Chapter 11 Gravity, geomagnetism and granites

Abstract

Abstract We shall now consider aspects of Lakeland research where geophysical (particularly gravimetric) investigations have played a significant role in the elucidation of the geology of the region. The two main figures have been Martin Bott, Professor at Durham, and his former student Michael Lee, now a geophysicist working for the Survey. Let me first say something about Bott's work. Bott (see Fig. 11.1) (b. 1926) was awarded a scholarship to Magdalene College, Cambridge, to read mathematics, but decided to do his national service first and served with the Royal Signals in East Africa. On going up to Cambridge in 1948 he started off in mathematics as planned, but halfway through the first term he switched to the Natural Science Tripos and took on mathematics, physics, chemistry and geology. At the end of his first year he participated in an expedition to Spitzbergen led by the lecturer Brian Harland and, enthused by this experience, Bott turned to geology and took the subject for his Part 2. Given that he is now a Fellow of the Royal Society, I was most surprised to learn (pers. comm., 1999) that, as one of the most distinguished scientists whose work is referred to in the present book, he scored a lower second. 1 This was a result of his indifferent performance in palaeontology - a part of geology much emphasized at Cambridge in those days. (Bott had had no previous background in biology or anatomy.) His overall result notwithstanding, Bott obtained a DSIR grant to do