Sorry for the brief hiatus from blogging. This past week I was in Kenora and Dryden, Ontario getting into some great science outreach with an organization from uOttawa called Science Travels. Science Travels is a science outreach organization that sends science graduate students from the University of Ottawa and Carleton to northern communities to give presentations about a variety of science topi ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Big River Rising: a Tale of Seasonal Flooding in Manila
To highlight the importance of Christian Aid’s disaster risk reduction (DRR) work, partly funded by the UK government, the charity produced an interactive web documentary called Big River Rising, which demonstrates the importance of science in helping Filipino slum dwellers cope with the seasonal flooding that regularly destroys their shantytown homes. The web documentary was shot during the drama ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (76): Geologists in the Field – Antarctic Research
Geologists hiding in their tents during a blizzard in Antarctica, as part of research carried our by the British Antarctic Survey. Credit: Rowan Whittle (c) Geology for Global Development 2013
Geology for Global Development
#GfGDcomp: Communicating Research Through Twitter and Blogs
GfGD encourages geoscientists to communicate science to the wider community, and we hope to help young geoscientists develop the necessary communication skills to do this. The use of social media, such as twitter, facebook and blogs, makes it a lot easier to reach out to a diverse range of people living in many different countries. We asked you ‘what are the benefits of communicating your re ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
The early evolution of dinosaurs
Dinosaurs. What springs to mind when they’re mentioned? Colossal, towering sauropods? Packs of feisty feathered fiends? Or huge herds of hadrosaurs, chomping their way across the plains of long-lost worlds? Most, including myself, will automatically default to any one of these images when dinosaurs come up in conversation (what, you mean it’s not that frequent for normal people?) But w ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Some Comments on Recent Earthquakes in Iran
In this article, Joel Gill and Faith Taylor write about the importance of reducing individual and community vulnerability in Iran. This post is written in response to the recent earthquakes in April 2013, and an article posted in the Guardian in 2010. In addition to their GfGD responsibilities, Joel and Faith are undertaking PhD research at King’s College London – investigating specifi ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Earth Day – Thin Ice and the inside story of Climate Science
Earth Day, April 22nd, has been chosen as the day for the global launch of a new film on the science behind global environmental change ‘Thin Ice: the Inside Story of Climate Science‘. This is an exciting project, as the filmmakers include Simon Lamb, who has had a successful career as an academic geologist at the University of Oxford, UK, and then at Victoria University of Wellington ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (75): GfGD-CAFOD Placement
Sam Marshall (University of Southampton) and Dr Kate Crowley (Disaster Risk Reduction Adviser, CAFOD), at the CAFOD headquarters in central London. Sam has been undertaking a GfGD placement with CAFOD this week, learning more about how geoscience can be applied in the development sector. (c) Geology for Global Development 2013
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Why and how Master’s students should publish their research
This is an updated post from one I published a while back on my old blog at: http://wp.me/p22pR3-2F – as I’ve developed as a scientist, I thought it would be good to share these thoughts in the emergence of new information and experiences. The comments on the older post are worth a quick read. In the UK, many if not most Master’s students do not publish their postgraduate researc ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Geology Photo of the Week #30
The photo for this week was taken in Quebec near the town of Thetford. These are a really beautiful example of pillow basalts. Pillow basalts form during underwater volcanic eruptions and have the unusual quality of appearing bulbous and rounded. The ones pictured below have had their tops shorn off and are therefore visible in plane view. e.g. You’re looking down at them from above after th ...[Read More]