This weeks photo is a giant bone! I leave it to you to surmise which creature it belongs to….I hope you accept the challenge. Please post your guesses in the comment section below. If no one gets it within the first few hours I’ll start posting hints about the creature. You can click on the photo to enlarge it. Have fun! Hint 1: This bone was discovered in the Yukon Territory and is ho ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
International Day for Disaster Reduction: A Challenge to Geoscientists
Today is the start of Earth Science Week, Global Handwashing Day and the UN’s International Day for Rural Women. Tomorrow is World Food Day, and Wednesday is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. You could write a blog on any one of these, and the role good geoscience can play! Saturday, as some of you may have noticed, was the International Day for Disaster Reduction, and is ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (52) – Taklamakan Desert
We’ve now had a whole year of ‘Friday Photos’ on our old blog and now this new EGU hosted blog. As a special treat today we have not one, but three images from the Taklamakan Desert and some of the highest sand dunes in China. Taklamakan Desert, China: Geotourism close to the oasis town of Dunhuang Another example of geotourism in Gansu Province. The dunes and crescent moon la ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Robert Service – A geologist’s poet
There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. My submission for the Accretionary Wedge #51, which I am also hosting, is about my favourite poe ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Let the adventure begin!
The first post on this shiny new blog mentioned that I was going to offer a degree of transparency to my current role as a Palaeontology PhD student. I’ve only been going for 8 days, but already there’s plenty to talk about it seems! Here’s a few observations and thoughts about kicking off PhD life, and the activities that have stimulated these. Many of the new students to the Ro ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Top Travel Tips (6) – Daniel Sharpe
Over the summer we published a very popular series of posts outlining some Top Travel Tips to help those undertaking mapping projects, fieldwork or research visits overseas. We’ve had helpful posts from those who have spent time in various parts of Africa, Bangladesh, and Chile. Good preparation is essential to get the most out of overseas work. It helps our work be more effective, more effi ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Geology Photo of the Week #7 – Oct 7-13
Sorry this post is a bit late…the Thanksgiving holiday was Monday, class this morning and then hockey! Anyway, for the 7th edition of Photo of the Week we travel to the Pancake Rocks, in Punakaiki on the west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. I was there in 2011 for a conference in Wellington and went travelling around afterwards. One of my stops was here. The Pancake Rocks are ma ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
In The News – October 2012
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]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Horsedrosaurus, the dinosaur that wanted to be an equid.
The title of this makes no sense, but kind of emphasises the main point of this post. It’s pretty much a summary of a new paper, one on the feeding habits of hadrosaurid dinosaurs. These are the big advanced ornithopods, often considered to be the ‘bland’ lineage of ornithischians, and referred to as the ‘cows of the Cretaceous’. They also happen to be my favourite group of dinosaurs, simply becau ...[Read More]