Retired blogs

Dr Joel C. Gill December 11, 2014

Guest Blog: Christopher and Logan cycle Britain’s Water for Burkina Faso’s Water

Yesterday we shared a blog written by Christopher Barry (University of Birmingham), outlining previous work in Burkina Faso with the charity ‘Friends in Action’. Christopher and Logan Mills (University of Warwick) are cycling 270 km from Bristol to Birmingham on the 12th and 13th December, in aid of ‘Friends in Action’, and here write about their latest contribution to this ...[Read More]

GfGD

Geology for Global Development

Guest Blog: Water of Life Project – Safe Drinking Water in Burkina Faso

Dr Joel C. Gill December 10, 2014

Christopher Barry was the winner of our Blog Competition in 2012, with this article on safe drinking water in Burkina Faso. Christopher was privileged to be able to visit Burkina Faso prior to writing this, a very rural country where a great number of people are dependent on drilled wells with hand pumps for clean water. In Ouagadougou he met Mark Collier, where they talked at length about hydroge ...[Read More]

PalaeoBlog

Green Tea and Velociraptors

Minerals and the search for life on Mars

Jon Tennant December 8, 2014

This was originally posted on James Lewis’ personal blog at: http://marsblogger.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/minerals-and-the-search-for-life-on-mars/ (Re-posted with permission) Understanding if life could ever have existed on Mars is one of the most challenging scientific questions facing us in the 21st Century. We know that the Martian surface at present is an arid environment bombarded with ...[Read More]

GfGD

Geology for Global Development

#EGU15 – Some Sessions of Interest (1) – Education, Communication and Ethics

Dr Joel C. Gill December 8, 2014

We’re expecting a strong GfGD presence again at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in 2015. We note below a number of relevant sessions that our readers may like to get involved with. Deadline for abstracts is 7th January 2015. NH9.4/EOS19 **Natural Hazards Education, Communications and Policy-Practice Interface** This session addresses how we communicate and educate students, t ...[Read More]

4Degrees

Four Degrees

Geology and the Autumn Statement

Flo Bullough December 5, 2014

So George Osborne donned the ceremonial red briefcase on wednesday and took to the helm in the House of Commons (rather inconsiderately while I was in Brussels and couldn’t follow the news…) to deliver the Autumn Statement, one of the two statements that the HM Treasury makes each year to Parliament upon publication of economic forecasts (the other being the Budget which is normally an ...[Read More]

GfGD

Geology for Global Development

Images of Guatemala (7) – Volcano Art

Dr Joel C. Gill December 5, 2014

The dramatic landscapes of Guatemala are an important source of inspiration for some of the creative arts being produced in Guatemala. The images above (from top to bottom) a shop selling paintings aimed at the tourist market, a wall painting as part of a commercial advertisement, and my own purchased collection of three hand painted ‘volcano’ tiles from a local artist based around Lak ...[Read More]

GeoJenga

Geology Jenga

Sharing my new discovery – aquatic plants are (sometimes) suitable for radiocarbon dating!

Daniel Schillereff December 4, 2014

Radiocarbon dating is probably the most well-known chronological technique regularly employed by archaeologists, geomorphologists and researchers analysing sediment cores. Palaeolimnologists (those who study lake sediments) hoping to determine the age of a sample extracted from a long sediment core traditionally seek terrestrial plant macrofossils (fragments of organic matter visible without a mic ...[Read More]

VolcanicDegassing

The fate of volcanic ash in the environment

David Pyle December 4, 2014

Over the past few years, we have been working to piece together the record of major post-glacial volcanic eruptions in southern Chile that have occurred over the past 18,000 years. This work started off with a search for volcanic ash layers that were preserved in road cuttings, or cliff faces other accessible geological locations in the region. Since then it has expanded to include the search for ...[Read More]

BaR

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

PhD reflections: Sorcha

Charly Stamper December 3, 2014

Between a Rock and a Hard Place began as an Earth Science PhD blog in February 2013, as a place to ramble on about PhD life and general science topics. Almost two years later, some of the contributors have finished, others have submitted, and the rest are nearing the end. Over the next few weeks, the BaR contributors will be sharing some reflections on their PhD experiences. Taken from an original ...[Read More]

HazeBlog

Polluting the Internet

The dark side of the atmosphere: the blog awakens

Will Morgan December 3, 2014

Aerosol particles come in lots of different flavours and one of their most important properties is how they deal with incoming sunlight. Some are rather unwelcoming and send sunlight back to whence it came (space), which leads to a cooling of the atmosphere as the sunlight doesn’t reach the surface of the Earth. Others offer sunlight a warm(ing) embrace and absorb it, which heats up the atmo ...[Read More]