William Smith is best known for his great geological map of 1815. Less well appreciated is his lasting legacy in crafting and defining the sub-disciplines of stratigraphy (the correlation and ordering of stratified rocks) and bio-stratigraphy (the correlation of rocks by the use of their fossil content). Smith’s work allowed the locations of coal formations to be predicted, fuelling the Industrial Revolution and giving birth to applied geology.

Owen Green has worked in the Department of Earth Sciences, Oxford, since 1989. Initially helping to establish the Palaeobiology Laboratories, and for the past 10 years as Manager of the Geo-facilities laboratories. Research contributions include re-examining the world’s oldest putative microfossils. He is author of ‘A manual of Practical Laboratory and Field Techniques in Palaeobiology’, and is currently writing a book for the Royal Microscopical Society. He is Chair of the Oxfordshire Geology Trust.