GeoLog

Geopolicy: including policy in science education?

Chloe Hill May 25, 2018

Integrated learning. Credit: The Liverpool School of English (distributed via Flickr).

Generally, students are taught basic science and given a rudimentary overview of the political system from a young age. I remember learning how to do basic experiments from the age of 7 and learning about the Australian Parliament not long after that. We had specific classes dedicated to various scientific disciplines in high school and when I went onto study environmental science in my Bachelors ...[Read More]

Top ten tourist beaches threatened by tsunamis

Olivia Trani May 23, 2018

A street in Phuket, Thailand after the 2004 tsunami. Six months after the tsunami, a quarter of the islands's hotels closed. (Image Credit: Alonso de Mendoza / Wikimedia Commons)

December 2004 saw one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history. 228,000 people were killed when an earthquake off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra triggered tsunami waves up to 30 m high. The destruction was extreme as the waves hit 14 different countries around the Indian Ocean. Economic losses totalled over 10 billion US dollars. The tourism industry in particular suff ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: A volcanic point of view

Olivia Trani May 21, 2018

Sleeping volcano . Credit: Carina Fernandes and Jorge Magalhaes (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

It’s not every day that you can peer into a volcano, much less gaze out at the sky from the inside of one. The Algar do Carvão, or “the Cavern of Coal,” is one of the few places on Earth where you can explore the underground reaches of a volcanic site. The volcanic pit is found on the island of Terceira, part of the Azores archipelago. This collection of islands is an autonomous region of Portugal ...[Read More]

Plate Tectonics and Ocean Drilling – Fifty Years On

Tim Middleton May 16, 2018

Glomar Challenger, the DSDP research vessel that found conclusive evidence of seafloor spreading. (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

What does it take to get a scientific theory accepted? Hard facts? A strong personality? Grit and determination? For many Earth Scientists today it can be hard to imagine the academic landscape before the advent of plate tectonics. But it was only fifty years ago that the theory really became cemented as scientific consensus. And the clinching evidence was found in the oceans. Alfred Wegener had p ...[Read More]