For our Blog Competition 2013, we asked for people to submit articles addressing one of two topics. Philip Irwin’s article makes an argument for the inclusion of development education in geoscience courses, and it won first prize in its category. Philip did BSc Geology at Durham University where he developed an interest in environmental hazards. He then spent some time travelling to places ...[Read More]
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Geology Jenga
Reporting on a recent visit to the NERC Radiocarbon Facility (East Kilbride, Scotland)
I (Daniel) recently had the opportunity to visit the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Radiocarbon Facility – Environment (NRCF-EK), hosted at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), a collaborative facility between the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. The lab is located in East Kilbride, a 30-minute train ride south of Glasgow city centre. The opportunity ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
The Long Life of Ruzi Mohammed
Ruzi Mohammed thinks that he is around 110 years old. He keeps track of the years using the changing seasons, and there is no missing them in Turtuk, where winters reach -20˚C, and summers are warm and pleasant. Too high for mosquitos, and low enough for a good harvest, Turtuk is a paradise in the summer. The winter is survived by shutting down, almost hibernating, and surviving on wheat mixed wit ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Abbreviated science
KFC, MTV, BP, BBC, NASA, NHS, UNICEF, FIFA…combinations of letters that are known the world over. These famous examples demonstrate the power of the acronym, a word formed from the initial components of a series of other words. You may have noticed that acronyms in science seem to be everywhere. No grant proposal, research group or society is complete without the obligatory ‘humorous&# ...[Read More]
Four Degrees
What’s all the Phos about?
Phosphate use for fertilisers, essential in modern agriculture, is hitting an all time high while resources are being heavily depleted. Flo discusses the background, numbers, geopolitics and potential solutions behind the issue of ‘the end of phosphorus’. The Issue The dilemma over diminishing natural resources is a topic of our times with the daily bulletins filled with reports relate ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
10 Minute Interview – Jennifer Clear
Our latest 10 Minute Interview is with Jennifer Clear, a fellow PhD student here in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool. She is approaching her submission deadline and will soon be leaving to take up a PostDoc position in Prague, Czech Republic. We will be sad to see her go! Jen has kindly helped on a number of my fieldwork expeditions as well as teaching me how to spot ( ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Building Scientific Technical Capacity in Developing Countries
The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology POSTnote Number 216 discusses the importance of building ‘Scientific Capacity in Developing Countries’. In short, this highlights how science and technology can play an important role in fighting poverty, disease and environmental degradation, and yet the numbers of researchers in the developing world falls well below other areas of t ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
Introducing The 10 minute Interview!
The Ten Minute Interview is a feature we will run regularly as part of our blog. Dan and I feel passionate about promoting the work of Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and also all the people behind the scenes who actually make research happen. The unsung heroes of our labs if you like; technicians and support staff. The key idea is that it shouldn’t take long to read these interviews, you sh ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Day 3 and 4 – Craters, Very Old Rocks, Fukushima and Extinctions
Here is my Goldschmidt summary part 3 comprising both day 3 and day 4. I had to prepare my own talk, that I gave on Thursday (day 4) so I had to put the blog on hold to practice. Here are a few of the most interesting talks that I went to: Fred Jourdan hailing all the way from Curtin University in South Australia gave a talk called – Volcanoes, asteroid impacts and mass extinctions (abstrac ...[Read More]
Four Degrees
What’s Geology got to do with it? 1 – The Maya civilisation
Geology is not just about looking at rocks. From finding oil and gas and tackling climate change to manufacturing, archaeology or geopolitics, geoscientists appear in most spheres of today’s world and economy, albeit often behind the scenes. In a new series of posts we will be looking at how geology relates to interdisciplinary or seemingly unconnected topics, which, at first glance, might seem li ...[Read More]