Attending #EGU16? Come along to one of the events in the image above to find out more about our work, and the role of geoscience in global development frameworks! Not attending EGU16? We’ll be posting slides/poster downloads from all GfGD contributions on our website after the event. You can see some commentary throughout the week on both the GfGD Twitter feed (@Geo_Dev) and my personal account ( ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Cruisin’ for Deep Sea Vents
My friend John Jamieson, who is now a prof in the geology department at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Canada Research Chair in marine geology and is also a former GeoSphere guest poster is currently on a research cruise near Fiji. John researches deep sea vents, aka. black smokers/seafloor massive sulphide deposits that are exhaling super heated water at tectonic plate boundaries around ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
GfGD at the EGU General Assembly 2016
The EGU General Assembly is an annual gathering of thousands of geoscientists from all over the world, taking place this year in Vienna from 17-22nd April. It has been a regular feature of my personal research calendar since 2012, becoming a great opportunity to also talk about GfGD and learn from others engaged in development activities. The EGU Programme includes 10,000+ abstracts, covering all ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Putting Science at the Heart of Development
Sue Desmond-Hellman (CEO of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and Nick Hurd (Minister for International Development, DFID – UK Department for International Development) have written a joint article on putting science at the heart of development. “If we are going to end extreme poverty, it’s going to take more than additional funds or deeper commitment, however. We are going to have ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
Can we use an infrared camera to tell us how much groundwater is coming out of the side of a cliff?
By Erin Mundy – a plain language summary of part of her Masters thesis Groundwater is an important resource, with approximately 2 billion people around the world using groundwater everyday. Although most groundwater is beneath our feet, sometimes groundwater leaks out of stream-banks, hill sides and cliff faces – this is called groundwater seepage. Current scientific methods are not ab ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Living with volcanoes, and learning from the past.
November 13th, 1985, is a date that is still etched in my memory. This was the day that the Colombian town of Armero was submerged beneath a catastrophic flood of volcanic rocks, mud and water; a lahar that had swept down from the summit of the volcano Nevado del Ruiz, erupting about 40 kilometres away. For days, terrible scenes of anguish and despair filled our television screens, as rescuers str ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Blast from the Past: It’s all about scales
It has often been said that geology is the study of scales. Time scales, large scales, small scales and many others. Indeed, one of the most crucial parts of any photo or map is the scale. Furthermore, geologic concepts can be applied from the planet scale to the atomic scale and every size in between. What confuses most people though is not only do we work in terms of huge size/magnitude variatio ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
World Water Day 2016
The 22nd March 2016 is World Water Day, an annual event organised by the United Nations to promote the vital importance of ensuring universal access to clean, safe water. Around 10% of the world (650 million people) still lack access to clean water. Water is essential for life. When communities don’t have clean water they are forced to drink dirty and dangerous water, causing illness and sometime ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Geology Photo of the Week #52 – Looking from the past to the future
This weeks photo is a beautiful yet sad reminder that Arctic research and work is still a dangerous undertaking just as it was for the early Arctic explorers. The following text is by Vladislav Petrusvich: Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen by Beechey Island in 2013 after tragic event when a researcher (Klaus Hocheim), captain and a helicopter pilot were killed in a tragic helicopter crash ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
Baseflow, groundwater pumping, and river regulation in the Wisconsin Central Sands
By Sam Zipper, postdoctoral fellow at Madison and author of tacosmog.com We often think of groundwater as a nonrenewable reservoir, deep underground, and with good reason – less than ~6% of groundwater globally entered the ground within the past 50 years. However, where a river or stream intersects the water table, water is able to move from the aquifer to the stream (or vice versa). This supply o ...[Read More]