Where The Magic Happens
Current Serving YGS Council Members
At the Yorkshire Geological Society, we pride ourselves on being diverse, friendly & inclusive. Below is a list of current YGS council members, once you know who we are, come & say hello when you see us at events (or even in the street!).
Nick Riley | Treasurer
Nick has been fascinated by geology since he was about six years old and spent much of his childhood and youth on mine tips, in quarries and in stream & river beds in NW England. In 1977 Nick graduated in Geology and Zoology at Bristol University and then followed through with a PhD on the Worston Shales of N. England. Nick joined the Institute of Geological Sciences (now the British Geological Survey-BGS) at Leeds in 1980.
He has been an international expert on Carboniferous rocks throughout his career including surface and subsurface mapping of UK Carboniferous strata; coal, oil, gas exploration & development in the UK and Former Soviet Union; large civil engineering projects, radioactive waste storage, carbon capture & storage, underground natural gas storage & mineral exploration. From 2001 -2010 Nick was an adviser to UK government on Carbon Abatement Technologies and during that period he became BGS’ first “Head of Science for Energy”. He also advised the UK research councils’ “Energy Research Programme”. He has advised on national energy research programmes for Japan, The Netherlands & Norway as well as BP’s Alternative Energy programme.
In the European Research Area Nick co-ordinated “CO2 GeoNet, the European Research Network of Excellence on research into underground CO2 storage from 2004-2009 and was the first President of the CO2GeoNet Association (2009-2011). He was also Chair of the EC Support Action “CO2Geological Storage (CGS) Europe”.
Nick’s last position at BGS was as “Team Leader for unconventional gas”. In this role he was a contributor and reviewer of the DECC report (published July 2013) on Carboniferous shale gas resources in northern & central England. Nick left BGS in 2013 (but remains an Honorary Research Associate) and set up his own company “Carboniferous Ltd” which provides specialist expertise on Carboniferous geology, mainly across the energy sector.
In 2003 Nick was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty the Queen for “Services to UK Geoscience” and in 2017 he was awarded “The John Phillips Medal”, by the Yorkshire Geological Society in recognition to his contributions to understanding the geology of Northern England. In January 2021 Nick became President of the Yorkshire Geological Society and after serving in that role for two years has taken on the role of General Treasurer.
Nick has published over 30 papers in refereed journals, 6 book chapters in professional text books and numerous other publications by the BGS, UK government, and professional magazines. He was a regular panelist on BBC Radio 4’s science & environment programme “Home Planet”.
