Among the many issues with the fossil record is the case of gender identification. In modern organisms, it is usually pretty easy to tell which members of a particular species are the males and which are the females. This can either be through consistently perving on them to figure it out during copulation, or some …[Read More]
Latest posts
Sea-floor spreading, on land
One piece of evidence that helped to establish the theory of Plate Tectonics in the early-1960’s was the recognition of patterns of magnetisation in the basalts of the seafloor that were symmetrical about the global oceanic ridge system. Fred Vine and Drummond Matthews recognised that this pattern had to be fixed in place as the …[Read More]
Friday Photo (65): Geologists in the field – escaping the sun
In contrast to last week’s snowy photo, geologists trying to squeeze into a patch of shade during field work in the betics, Spain, April 2011. Get involved with our Friday Photo series – send us your favourite photos of geologists in the field! (c) Geology for Global Development 2013
Geosciences Column: The contribution of climate change to water scarcity in the MENA region
In this month’s Geoscience’s column, Alex Stubbings discusses the water scarcity problems in the Middle East and North Africa region and the recent developments in modelling water resources here. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is considered the most water-scarce region in the world. As such, the region faces a multitude of challenges …[Read More]
A new feathered dinosaur – worth getting ruffled for?
Two new feathered dinosaur articles appeared in the latest edition of Nature Communications; one on gender identification in a well-known theropod (the meat noshing ones), and the subject of a forthcoming blog post, and another on a new feathered fiend from, surprise surprise, China. I normally really don’t like writing about theropods, especially of the feathered …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #19 – Jan 27 – Feb 2
Hi Everyone, Sorry this post is a bit late. Things have been crazy the last few days in the lab. I am trying to get enough done in the next few weeks to submit an abstract to a conference and I still have quite a long way to go. The 19th photo of week was …[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Hazard perception – how great is the risk of a rockfall?
In this month’s Geoscience’s column, Sara Mynott discusses the geological hazards associated with climate warming and how recent research sheds new light on our understanding of rockfall frequency. Rockfalls are the free-falling movement of bedrock material from a rock face, a phenomenon also encompassed by the terms ‘landslide’, ‘rockslide’ and ‘rock avalanche’. They range from …[Read More]
Resources: ‘World We Want’ Discussion forums
It’s been a while since we posted anything in our resources series. This week we direct you to a group of discussion forums on the ‘world we want’ website. They have discussion boards covering a range of development themes, some of which are particularly relevant to GfGD; water, energy and environmental sustainability. They direct you …[Read More]
DINOSAUR! But what does it mean..?
Palaeontology probably isn’t the most difficult of sciences, but it does incorporate aspects of chemistry, biology, and physics to a certain degree, as with many other geoscientific disciplines. Palaeontologists are also well known for the mysterious and unintelligible ‘science-speak’ that they use in research papers, fueled by this combination of a multitude of various sciences, …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Rainbow in stone
Nothing better characterises the wild US West than endless landscapes of red hoodoos, spires of rock protruding from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. Found mainly in desert and dry, hot areas, hoodoos are distinctive from similarly-shaped formations, such as spires or pinnacles, because their profiles vary in thickness throughout their length. …[Read More]