Why leprechauns know how mountains form.

2017 Haydn Williams Fellowship Public Lecture presented by Professor Brendan Murphy

Planet Earth is unique in the Solar System. It not only sustains a remarkable diversity of life forms, but also offers scenes of stunning beauty, from majestic mountains and luxuriant tropical islands to the stark splendor of desert landscapes.

The Earth has evolved over 4.6 billion years from its tumultuous and hostile beginnings to the fertile life-sustaining planet that we live on today. This evolution has happened because the Earth’s rocky outer layers have interacted with water, air and life, as well as its deep interior over billions of years.

There is an urgent and practical reason why we need to understand this evolution. If we are to practice responsible management of our planet, it is crucial that we distinguish between the kinds of global change induced by human activity and those that are part of natural cycles.

The study of the record of Earth’s evolution offers a unique and clear perspective. The study of Earth’s evolution and mountains shows its own natural rhythms, many of which profoundly influence phenomena as all-embracing as the motion and growth of continents, and the birth and destruction of oceans.

Curtin University’s 2017 Haydn Williams Fellowship Public Lecture will be presented by Professor Brendan Murphy as he explains: “Why leprechauns know how mountains form”. Professor Murphy will examine how mountains form in response to how terrestrial factors have affected the evolution of the Earth, including its climate, life and endowment of natural resources.

About Professor Murphy

Professor Brendan Murphy is from Birr, Ireland. He has been Professor of Geology at St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada since 1982, having completed his BSc Geology at University College, Dublin, his MSc at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and PhD at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

He is now a world leader in supercontinent and orogenic (mountain-forming) research, focussing on global-scale processes related to the cyclic amalgamation and breakup of supercontinents and their relationship to the evolution of the Earth.

Professor Murphy has published more than 290 research papers. He is currently a Chief Science Editor of Geology magazine, published by Geological Society of America (GSA), the former Chief Science Editor of GSA Bulletin and Geoscience Canada, and is on several other editorial boards. He was elected fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2012, and has won national and international awards for research, service and outreach; including the prestigious Killam Research Fellowship.

Professor Murphy is currently visiting Western Australia as a Haydn Williams Fellow at Curtin University having previously had sabbaticals in Oxford, UK (1990), Berkeley, California (1996-7), UWA, Australia (2001), and Salamanca, Spain (2005).

About the Fellowship

The Haydn Williams Fellowship is offered to an academic of outstanding international reputation and broad academic interest. The appointment aims to build Curtin University’s engagement with the global academic community as well developing links between the University, industry and the community.

From The Goldfields to Elphin Scotland, WASM Graduate becomes tearoom host

Helen O’Keefe, who hails from Western Australia, opened the doors of the Elphin Tearooms on Thursday, just in time for the Easter weekend.

Helen is a mining engineer who graduated from the West Australian School of Mines and went on to work first at Kalgoorlie and then with a mining consulting company in Perth.

She returned to the north of Scotland for a second time in 2014 when she spent her time hill walking and meeting friends.

She said: “I got back to Australia and I thought that I did not want to be there any longer – I wanted to be in Scotland.”

At the end of March 2015, Helen achieved her dream and relocated from Australia to Scotland, staying first at Durness and then Kinlochbervie.

It was not long before she was appointed coordinator of the North West Highlands Geopark’s new Rock Stop coffee shop and exhibition at Unapool, Assynt.

But Helen had also spotted that the Elphin Tearooms were for sale and felt it would be an ideal business opportunity.

She said: “I was really keen to have some land where I could grow things and be productive. Also, I really love proper tea, loose leaf tea. so the concept of a proper tea room really appealed to me.”

However, she did not have the funds to purchase the business herself and suggested to her mum that she might like to move across the world and run the business with her.

An intrepid Ann was keen to take up the challenge and the two have bought the tea rooms, a neighbouring house and the surrounding land.

Helen said: “She was ready for a change and loves it up here. She left her home in Bridgetown, Western Australia, where she has stayed for 25 years, all her friends and her dog. She has been a real gem.”

Located in an old croft house on the main A835 running through Elphin, the tearooms have been in operation for the last 30 years, but have not always opened regularly in the last few years.

Helen and Ann have not had to do much to the spacious restaurant, which has 36 covers, aside from some cosmetic work such as repainting. They have also installed some new equipment including a coffee machine.

Customers will have the choice of teas, coffees, hot chocolate and cold drinks as well as a range of home-made cakes, scones, muffins, biscuits and sweets. Light lunches such as soup and sandwiches are also on offer.

Helen said: “Everything is fresh and made from scratch. We are starting off small and want to get the basics right. Whatever we do, we want to do well and we will work our way up.