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01/12/2015

Adam Walton visits the National Museum Wales in Cardiff to see the pioneering geological maps of William Smith.

30 minutes

Last on

Sun 6 Dec 2015 06:31

The Maps of William Smith

Adam Walton visits the National Museum, Cardiff to see the exhibition that marks the 200th anniversary of the publication of the first geological map of Great Britain. The exhibition of William Smith's maps is at the museum until 28th February 2016.

Adam is joined throughout the programme by geologist Tom Sharpe, who worked at the Museum for 35 years and looked after the world's largest collection of copies of William Smith's landmark map.聽


William Smith travelled extensively across Britain working as a surveyor of coal mines, and noticed when going down the mine shafts, that the layer of rocks with coal seams between them, always occurred in the same sequence, and they always sloped in the same direction. During his surveying work he also noticed that fossils were particular to the strata they occurred in. He amalgamated all his acquired knowledge into his 1815 map - "a delineation of the strata of England and Wales with part of Scotland".聽

Broadcasts

  • Tue 1 Dec 2015 18:30
  • Sun 6 Dec 2015 06:31

Adam Walton

Adam Walton

Adam's "other job" - tune in every Saturday at 10 PM for the best new music from Wales.