Rings over Etna. copyright Tom Pfeiffer – volcanodiscovery.com Volcanic Mount Sinbung in Sumatra, Indonesia, has sprung to life in a series of massive eruptions over the last few days. The volcano had lain dormant for more than 400 years before a few minor eruptions three years ago. But this week more than 5,000 people have been evacuated from nearby towns and villages as Sinbung makes her presenc ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (105): Blog Competition Best Image
GfGD Blog Competition 2013 – Best Image The town of Banos de Agua Santa (Ecuador), in the foothills of the active volcano Tungurahua. Credit: David Litchfield, University College London
VolcanicDegassing
Friday Field Photo – Volcanic Crater Lake, near Sollipulli, Chile
Green Tea and Velociraptors
A double-whammy of dinosaur awesomeness. Pun totally intended.
This is a post about pachycephalosaurs. It’s not a post about feathered dinosaurs, huge dinosaurs, or any of the ones which you may be more familiar with from popular media. Pachycephalosaurs were the dome-headed little scrappers of the Cretaceous, around 85 to 66 million years ago. Their name means ‘thick-skulled lizard’ (pachy: thick, cephalon: skull, saurus: lizard), and they were a small group ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Geoscience Careers In International Development
Earlier this year I gave a presentation at the UCL IRDR Careers Forum – on working within international development. Today I will be joining many other sectors at a similar event organised by the Earth Science Department at the University of Cambridge. In this post we share some of the top tips, ideas and reflections that have come out of preparing for these events… 1) A responsibility ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
New study shows nitrate leaches to groundwater for over five decades
A new and very interesting study just came out in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the other day titled “Long-term fate of nitrate fertilizer in agricultural soils”. This paper addresses some very interesting and extremely important questions using isotopic geochemical tools. The question central to this paper is what happens to all of the nitrogen in ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Typhoon Haiyan
We were extremely saddened to hear at the end of last week and over the weekend about the destruction brought by Typhoon Haiyan, impacting the Philippines last week and (at the time of writing) moving towards Vietnam. The event caused widespread damage, with reports suggesting thousands of deaths and an order of magnitude more displaced. The impact on communities through loss of livelihoods and ho ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
What’s up in Bolivia?
James Hickey is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A geophysicist and volcanologist by trade, his PhD project is focussed on attempting to place constraints on volcanic unrest using integrated geodetic modelling. To many, Bolivia is just an unassuming landlocked country in South America, perhaps most famous for its coca tea obsession and ‘gap yah’ alpaca wo ...[Read More]
Four Degrees
Raising the Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is one of the planet’s truly otherworldly places: a peculiarity of water distribution, climate and altitude, it is even more extroadinary in that it is a site of religious, cultural and political significance. Viewed by many as a natural wonder, its characteristics and location within one of the most entrenched political situations in modern history makes it intriguing an ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
10 Minute Interview – Promoting Earthquake Education amongst Persian Communities
During the summer I took part in a fantastic public engagement activity, I’m a Scientist, Get me Out of Here! It’s an X-factor style competition where school students get to meet and interact with scientists. The students are the judges and vote for their favourite scientist to win a cash prize to communicate their work with the public. Sadly, I didn’t win the cash prize, but d ...[Read More]