For some time now, there has been much debate about whether our beloved dinosaur, Triceratops, is a distinct species, or a younger version of a bigger ceratopsian, Torosaurus – the great Toroceratops’ debate. Proponents of both sides of the argument have made detailed quantitative and qualitative points, and there doesn’t really seem to have been any resolution. Check out the video below for a gre ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
UK Air Pollution: March 2014
After the UK’s wettest winter since 1910, spring has sprung with several warm and clear days in March so far. High pressure has been the dominant meteorological situation, which has seen clear skies during the day and cold nights, with fog settling overnight and continuing into the morning. While the high pressure and much reduced rainfall has brought much needed respite to those affected by ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (119) – Pacaya Lava Store, Guatemala
Lava Store, Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala An entrepreneurial Guatemalan sets up a lava store next to Pacaya (my understanding is that they sold products made from the lava, not just pieces of it – which are in abundance in the area!). This store was destroyed by the 2nd March 2014 lava flow. (Credit: Joel Gill, February 2014)
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Science Snap (#21): Diatoms
KT Cooper is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A carbonate geochemist by training, she has just returned from a three-month secondment to Houston, Texas, USA working with Exxon Mobil. When you start looking at things at a microscopic level, everything starts to look a little alien. Minerals assemblages can look like the landscapes of far off planets and mi ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Save The Date – GfGD National Conference 2014
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 within international development. As was the case last year, our conferen ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Website Resources…
There are a number of ways in which you can keep in touch with our work, including Facebook and Twitter. We also have a full website, with a range of articles and resources. Here are a few things that you may find interesting… GfGD in the News – A series of articles from 2011-2013 that talk about our work. Himalayas Education Project – Articles on the project background, hazardsc ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Double-whammy signifies the demise of the dinosaurs
The meteoric impact that wiped out the non-bird-line dinosaurs is an iconic image of life and death on Earth. It signifies a point in time when life changed forever. It took from us animals that we will never see again. But was it just a single strike that created these winds of permanent change? The crater from Chicxulub in Mexico is the scapegoat for taking dinosaurs from us, but did it have a p ...[Read More]
Four Degrees
The wet with the dry: The geology of Siwa Oasis
Flo takes us on a photoblog-trip to Siwa Oasis in Egypt where epic sand seas meet freshwater springs, saline lakes and sulphurous hot pools! The blog’s going on holiday this week! I spent a week in Egypt on holiday last month and braved the 10 hour overnight bus journey from the capital city Cairo to visit the breathaking beauty of the Siwa Oasis in the Egyptian sand sea of the Libyan desert. I h ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Field Research in Guatemala (4) – Reflections from Fuego
Joel Gill (GfGD Founding Director) continues his live reporting from Guatemala, discussing his interdisciplinary field research relating to natural hazard interactions and disaster risk reduction. This fieldwork forms part of a NERC/ESRC funded PhD, supervised by staff in the Department of Geography at King’s College London. Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to see some remar ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Beyond a rock…
It’s not often on BaR that we feature a personal blog, but I can’t live a lie any longer. I am officially Beyond a Rock.