A quick reminder about a date that you should all put in your calendars… Following the success of our first National Conference in October 2013, we are very pleased to announce that Friday 19th September 2014 has now been booked for our next conference… On Friday 19th September we hope to again gather over 150 young geoscientists for a one-day event, exploring further the role of geoscience ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
How NOT to write to an editor
Over on the Nature Methods blogs site, there are some interesting posts with advice for authors on how to prepare cover letters, rebuttal letters, appeal letters and the like. Here’s an example of ‘how NOT to write to an editor‘, based on a recent experience of mine. I shall let the author remain anonymous, but my hunch is that this is not an isolated example of this sort of beha ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
Vote now for the coolest hydrogeology paper in 2013 contest!
Vote here before May 31st for the coolest 2013 paper in hydrogeology! Seven papers have been nominated – it will take almost no time! Here are links for more information about the contest or the Early Career Hydrogeologist Network.
VolcanicDegassing
An 18th Century London Volcano
We are now just three weeks away from the launch of an ambitious public engagement project – ‘London Volcano‘. This will see us build a large scale-model of volcano on the front lawn of London’s Natural History Museum. This activity is all part of Universities UK Week 2014, and our aim is to highlight the work we are doing on ‘Strengthening Resilience in Volcanic Area ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Thermal imaging of volcanic eruption plumes
Thermal imaging using infra-red cameras is now a widely used tool in the monitoring and analysis of volcanic explosions, and this pair of time-series snapshots of two short-lived ‘Vulcanian‘ explosions at Volcán de Colima, Mexico, shows one example of why. In each panel, times (in seconds) are times since the start of the explosion sequence; and the temperature scales (vertical colour ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
What busy profs would like to read in a blog post about active learning
During a great workshop today on active learning in engineering at McGill I asked two questions (using Socrative) , of the audience. Here is a summary of 24 answers I received: 1) I would like to read blog posts about: activities for large classes (18% of people) activities for small classes (30% of people) technology in active learning (22% of people) wacky or creative ideas for active learning(3 ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Blog Break
Due to widespread commitments in other areas of our work – we’ll be taking a two-week break from regular blogging (although may publish occasional articles). You can find a wide range of articles in our archives, and will be back publishing new articles from the week beginning 26th May.
WaterUnderground
Surprises and lessons learned from co-teaching an inter-university graduate course
Contributed by Grant Ferguson, University of Saskatchewan grant.ferguson@usask.ca In an earlier blog post, Tom discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages of co-teaching a blended graduate course to students at McGill University, the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the University of Saskatchewan. This course wrapped up last month… we definitely learned a few things during ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
The destruction of St Pierre, Martinique: 8 May, 1902
May 8th marks the anniversary of one of the worst volcanic disasters on record: the destruction of St Pierre, Martinique, in 1902, at the climax of the eruption of Mont Pelée. Below are a snapshot of images from one of the contemporary accounts of the disaster, ‘The volcano’s deadly work‘, written by Charles Morris in 1902. This eruption followed just one day after a similarly de ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
#EGU2014: Cleaning with Coffee
We’re drinking an enormous amount of coffee in Vienna this week, but the residues at the bottom of the cafetière usually end up in the bin. Kalliopo Fotopoulou, from the University of Patras in Greece, has found a way to transform that residue into something far more useful. Baking coffee residues in an oven changes them into a carbon rich “biochar”, which can be added to soils t ...[Read More]