The British Geophysical Association

The British Geophysical Association is delighted to announce that the Bullerwell Lecturer for 2026 will be Dr. Ualisson Donardelli Bellon from the University of Edinburgh.

Dr Ualisson Donardelli Bellon is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Mineral Magnetism at the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh. His research investigates magnetic phenomena at the nanoscale to better understand the stability and evolution of planetary magnetic fields, combining micromagnetic modelling with advanced imaging and chemical analyses, including synchrotron-based techniques.

Dr Bellon holds a PhD in Geophysics (University of São Paulo, 2024), an MSc in Geophysics (University of São Paulo, 2021), and a BSc in Geology (Federal University of Espírito Santo, 2018). His doctoral research focused on studying vortex-state magnetic minerals in carbonate rocks through magnetic mineralogy, synchrotron imaging, and numerical modelling. His academic background spans experimental and computational approaches to mineral magnetism, with applications in palaeomagnetism and planetary evolution.

Dr. Bellon has also won a prize for the Best Geosciences Thesis in Brazil in 2025. He has published in leading journals such as Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Communications Earth & Environment, and Proceedings at National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).  Further information, and publication references, are available at: https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/persons/ualisson-donardelli-bellon/

The title of his Bullerwell lecture is: 

“From microscopic minerals to planetary magnetic fields” 

As part of the award, The British Geophysical Association has funds to cover the associated expenses for a number of these lectures.
If you would like the Bullerwell Lecture to be given at your institution, please contact Ualisson directly, cc the BGA President.

The British Geophysical Association is delighted to announce that the winners of the 2024 BGA image competition are:

1st: Steve Hicks for his “Taylor Tremors” image .

2nd: Phil Mollicone for the “Jug hustlers, Yukon Delta seismic crew” image.

The 2025 BGA image competition is open. Enter the BGA Image Competition and help promote UK geophysics.

First and second prizes are £250 and £100, respectively.

We are looking for dramatic geophysical fieldwork photos, spectacular images of numerical simulations, stimulating photos of laboratory experiments in progress, or even geophysical data overlays or drapes on topography or other surfaces, for example. In fact, any image with a clear geophysical context is welcome. However, generic landscape photos are not eligible — the geophysical link must be obvious within the image itself.

Images must be high-resolution and sent in JPEG or JPG format. Only e-mail entries are eligible.

Entrants must be associated with a UK institution or live in the UK. By entering, you consent to the BGA using their image for promotional purposes, free of charge.

Please email your image to the Competitions Officer with “BGA image competition 2025” in the subject line. Include a brief description of the image and its geophysical relevance. 

CLOSING DATE: The competition closes at midnight UTC on 30 September 2025 and judging will be carried out by the BGA Committee shortly after.

Recently, NERC funded a new seismological equipment pool for use on land, consisting of 3-component Smart Solos and 1-component nodes. This will be held in Cambridge, care of Nick Rawlinson, and will be available for use by our community. We (below) contacted a number of other people who own seismological equipment and constructed an initial inventory of instruments held in the UK and Ireland. To demonstrate and explore the power of seismology, it would be great to put all of this excellent and diverse equipment to good, local use.

Inspired by the vision of the British Geophysical Association, to bring our community together for greater purpose, we would therefore like to suggest that a suitable target for integrated study using all of the instruments in a single array, might be the subsurface of the UK and Ireland. As food for thought, we constructed a survey design that distributes the equipment inventory across this geographical area as evenly as possible.

Both the equipment inventory, and the array design, are available in a green paper.

The green paper is offered only as a stimulus to start a discussion about this possibility across our Geophysical community: to generate ideas for possible sub-targets for detailed study, and to articulate possible motivations and justifications. For example, non-seismological equipment and objectives could be added, specific important subsurface targets might become areas of focus, and new applications would provide additional inspiration.

In the spirit of openness, we therefore invite the community to co-create this document using the link above, by contributing ideas to the section at the end of the green paper and adding your interest to any existing ideas, so that we can all consider and discuss them. Please also forward this email to any colleagues or collaborators who might be interested, but who may not be signed up to this mailing list.

A discussion meeting will be held at the Royal Astronomical Society, London on 10 October 2025 (hybrid, live-stream option available) at which we propose to discuss all options, and hopefully narrow down to a community-driven plan and proposal.