Register for the 2nd GfGD Conference by the end of August and you’ll be given the chance to win this attractive 60 x 40 cm canvas of geology related pictures. A winner from those registering before 31st August, and in attendance, will be drawn on the day itself. Registration is reasonably priced and easy to do, and we’re …[Read More]
Retired blogs
Swing and a miss by the AAAS for open access
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific organisation, recently announced their latest journal, the fully open access ‘Science Advances‘. While superficially this seems like a good move for them, digging into the details reveals many inherent flaws with the journal, that at worst portray the AAAS as a money-grabbing organisation …[Read More]
There’s (volcanic) dust in the archives
There’s not much that beats the thrill of discovery.. particularly when it turns up in your own backyard. This summer, I have been on the hunt for records and reports of the 1902 eruptions of St Vincent, a lush volcanic island in the Eastern Caribbean. There are indeed many reports from this eruption, carefully documented in …[Read More]
Summer Reading – H is for Hawk
Much of my time is consumed with reading, but it is almost always for a purpose: essays, assignments, proposals, drafts of papers, re-drafts of papers, papers for classes, for review.. This almost always means reading fast, with a goal: to measure, assess, hone, distil, critique and rewrite. Often, it means hacking through tangled and cumbersome layers of scientific …[Read More]
Plastic packaging – a horror film
Zero Waste Week is an opportunity to reduce landfill waste & save money. In its seventh year, the week runs 1st – 7th September 2014. The theme is “One More Thing” – what one more thing could YOU do? Find out more at http://www.zerowasteweek.co.uk/ or on Twitter using #zerowasteweek Ever since I spent a summer …[Read More]
A much shorter review of flood stratigraphies in lake sediments
Earlier this year my PhD supervisors and I (Daniel) had a paper accepted for publication in Earth-Science Reviews entitled ‘Flood stratigraphies in lake sediments: A review’ (Schillereff et al., 2014). It’s been fairly popular in terms of downloads but it occurred to me the other day that many of those prospective readers may be put …[Read More]
GeoPoll #3 – What got you interested in geology?
After a bit of an opinion hiatus I am back with the third geopoll. Every day I go to work at a university department filled with geologists. All of us are tackling different questions, but in the beginning we all started at the same place. Namely, not knowing anything about geoscience. In my conversations with colleagues over …[Read More]
Summer Opportunity – Write a Hazard Factsheet
We’re currently looking for some students on their summer break (or PhD students/recent graduates) to help us write factsheets on hazards in specific countries. Countries we are interested in include the Philippines, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Columbia and Peru. As these factsheets will be reviewed, formatted, printed and sent to NGOs – this is a great opportunity to …[Read More]
GfGD in Tanzania (2) – Monitoring Water Projects
In our post yesterday I discussed the upcoming YES Congress and 25th Colloquium of African Geology in Dar es Salaam (1 – on the map), and introduced the way in which GfGD will be contributing. Following these conferences I will be travelling the 1000+ km distance to Mwanza – a key Tanzanian town on the edge …[Read More]
GfGD in Tanzania (1) – Earth Sciences for Improving Livelihoods
The East African country of Tanzania is a remarkable place, home to Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, the Ngorongoro Crater and (for the volcanologists reading this) Ol Doinyo Lengai. It was also visits to communities in the Kagera region of Tanzania in 2009 and 2010 that resulted in GfGD getting off the ground soon afterwards. Since then, Tanzania has …[Read More]