The small landmass of Easter Island (164 km2), the southeasterly point of Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean, has achieved iconic status in the world today as people wonder how its colonisation was physically possible by settlers journeying through the vast ocean in tiny boats, how and why the enormous moai s were constructed and, most infamously, to what extent they contributed to their own downfall ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
The underworld thief returns from the dead
So I don’t normally blog whenever a new dinosaur pops out the pages, but a new one, Acheroraptor temertyorum received quite a welcome back to the living world with this exquisite illustration by Danielle Dufault. I’ve asked for her permission to post on here, and it’ll appear on the front cover of Naturwissenschaften (December issue, probably), so defo worth checking out a hard c ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Conference diaries: AGU Fall Meeting 2013
Following on from blog entries from the IAVCEI Scientific Assembly and Goldschmidt 2013, Kate and Charly report back from the AGU Fall Meeting 2013, held between 9-13th December in San Francisco, USA. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting is the largest gathering of geologists in the world, with over 22,000 congregating in San Francisco every December. As first time attendees we weren& ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
External Opportunities – Conference, Training, Competitions and Research
Over the past couple of weeks we’ve had a few emails with some exciting opportunities that may interest our members. We’ve outlined each of these below and given some details for getting involved! **Nile Research – Intrepid Explorers, King’s College London – Walking the Nile Expedition Intrepid Explorers is an initiative based in the Department of Geography (KingR ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
AGU 2013 roundup
Now that the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting has ended, I thought I would roundup what I’ve been involved with over the week for both this blog and the Barometer Podcast, which I was recording each day with Sam Illingworth. Links to each piece are available below. Many thanks to all who have read and shared these over the past week. Recording the podcast at conferences is becoming a trend as we’ ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
AGU 2013 Days 4 & 5: measurements & models
My fourth and fifth days at the AGU Fall Meeting involved dashing between multiple sessions to take in a number of talks on (surprise, surprise) aerosols! The main strand running through them from my point of view was how there are major efforts to construct large datasets of aerosol properties that can be used to test our understanding via numerical models. Aerosols are complex and tend to stick ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Reading Past Sea Ice Coverage from strange red blobs!
Sea ice is an interesting phenomenon, especially to a Canadian. The question around this time of year that always arises in the news is will this be a big sea ice year, will we set a new record low, high (haha) or will it be just average? This is a question that gets a lot of study and media attention. People run countless statistical models to predict sea ice conditions and try to predict the pas ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (109): Souvenir Rocks
Himalayan rocks are peddled to tourists in Leh, Ladakh. Credit: Rosalie Tostevin, Geology for Global Development Leh, Ladakh, 2013
Polluting the Internet
AGU 2013 Day 3: secondary organic aerosol – animal or vegetable?
My third day at the AGU 2013 Fall Meeting involved lots of talks on one of the trickiest parts of aerosol science – secondary organic aerosol (SOA). We’ve known for several years now that SOA is ubiquitous across the globe and it is often the most dominant aerosol chemical species in many environments and this is particularly true in the industrialised regions of the Northern Hemispher ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
AGU 2013 day 2: aerosol emissions, climate & the IPCC
My second day at the AGU 2013 Fall Meeting revolved around more short-lived climate forcers, which I wrote about yesterday and also a broader session on the results from the recent IPCC Working Group 1 report. The latter was an opportunity for the community to quiz some of the lead authors of the report on a variety of issues including observations of the climate system, aerosol and clouds (yippee ...[Read More]