and tectonics of metamorphic rocks and was undertaken in Scotland, NW Ireland, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Poland and Turkey, resulting in over 200 publications. On retirement he moved to Devon, joined the DA Geology Group in 2009, became a committee member in 2011 and was Chairman from 2016-2018.

There is no fee to attend the AGM, but for the lecture: £4 for members, £5 for non members. Booking is not necessary.