Where I was raised .... Turramurra, the back yard (and sandstone wall built by my father).

If the world wearies and society does not satisfy, there is always the garden.

 

The music playing, Enya's River Music, Orinoco Flow - is able to remind us of the flow of time, and the universal flow of all things - the way it is, and the thusness of all, the core non-duality : 

( A GREAT LOST RIVER TEACHES?  TEACHES US WHAT? - 

Over forty million years ago a great river flowed across the "Sydney" region, from beyond Glenbrook and via Maroota to somewhere unknown where it greeted the sea at a coastline that no longer exists.   Everything changes but this very flow maybe continues today, and could be the Nepean - Hawkesbury.  Or maybe not?  Could there be errors or flawed thinking in how we conceive that the Earth and everything developed?  Who knows?  Interpretations change.  Everything changes.

But also, all things remain linked, and are connected.  Geology, together with archaeology, studies and interprets the past, and how things came to be the way they are.  We each can add a little to the picture but never will know everything.  Life presses on always, tiny wombat step by tiny wombat step.  As it should.  Think good thoughts, care for the people.  Do public service.  Be generous and open.  Stop the killings, stop war, and learn to cooperate.  Do not cling too hard to blind dogma.  Let go of whatever you need to let go of.  Go with the flow.  Abandon the Dark side and cross to the Light.  And may the force be with you as they say in the Star Wars movies.  Whatever this Force may be.  )   

 

JOHN GRAHAM BYRNES

John's principal interests have been in fossils, history of  the earth, coal, gold, copper, minerals policy and mining history; as well as in systems of information dealing.  His Master of Policy Studies degree at University of NSW concentrated on the optimisation of the acquisition and accessibility of government-held information on geology and mining (and to a lesser extent on mine safety policy).

One thing worked at over quite some time was the quality assessment and improvement of minerals exploration and prospecting reporting (click here to see how reporting was done in 1999).  He currently specialises in the world of coal (e.g. Hunter Valley), being principally occupied with mine and deposit information.   John's Master of Policy degree studies concentrated on the optimtisation of the acquisition and accessibility of government-held information on geology and mining.

John's ancient life interests have focused on coelenterates, receptaculitids and the formation of coal seams.  He is interested in both carbonate and coal petrology, and in palaeoecology and environments of deposition of (e.g. corals reefs, peat bogs, rivers, etc.).  

John worked mostly for the NSW government, which employed most or all of its geologists originally in the Mines Department (subsequently known by various other names - Department of Mineral Resources, and later amalgamated with agriculture etc. as Primary Resources).  John began work at Sydney's Geological & Mining Museum (which did a good job over many years for the general public and especially for schoolchildren, but was unfortunately discontinued after government lost interest in promotion of geology).  He later on worked as the department's Senior Information Officer (scientific information), in the policy and ministerial support section (as Minerals Executive Officer), in coal geology (Southern Coalfield) and in regional geology (Northwest Region).  Particularly interesting was metallogenic mapping in the Bourke-Cobar-Nymagee region.  He maintains interest in geological and mining history/heritage both for New South Wales and elsewhere (e.g. Sydney Mines, Canada).   Since 2005 he has been interested in researching mines and coalfields history for Russia (e.g. see working compilation on the Donbass region), Australia, Canada, Colombia, Venezuela and Indonesia; as well as in Sydney region general geology (especially the evolution of the Nepean-Hawkesbury River system).  The lastmentioned interest is shared in particular with fellow LachlanHunter member Tessa Corkill who is the driving force in 'Maroota Sands heritage project'.  This project seeks to gather, and disseminate (on CD), information about the area of Maroota Sand (considered likely to be the oldest preserved remnant of Nepean River transported sand).    

John Byrnes - john.mail@ozemail.com.au
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Biography - A bit of life history which is still evolving

 

 

INTERESTS - Information - acquisition, preservation and accessibility.

( Government acquisition of information from exploration and mining - a student review essay on the policy of such, 2000).

 

 

INTERESTS - Fossils

 

  Long dead spiders are quite friendly and never bite.  This little critter, preserved down to the detail of minute hairs, is far superior to the preservation of most fossils, many of which are just impressions left in sediment by body parts (This one is the 1 mm long type specimen of Orchestina albertensis from Grassy Lake near Lethbridge in Alberta; ca. 75 million years old.  Described by Dr. David Penney in the January 2006 issue of the journal Palaeontology).

 

Preserving good spiders needs good trees (to make the sap that becomes the amber that can preserve insects for so many millions of years).  If we have the fossil spiders, where are the fossil trees?

 

Certainly some of them still reside, petrified, around the Yellowstone National Park.  Here a much-exaggerating old timer supposedly once reported finding:  "Peetrified birds a sittin' on peetrified trees a singin' peetrified songs in the peetrified air.  The flowers and leaves and grass was peetrified, and they shone in a peculiar moonlight.  And that was peetrified too."  (The fanciful geological reporting from early mountain men, for which style Jim Bridger is renowned.  This followed the discovery of amazing petrified forests in the Yellowstone region in the 1830s.  Bridger also reported the geysers of the area.)

Seeing that many of the Yellowstone region gigantic petrified stumps (likely relatives of the modern day Sequoia or giant redwoods) may 'outcrop' along the ridge edges of spectacular deep valleys (like here)  it was indeed very handy if, as the old-timer reported, due to some geological peculiarity the air too was quite solid and petrified in this area.  This meant that one could ride one's burro straight across any chasm, to view a stump close up, after it had been sighted in the distance.  Such field conditions could benefit palaeontology anywhere.

Closer to home John has been interested in how the Fennell Bay Fossil Forest near Toronto, one of Australia's earliest recognised petrified forests, has been viewed, recorded and studied over time.  The missionary Reverend Lancelot Threlkeld in the 1830s recorded that the local aboriginal tradition was that the trees were people turned to stone: "Kur-kur-kur-ran.  The name of a place in which there is almost a forest of petrifications of wood of various sizes, extremely well defined.  It is situated in a bay in the N.W. extremity of Lake Macquarie.  The tradition of the aborigines is that formerly it was one large rock, which fell from the heavens and killed a number of blacks, who were assembled where it descended, they being collected together in that spot by command of an immense iguana, which came down from above for that purpose.  In consequence of his anger at their having killed lice by roasting them in the fire, those who had killed the vermin by cracking were previously speared to death by him with a long reed from Heaven ... When the iguana saw all the men were killed by the fall of the stone, he ascended up into Heaven, where he is supposed now to remain, and they point out the stars which they say represent his form in the sky."