A cool new ichthyosaur – a type of marine reptile – has just been named in the Scottish Journal of Geology. I’ve written about it here, with some great comments from the lead author (Steve Brusatte). Most reports on the new beastie just focus on the finding, but we’ve gone for a different angle by delving into what it means for the evolution of ichthyosaurs during the Juras ...[Read More]
Many artists draw inspiration from nature and it’s not surprising when faced with landscapes which are as beautiful as the one featured in this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays post. Josep Miquel Ubalde Bauló writes about the origin of the colourful mud pots and bobby-socks trees! This picture corresponds to The Artist Paint Pots, found in in Yellowstone, the first National Park of the world. Yellowstone ...[Read More]
In this month’s GeoEd post, Sam Illingworth explores the pitfalls of being a scientist in the public eye. Following the recent acquittal of 6 geoscientists on manslaughter charges after ‘failing’ to predict the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake, is it time we thought about improving how risk is communicated to the wider public? At the beginning of November of this year, six Italian scientists were acquitte ...[Read More]
One piece of advice that Early Career Researchers (certainly including PhD students) encounter repeatedly is this concept of ‘developing academic networks’ that may potentially lead to collaborative research and ideally a job in the future. I often wondered what on earth that actually meant when I started my PhD. Attending conferences and speaking to colleagues is certainly fun, interesting and in ...[Read More]
Geotalk is a regular feature highlighting early career researchers and their work. Following the EGU General Assembly, we spoke to Stacia Gordon, the winner of the Tectonics and Structural Geology Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award, 2014. First, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little more about your career path so far? My name is Stacia Gordon. I am an Assistant Professor at the ...[Read More]
So the last couple of posts have been a bit of an eclectic mix of open access-y stuff and some of the research I’ve been doing on crocodiles as part of my PhD. This one is gonna be a bit of a change, about research that I recently published following my masters project a couple of years back. Weirdly, this was on the snouts of ruminants, and what they can tell us about their ecology. The who ...[Read More]
Aerosol particles typically have short life spans in the atmosphere (days to weeks) but they can travel far and wide in that time. They can be lifted up to new horizons, higher and higher in the atmosphere. This is important for their impact on our climate, for example, at least 20% of the uncertainty in the climate impact of black carbon aerosol is due to differences in its vertical distribution. ...[Read More]
Standing on the vast expanse of gleaming white sea ice of the Atka Bay, Michael Bock took this stunning picture of an Antarctic iceberg. The days, during the Antarctic summer, are never ending. Despite capturing the image at midnight, Michael was treated to hazy sunlight. “Clearly visible [in the iceberg] are the annual snow accumulation layers which illustrate how the ice archive works.; as you l ...[Read More]
You’re an early career scientist (ECS), or maybe you mentor one. So you know that we ECS are busy people, with responsibilities ranging from coursework to teaching, research to outreach, and labwork to fieldwork. And now there is this listicle (no, I’m not embarrassed about choosing this format) telling you to make time in your already packed day to volunteer some of your time to a(n early career) ...[Read More]
Firstly, happy New Year from all those at BaR! The start of January always seems to herald a surfeit of navel-gazing blog posts. Therefore, I thought I would attempt to broaden my horizons and consider whether, with only five years to go to meet the 20-20-20 EU climate targets, will 2015 be the greenest year yet?
