The severe flooding that has hit much of northern England during the last few weeks (and northeastern Scotland right now) has generated significant discussion and debate about why floods happen, how often they occur and what we can do about it. The fact is there’s no simple answer to any of these questions: the hydrometeorological cycle is a complex beast and our actions have altered it in m ...[Read More]
So it has been a while since I last blogged, attributed to various excuses – fieldwork, moving job, moving house – but moving forwards I intend to spend more time discussing the myriad aspects of geoscience I find fascinating. One good example is a recent paper from Janice Brahney (University of British Columbia) and colleagues in Global Biogeochemical Cycles entitled ‘Is atmospheric p ...[Read More]
It has been too long since my last post as the full impact of Post-doc life took hold: it’s been fascinating, fulfilling and fatiguing in equal measure. One recent development I’m delighted to compose a post about is a new initiative I’m helping to launch. It’s a Working Group aimed at evaluating how we, the geomorphology community, have communicated our science in the past ...[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]
Radiocarbon dating is probably the most well-known chronological technique regularly employed by archaeologists, geomorphologists and researchers analysing sediment cores. Palaeolimnologists (those who study lake sediments) hoping to determine the age of a sample extracted from a long sediment core traditionally seek terrestrial plant macrofossils (fragments of organic matter visible without a mic ...[Read More]
Laura and I both submitted our theses at the end of September after four years of intense work. We felt there’d be some value (nostalgic to ourselves, hopefully useful to others) in putting together some tips of our own now that we can look back on our achievements. There are loads of brilliantly-written and extremely useful posts providing advice on the pastoral side of undertaking a PhD, such as ...[Read More]
Well, it has been a while since either of us has produced a GeologyJenga post, so first of all apologies on this front. We both have the same excuse – finishing our PhD theses! Our mutual deadline was 30 September 2014, and thankfully we both made it. The last few months were challenging at times and we both agreed that the feeling upon submission is hard to describe: certainly wonderfully joyous, ...[Read More]
Earlier this year my PhD supervisors and I (Daniel) had a paper accepted for publication in Earth-Science Reviews entitled ‘Flood stratigraphies in lake sediments: A review’ (Schillereff et al., 2014). It’s been fairly popular in terms of downloads but it occurred to me the other day that many of those prospective readers may be put off somewhat by its hefty word count. Thus, putting together a sh ...[Read More]
During a recent trip to Costa Rica in May, I had a conversation with some family and friends in which I uttered those words: “Moraines in Costa Rica? Really?” as they were describing a trek they’d undertaken earlier this year to the summit of Cerro Chirripó. This is the highest peak in the country (3819 m a.s.l.), part of the Cordillera de Talamanca (9°30′ N, 83°30′ W) in southern central Costa Ri ...[Read More]
Among other sessions on Tuesday (Day 2 at EGU2014), I (Daniel) ventured to the EGU Press Conference featuring four experts from different scientific disciplines debating the Anthropocene concept. This term is fast becoming well-known in the popular media, politics and a vast spectrum of scientific disciplines and refers to the possibility that we, humanity, are living in a new geological time peri ...[Read More]