Geoscience Survey and Monitoring Directorate | Geological Survey of Northern Ireland

Michael Young
Head of Science and Head of Station Northern Ireland

Mike Young is Director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, an office of the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment that is managed and staffed by the British Geological Survey. He is a graduate of Bristol University (physics), Imperial College (geophysics) and Warwick University (MBA). Mike joined GSNI in 2004 to manage the award-winning Tellus Project, which mapped Northern Ireland with detailed geochemical and airborne geophysical surveys. In 2009 he initiated a cross-border partnership of government and universities that is currently extending the Tellus surveys into the Republic of Ireland, with financing from ERDF. Before joining BGS Mike spent more than 20 years abroad, working in the mining and groundwater sectors, in industry and government, and has managed regional geophysical mapping projects in many countries of Africa and West Asia. From 1979-91 he was Chief Geophysicist of Robertson Research International. He has published on mining and groundwater exploration in arid environments, regional geophysical mapping, institutional development in the water sector, and on the results of the Tellus surveys. Mike is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and President-elect of the Belfast Geologists' Society.