science communicatin

Can we use an infrared camera to tell us how much groundwater is coming out of the side of a cliff?

Erin Mundy 29th March 2016

By Erin Mundy – a plain language summary of part of her Masters thesis Groundwater is an important resource, with approximately 2 billion people around the world using groundwater everyday. Although most groundwater is beneath our feet, sometimes groundwater leaks out of stream-banks, hill sides and cliff faces – this is called groundwater seepage. Current scientific methods are not ab ...[Read More]

Baseflow, groundwater pumping, and river regulation in the Wisconsin Central Sands

Sam Zipper 15th March 2016

By Sam Zipper, postdoctoral fellow at Madison and author of tacosmog.com We often think of groundwater as a nonrenewable reservoir, deep underground, and with good reason – less than ~6% of groundwater globally entered the ground within the past 50 years. However, where a river or stream intersects the water table, water is able to move from the aquifer to the stream (or vice versa). This supply o ...[Read More]

Nature Geoscience digging into water underground this month!

Tom Gleeson 4th February 2016

Nature Geoscience is digging hard into water underground – the February issue is part of a special focus on groundwater. The cover this month is a gorgeous (groundwater-filled?) waterfall by Glen Jasechko, Scott’s brother. The groundwater focus includes: commentary on drought in the Anthropocene, led by Anne van Loon news and views pieces by Ying Fan and Tamara Goldin our paper on the ...[Read More]

A social media dashboard for researchers – taming the digital anarchy for nerds

Tom Gleeson 6th January 2015

Is anyone else overwhelmed by updating their many webpages, blogs, streams etc? Jason Priem described the shift from a paper-native academia to a web-native academia, in an excellent article last year in Nature, a shift well beyond the traditional peer-reviewed journal to more diverse outlets of information, interaction and discussion. I am part of the first generation of researchers who are excit ...[Read More]

What is the best journal to submit groundwater research this year?

Tom Gleeson 25th November 2014

We all know about the flaws of impact factors, including how they lead to citing recent research, self-citing etc. But I thought it would be handy to compile a list of journals where well-cited groundwater articles are most often published. Like it or not, I sometimes look up this information and I assume other people do to. The impact factor is certainly not the only factor I use to decide where ...[Read More]

How I start good supervisory relationships with graduate students

Tom Gleeson 25th October 2014

Many professors are confused about why a certain graduate student is happy or unhappy, under performing or performing well. I am far from a perfect supervisor, but I try to avoid this confusion by getting to know my graduate students on a relatively deep but professional level as quickly as possible, by doing the following in our first meeting: sharing results of a personality test; discussing our ...[Read More]

Two great science communication tools for conferences and teaching: smart screens and cell phones

Tom Gleeson 16th June 2014

A few weeks ago at the European Geosciences Union in Vienna I learned about two dead-easy and great science communication tools for conferences. These are great for any conference hall or meeting, but could be just as easily be used in the classroom to make a more exciting in class research presentations. For better or worse, most of us are carrying them (or looking at them!) right now: a smart s ...[Read More]

Surprises and lessons learned from co-teaching an inter-university graduate course

Grant Ferguson 12th May 2014

Contributed by Grant Ferguson, University of Saskatchewan grant.ferguson@usask.ca In an earlier blog post, Tom discussed some of the advantages and disadvantages of co-teaching a blended graduate course to students at McGill University, the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the University of Saskatchewan. This course wrapped up last month… we definitely learned a few things during ...[Read More]

Best groundwater song ever? “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads?

Kevin Befus 19th April 2014

Contributed by Kevin Befus, University of Austin – Texas website – email If there has ever been a song for hydrogeologists, “Once in a Lifetime” by the Talking Heads is the best. Here’s why I have taken this song on as my hydrogeologic theme song. But first, here is a link to the music video, in all of its early 1980’s glory: Display "Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime (1980 ...[Read More]