The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research.
Overview
The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research.
The BGS headquarters are in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, England. Its other centres are located in Edinburgh, Wallingford, Cardiff and London. The current tagline of the BGS is: Understanding our Earth.
History and previous names
The Geological Survey was founded in 1835 by the Board of Ordnance as the Geological Survey of Great Britain, under directorship of Henry De la Beche. This was the world's first national geological survey. It remained a branch of the Ordnance Survey for many years. In 1965, it was merged with the Geological Museum and Overseas Geological Surveys, under the name of Institute of Geological Sciences. On 1 January 1984, the institute was renamed the British Geological Survey (and often referred to as the BGS), a name still carried today. Since 1835, there have been 20 directors of the survey. In 2019, Karen Hanghøj was the first woman appointed to lead the survey.
From the 1860s, the survey in Scotland operated under the identity of the Geological Survey of Scotland.
