A few things have caught my eye in the news recently, a mix of good and tragic: Toilets in India: The BBC reported last week that the Indian Supreme Court have ordered that every school have clean water and suitable sanitation facilities within six months. If this is obeyed, and goes hand in hand with appropriate hygiene training it could lead to many positive results, as outlined on the Tearfund ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Montserrat: Open for Business
One of the great privileges of working on volcanoes is that you get the chance to visit some amazing places, and to meet some extraordinary people. Recently, I got the chance to return to Montserrat, a small volcanic island in the Caribbean which has been the site of a dome-forming eruption since July 1995. I had first visited Montserrat in early 1998, when I had a short tour as one of the staff s ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (51) – Loess Collapse/Subsidence
Heifangtai, Gansu Province, China: Collapse in Loess Deposits Ground collapse/subsidence in China, most likely caused by movement of water through the loess deposits from the high relief in the right of this picture, to the low relief in the left of the picture. The scale of the collapse can be seen in relation to the man at the forefront. (c) Geology for Global Development, 2012 For other images ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Lessons from China (3) – Geotourism, A Case Study
In September 2012 I travelled to the Gansu Province of China to take part in the First International Symposium for New Techniques for Geohazards Research and Management. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been highlighting a number of issues, lessons and experiences from this trip. You can read the short archive of this series here. Future posts will examine areas relating to geohazards, di ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Introducing ‘Geology for Global Development’
The EGU is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the geosciences – for the benefit of humanity, worldwide. This is a vision that we at Geology for Global Development both applaud and strongly align ourselves with. Good geoscience is essential to many of today’s global development challenges – a knowledge of geohazards, climate change, sustainable mining, hydrogeology, geotech ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
An update on Santorini
As you may have heard by now, Santorini volcano has recently been showing some unrest. Of course, it has only just come to the attention of the media, some of which have taken things a little further than can be justified. But for those of us involved in the work, this is a story which has taken rather longer to piece together. In my own case, the story started 26 years ago this week, when I firs ...[Read More]