Andrew Cunningham Scott

Andrew Cunningham Scott (born 16 February 1952) is a British geologist, and professor emeritus at Royal Holloway University of London. He won the 2007 Gilbert H. Cady Award from the Geological Society of America for outstanding contributions to coal geology. He is widely regarded an expert on wildfire and charcoal and has highlighted the role of fire in deep time. He also contributes as a palaeobotanist and science communicator.

Scott was educated at Cannon Lane Primary School, (Pinner); St. Martins School, Northwood; Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood; and the University of London, where he obtained a BSc (Bedford College) and a PhD (Birkbeck College) studying under William Gilbert Chaloner. His thesis concerned the palaeoecology of Carboniferous Coal Measure plants. After a 2-year post-doctoral fellowship at Trinity College Dublin, he returned to England to take up a lectureship in Geology at Chelsea College, University of London. During this period, his research concentrated on the Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) floras of Scotland including those from the Pettycur Volcanics, Bearsden (associated with the Bearsden Shark collected by Stan Wood), Oxroad Bay and localities in Berwickshire and East Lothian as well as the East Kirkton Quarry (associated with famous fossil vertebrates including Westlothiana).

In 1985, the geology departments at Chelsea College and Bedford College merged to form a new department at Royal Holloway, University of London. He was awarded a personal chair in 1996, becoming Professor of Applied Palaeobotany. During the 1990s, he worked on Drawings and Prints in the Royal Library that had been collected by Cassiano dal Pozzo.

From 1998 to 2006, he was the Director of Science Communication. In 2002 he was awarded a D.Sc. from the University of London for his published research. In 2003, he was made an Honorary Professor at Jilin University, Changchun, China. He was a visiting professor at Yale University in 2006–2007 and a visiting fellow at Berkeley College. During this period, his research concentrated on the occurrence of wildfire in deep time. He also became involved with the Pyrogeography research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara and published several important papers and a text-book on Fire on Earth. In 2012 he became a distinguished research fellow and was awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship and became the emeritus Professor of Geology in 2014. He was appointed Distinguished Research Professor in 2023.

Scott has been involved in many radio broadcasts for broadcasters around the world including the BBC, such as In Our Time episodes on Early Geology and Catastrophism and on the Forum on “Fire: How climate change is altering our attitudes to wildfire" and was also the subject of a BBC documentary about his research on coal for screenhouse productions and the Open University. He has written articles on geology stamps for several publications including Stamp Magazine and has had a long-term collaboration with the artist Nick Shrewing working on geological stamp designs for a number of countries including the Solomon Islands, Barbados, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha.

In 2022 his fire research was featured in a major exhibition in Tokyo in the Museum of Science and Nature ( https://www.kahaku.go.jp/english/event/2022/11wildfire/ ). He has been involved in two papers from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POSTnotes 603 (2019) Climate change and UK Wildfire ( https://post.parliament.uk/research-briefings/post-pn-0603/ ), POSTnote 717 (2024) Wildfire risks to UK landscapes ( https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0717/POST-PN- 0717.pdf ). He has collaborated on the use of plants, minerals and burnt substances in Medieval medicine funded by the Wellcome Trust ( https://wellcome.org/research-funding/funding-portfolio/funded-grants/plants-and-minerals-byzantine-popular-pharmacy-new ).

He has published on family history and on the history of the Scottish Village of Lemahagow.

Scott is the recipient of several awards including the Presidents Award of the Geological Society of London and the Palaeontological Society and the Gilbert H. Cady Award from the Geological Society of America, He is also a Fellow of the Geological Society of London, Fellow of the Geological Society of America, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is a Chartered Geologist.

Personal life He is married to his wife Anne and has a son and a daughter.

Selected publications

Books

Scott, A. C. 1987. Coal and coal-bearing strata: Recent advances. (http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/32/1) Geological Society of London Special Publication 32. (Editor). Collinson, M.E. and Scott, A.C. (Eds) 1993. Studies in Palaeobotany and Palynology in Honour of Professor W.G. Chaloner F.R.S. Special Papers in Palaeontology 49,1–187. ( http://www.palass.org/beta/eps/shop/product/pid-82/) Scott, A.C. and Fleet, A.J. (Eds) 1994. Coal and Coal-bearing strata as oil prone source rocks? Geological Society of London, Special Publication 77. 213pp. ( http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/77/1) Blundell, D.J. and Scott, A.C. (eds) 1998. Lyell: The Past is the Key to the Present. Geological Society Special Publication 143, 376pp. ( http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/143/1) Scott, A.C. and Freedberg, D. 2000. The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné.Series B. Part III. Fossil woods and other geological specimens. Harvey Miller Publishers, London. 427pp. ( https://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Geological-Specimens-MUSEUM-CASSIANO/dp/1872501915) Scott, A.C., Bowman, D.J.M.S., Bond, W.J., Pyne, S.J. and Alexander M. 2014. Fire on Earth: An Introduction. (http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111995357X.html ) J. Wiley and Sons. 413pp. Scott, A.C., Chaloner, W.G., Belcher, C.M., Roos, C.I. (Eds) 2016. The interaction of fire and mankind: Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B. volume 371, Issue 1696 252pp. Scott, A.C., Crane, P.R. 2018.The life and work of William G. C haloner FRS 1928–2016. Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, Virginia, USA, 75 p. Scott, A.C. 2018. Burning Planet. The story of fire through time. Oxford University Press. 224 pp. also in Spanish and Japanese) Scott, A.C. 2020. At the crossroads of time - how a small Scottish Village changed history. Amberley Press, Stroud, Gloucestershire. 256pp. Scott, A.C. 2020. Fire: A very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. 156pp (also in Chinese)

Scientific Papers

Scott, A.C.2000. Art and the Earth sciences. pp. 38–43. In: Hancock, P.L. and Skinner, B.J (eds). The Oxford Companion to the Earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198540397.001.0001/acref-9780198540397-e-37?rskey=wRv7A3&result=37 Scott, A.C. 2000. Palaeobotany. p. 774. In: Hancock, P.L. and Skinner, B.J (eds). The Oxford Companion to the Earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198540397.001.0001/acref-9780198540397-e-661?rskey=okw9tr&result=661 Scott, A.C. 2000. Fossil plants. pp. 364–371. In: Hancock, P.L. and Skinner, B.J. (eds). The Oxford Companion to the Earth. Oxford University Press, Oxford. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198540397.001.0001/acref-9780198540397-e-313?rskey=tBNiRt&result=313

Boslough, M., Nicoll, K., Holliday, V., Daulton, T.L., Meltzer, D., Pinter, N., Scott, A.C., Surovell, T., Claeys, Ph., Gill, J., Paquay, F., Marlon, J., Bartlein, P., Whitlock, C., Grayson, D. and Jull, T. 2012. Arguments and Evidence against a Younger Dryas Impact Event. pp. 13–26. In: Giosan, L.; D.Q. Fuller; K. Nicoll; R. Flad and P.D. Clift. (editors) Climates, Landscapes and Civilizations. Geophys. Monogr. Ser., vol. 198, AGU, Washington, D. C..

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