So again, I missed most of the morning, spending it in the UK Embassy getting an emergency passport. Unfortunately, this means most of the Romer Session, where early-career (thanks Phil for correction) students present for an award, was missed. Obviously, with the lack of Wi-Fi and live-tweeting, the session might as well have been conducted in a black hole. I managed to catch the last talk though ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?
Air pollution has been a major issue in our atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, with the smoke emanating from the many factories leading to smog settling over our cities and countryside. The author Johanna Schonpenhauer remarked in 1830 that Manchester was: Dark and smoky from the coal vapours, it resembles a huge forge or workshop. As industrialisation and motor vehicles spread across the ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Why choose a PICO session at EGU 2014?
Some of the sessions scheduled for the upcoming EGU General Assembly are PICO only sessions. This means that, rather than being oral or poster format, they involve Presenting Interactive COntent (PICO). The aim of these presentations is to highlight the essence of a particular research area – just enough to get the audience excited about a topic without overloading them with information. PICO sess ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (103): Sustainable Building Resources
Used oil canisters form the framework for a wall in Ladakh. Where resources are scarce and often imported, people find creative ways to make use of existing resources. (c) Geology for Global Development 2013
Green Tea and Velociraptors
SVP Day 1
So after definitely not losing my passport, I managed to make it into one of the sessions for the first day at SVP, the Society for Vertebrate Palaeontology’s annual meeting over in Los Angeles. The session was on the impacts of ontogeny, or growth and development on our understanding of dinosaur relationships and biology. The only one I managed to catch was on the sauropod dinosaur, Lufengosaurus ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Science Snap (10): The impact of eruptions
Mel Auker brings us our Science Snap this week… Many people are aware of the May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State, USA. Common photographs of the huge VEI 5 eruption show the large, billowing eruptive column rising into the stratosphere. Less iconic are images of the destruction left behind, demonstrating the after-effects of the eruption. The US president at the time, J ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Introducing the Emerging Leaders in Environmental and Energy Policy Network
Interested in environmental and energy policy? The Emerging Leaders in Environmental and Energy Policy (ELEEP) Network brings together young professionals from Europe and North America for study tours, conferences, and to establish a diverse and interdisciplinary network of relevant contacts. Former EGU Science Communications Fellow and ELEEP member Edvard Glücksman explains how he got involved an ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Guest Blog: Before the wells run dry… New Competition!
Geraint Burrows, Head of HWB-UK, shares an exciting competition that Earth Scientists could enter in collaboration with engineers or other stakeholders…Hydrogeologists without Borders UK (HWB-UK), in partnership with Engineers Without Borders UK (EWB-UK), have launched a competition entitled ‘Before the well runs dry’. The competition challenges innovators to design a new cost-ef ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
The Accretionary Wedge #60 – Momentous Discoveries in Geology Summary Post
I have to admit I have been a bit lax with the summary post for AW60. I blame turkeys. It was the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend recently and what with school, the holiday and other things blogging slipped a little lower on my list of priorities that I would like. I also had to submit a paper recently so most of my October writing mojo went into getting that out. My apologies to the submitters to ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Power within the rift
Lying just under the Earth’s surface, the East African Rift is a region rich in geothermal resources. Exploitation of this clean and green energy source is steadily been gaining momentum. What is the geological mix that makes the Rift Valley ripe for geothermal power and how is it being tapped? The East African Rift, stretching from Djibouti to Mozambique, marks the trace of a continent slowly tea ...[Read More]