This symposium explores the history of geological and geophysical fieldwork, examining the work of individuals, research groups and commercial explorers in all areas of the world and across history, and showing how geological knowledge was made in the field and transferred and disseminated through word of mouth, in correspondence, in institutional settings and through scientific publications, from the early modern period to the present day.

The symposium deals with the changing methodologies of fieldwork and the difficulties of administering it, followed by a session on the crucial importance of place and site-specific limitations. The symposium then considers the problems when fieldwork is under ideological and financial constraint, before turning to specific case studies, including the roles played by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travellers, as well as the difficulties faced by investigators in their own local contexts.

All of these contributions will illuminate changing local and global trends in geological and geophysical fieldwork since the early modern period, considering the effects of national patterns and characteristics and innovations in instrumentation and techniques. The roles of particular individuals and groups, including amateurs and professionals, women and travellers, artists and scientists, and the importance of contexts as varied as private interests, government surveys and commercial exploration will all be revealed.

One of the highlights of the symposium will be the display of a west-east section of northern England dating from the 1830s. This section was prepared by the mining engineer Thomas Sopwith, and is almost 13m (42 feet) long. It was recently purchased by the current owner, Graham Carlisle, and is thought not to have been displayed since the nineteenth century. It will be discussed by Susan Turner in session S113-B.

This symposium will also share a number of ideas and themes with S112, Geology in Art and Literature, and with the field trips being organized on behalf of the International Commission on the History of the Geological Sciences.