GfGD welcomes the release of the UK Government Office for Science Foresight Report into “Reducing the Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for decision makers”. The report has been specially commissioned to recognise the growing need for good disaster and risk reduction (DRR) science. The report describes how the growing threat of natural hazards to increasingly …[Read More]
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Friday Photo (60): Active Geology – Displacement on a Fault, Kazakhstan
The ridges running across this Kazakhstan landscape are a result of displacement on an active fault. Credit: Tim Middleton. (c) Geology for Global Development
Geosciences Column: Human-induced changes in the ocean’s salinity and temperature fields
In this month’s Geosciences column, Mona Behl discusses a recent paper on the effects of anthropogenically-induced climate change on the planet’s oceans. A recent study led by scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, suggests that observed changes in ocean salinity are inconsistent with natural climate variations and can be attributed to human-induced …[Read More]
A Portmanteau of Natural Hazards
Last week, the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) launched an over-arching programme in Natural Hazards, a network called PURE (Probability, Uncertainty and Risk in the Environment). This post is a very short attempt to navigate the maze of acronyms of projects that are either linked to PURE, or to other related initiatives in Natural …[Read More]
Geology Photo of the Week #14 – Dec 2-8
This week’s photo, which is posted mid-week instead of at the beginning is one that I only took this Monday. I was away all day at the Royal Military College SLOWPOKE-2 reactor doing some neutron activation of cesium and calcium. We were making minute quantities of Cs-134 and Ca-41 for research purposes on the accelerator …[Read More]
What can we Learn from the Great Eastern Japan Tsunami?
Over a year and a half on from the Great Eastern Japan Tsunami, and there are still boats lying overturned at the side of roads. Recovering from such a major national catastrophe is a slow process. We hope to be able learn from this tragedy and use it to lower vulnerability to future disasters, both …[Read More]
Santiaguito Volcano: Ninety Years and Counting.
Santiaguito volcano, Guatemala, burst into life in 1922 and is now the second longest continuing eruption. It has outlasted both Stromboli (Italy) and Sangay (Ecuador), both erupting since 1934, and is only outdone by Yasur (Vanuatu), which has been erupting at least since 1774, when first visited by Captain Cook. These long-lived eruptions give us …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Blue haze
In this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays, brought to you by the photographer himself, Lukas Hörtnagl (University of Innsbruck, Austria) tells us about the ‘blue haze’ or ‘tule fog’ of California’s Sequoia National Park. I was visiting the United States to attend the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2011 and decided to …[Read More]
Going to This Year’s AGU Meeting?
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) convenes this week for their 45th annual fall meeting – the world’s largest international gathering of Earth scientists. Geoscientists from all around the world will be sharing their latest research and catching up with colleagues from other institutions. There will be plenty of talks relevant to GfGD. We’ve picked our highlights from …[Read More]
Eat your greens, and you’ll grow up to be a big dinosaur
What comes to your mind when someone says ‘theropod dinosaurs’ to you? Does the mind conjour images of Tyrannosaurus rex noshing on lawyers, packs of voracious Deinonychus ambushing unsuspecting ornithopods, or perhaps you’re quite progressive and thought about flocks of birds migrating south for the winter. Sticking strictly to the Mesozoic (before 65.5 million years …[Read More]