Most of what we know about dinosaurs comes from their skeletal remains. Rarely, we get tiny glimpses into their soft tissue anatomy through skin impressions and even rarer, preserved tissue fragments, mummified over time, and their ecology and life habits through combining interpretation of this from what we can glean from trace fossils (footprints, poop, etc.). Palaeontologists are also taking th ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Guest Blog: Earthquakes in the Steppes of Central Asia
Tim Middleton is a first year PhD student in the Department of Earth Science at Oxford University – studying active tectonics in central and eastern Asia. He has recently joined the GfGD National Committee as our Advocacy Development Officer. Here, Tim describes his experience of fieldwork in Kazakhstan and the importance of studying the landscape to assess the risk of future disasters. Tim ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Who the devil are this ‘public’ everyone keeps rambling on about?
The last two posts in this series, based on a recent paper by Ted Nield and Iain Stewart, addressed the issues of why should scientists bother communicating, and what do people in general already know about science, and geoscience in particular. Oddly, these are the most fundamental questions when it comes to science communication, but often can be the most difficult to answer. They either require ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (57): Active Geology – Sinking Buildings from Ancient Greece
These foundations were once part of a building in ancient Greece. Over thousands of years, active faults have lowered the land and the foundations have sunk below sea level. Geology can have a big impact on relatively short timescales. (c) Geology for Global Development
Green Tea and Velociraptors
The Palaeobiology Database – a quick intro
A substantial portion of my PhD involves contributing to the Pal[a]eobiology database, the largest current online database of global fossil occurrences, literature references, and taxonomic data. It’s a public resource, so anyone can access the information contained within the database (yay for open data!). The project is very much on-going, but currently over a million taxonomic occurrences ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
In the News – November 2012
GfGD’s Director, Joel Gill, shares some of the things that have caught his eye in the news recently: Natural Disaters: The past couple of weeks have seen a significant number of natural disasters, from earthquakes in Guatemala and Myanmar (Burma) to hurricanes in the Atlantic – impacting developing nations such as Haiti, and a landslide dam break in Indonesia. The earthquake in Guatemala tri ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
SpotOn London – a global conference
SpotOn London was held this weekend at the Wellcome Trust, shockingly, in London. The name stands for Science Policy, Outreach and Tools Online, with each of these representing three individual but strongly interwoven strands during the two days. As far as conferences go, it was pretty interactive. Each session was live-streamed, and through that and the power of Twitter –many people in each sessi ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Geology Photo of the Week # 11 – Nov 11- 17
The Photo of the Week #11 is of a superb cave decoration from Kelly Hill caves located on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. I was there in 2009. Most cave decorations are draped against the wall of the cave. More rarely stalactites, stalagmites and other free hanging features form. These are usually perpendicular to the cave floor or ceiling much like icicles. However, even more rarely, odd shape ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Water Series (3): Arsenic Contamination in Drinking Water
Following our post about fluoride contamination last week, our water series is now focused on the equally serious problem of arsenic contamination. Some arsenic is present in all groundwater sources (see table 1). Of course this is only a problem if the arsenic has the chance to leak into groundwater as it filters through the rock. Arsenic leaching is more likely to occur in groundwater that is ho ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
A GeoPoetry Anthology – Accretionary Wedge #51 Compilation
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone that participated in this edition of the Accretionary Wedge. There were a few comments that the topic was somewhat out of people’s comfort zone so I am glad that there was still fantastic participation and people willing to try poetry writing out even if it was a different sort of medium. As you know poems come in all shapes, sizes and subjects and a k ...[Read More]