reading rocks
Geologist and writer Ian Jackson reads a selection of stories from pages of his five books about northern rocks and their connections with our landscape ….and us. The stories of this first series – Time travelling - begin almost 500 million years ago and end with the Roman conquest of the north.
Podcasting since 2026 • 7 episodes
reading rocks
Latest Episodes
THE BLACK THREAD – Part Two
Part two of this short geo-fiction story looks forward 40 years and 100,000 years. It may be a speculative look into our future but it draws nonetheless on forensic climate projections and impacts which have been generated by reputable scientis...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 7
•
15:26
THE BLACK THREAD a bit of geo-fiction for a change – Part One
Reading the story of the Earth through its rocks has been likened to reading a book with 90% of its pages missing. An incredible tale and fertile ground for the imagination for sure. But everything in this two-part short story is based on sound...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 6
•
16:20
The return of humans
Its time to get to grips with how people and rocks connect. And first in ancient societies. So we will be occupying the overlap – more no-mans-land – between geology and archaeology. The two subjects - just like rocks and humans - are ine...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 5
•
21:26
Freeze and thaw
Our tectonic plates continued their erratic waltz north. All the while billions of tonnes of sediments were deposited, turned to rock, tilted up here and there and then eroded away. 60 million years ago lava started to pour out of an enormous r...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 4
•
21:20
Red Deserts, salty seas, and an intruder
This episode starts with injection of molten rock across northern England a rock that is responsible for a huge chunk of our tourist economy. Then it takes a tour of hot deserts, evaporating salty seas, and finally our secret bit of every...
•
Season 1
•
Episode 3
•
18:01