Lecture by Dr Sandy Hetherington of the University of Edinburgh on the 407-million-year-old Rhynie chert fossil deposit and early terrestrial life, part of the Curious Minds series.
Dr Sandy Hetherington is coming to the AK Bell Library on Friday 26 February 2027 to talk about the Rhynie chert, a fossil deposit that's given us some of the clearest looks we've ever had at early life on land. Hetherington is from the University of Edinburgh, and the talk is part of the Curious Minds lecture series, which is run by Culture Perth & Kinross and the Perthshire Society of Natural Science — one of the oldest scientific societies in Scotland.
The Rhynie chert itself is a 407-million-year-old deposit found more than a century ago near the village of Rhynie in Aberdeenshire. What makes it so special is the level of detail: it preserves an entire early terrestrial ecosystem — plants, animals, fungi and microbial life — almost exactly as it was. Instead of just fragments or impressions, you get a snapshot of a whole community from the dawn of life on land, all kept in extraordinary detail.
It's one of several talks under the Curious Minds banner, which this time is themed around 'Contemporary Science in Scotland'. The series has covered a fair bit of ground already: dinosaur fossils in Skye, the human genome, black holes, gravitational waves and the science of consciousness. This one takes that same curiosity and turns it back to the ground beneath our feet, and to a piece of Scottish geology that's still giving up new things more than a hundred years after it was first found.
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The talk starts at 19:30 and runs for about 90 minutes, so you'll be out well before the night is over. It's at the AK Bell Library in Perth, on Friday 26 February 2027.
