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!).
Richard Maddra| Council Member
I am a primary school teacher whose love of palaeontology could be described as an obsession. In my daughter's words, “Is there anywhere we can take you where you won't look at rocks and find something?”
Like many youngsters, I had a keen interest in dinosaurs. Unlike others, I've retained that passion into adulthood and spent many happy hours looking at dinosaur footprints on the Yorkshire coast.
A chance discovery in 2012 of a predated Dactylioceras – the first example of such an ammonite to be reported from the Lower Jurassic of Yorkshire – brought a change of direction. The specimen was donated to the Yorkshire Museum – where it is on public display - and I ended up writing the paper describing it. I'd assumed that, after two hundred years of research on the coast, there would be little left to say about ammonites. How wrong I was. This find was the start of my obsession with ammonites. A find of an in-situ aptychus (the lower jaw) in a specimen of Cleviceras meant that aptychi were added to the ammonite obsession. I've continued researching ammonites, their pathologies and their lifestyles.
I originally became involved with the Yorkshire Geological Society because, as a northerner with an interest in palaeontology and geology, it seemed the obvious thing to do if I wanted to learn more. Over the following years, I've found myself running stalls, giving talks, leading guided walks – all with an ammonite theme, naturally - and, finally, being asked if I would join the Council in 2024.
