A core part of our upcoming conference programme is a session on ‘Skills for Sustainability.’ At our conference in 2013 we introduced a range of ways by which geologists can support the fight against global poverty, including hydrogeology, engineering geology, natural resource management, hazards and disaster reduction (and much more). This technical understanding of geology can have a ...[Read More]
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Four Degrees
What’s geology got to do with it? 5 – Scottish Independence Referendum
Flo summarises 5 geo-relevant policy issues that are likely to impact on the Scottish Independence Referendum. Sooooo apologies for the long blog holiday we’ve been on of late, Marion and I have had a fairly hectic summer, but fear not, we will be updating on a more regular basis from now on! Hitting the headlines in the UK this week is the impending referendum for Scottish Independence taki ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Soils at Imaggeo: fall into litter
Antonio Jordán University of Seville, Spain Description Wet forest soil surface after a rainfall simulation experiment in Los Alcornocales Natural Park, southern Spain. When pores are saturated with water, rainfall does not infiltrate, but a dense litter layer may inhibit runoff for some time. About Imaggeo Imaggeo is the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository. All geoscientists (an ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Conference Highlights (Part 1)
Over on our Facebook page, we’ve recently been publishing a series of images showing some of the likely highlights of our annual conference next week (Friday 19th September, tickets still available). Here are the first batch… we’ll be posting more over the next week!
Soil System Sciences
Soils at Imaggeo: Soil erosion-desertfication, Iceland
Picture by Ragnar Sigurdsson / Artic Images.com. Soil banks show the former appearance of areas with dwindling vegetation and soil cover. Higher resolution images available from rth@arctic-images.com (there is a licensing fee depending on the use). Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union.
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: Trapped air
Can you imagine walking into the depths of an icy, white, long and cavernous channel within a thick glacier? That is exactly what Kay Helfricht did in 2012 to obtain this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays photograph. Tellbreen Glacier is a small glacier (3.5Km long) in the vicinity of the Longyearbyen valley in the Svalbard region of Norway. Despite its limited size, it is an important glacier. One of the ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
GfGD Conference – Selected Poster Abstracts (Part 2)
An important part of our annual conference is giving students and recent graduates the opportunity to present their work – through a poster and drinks reception at the end of the day. Last year we had some fantastic posters – from both undergraduate and postgraduate students, and recent graduates. Today we continue publishing the titles and abstracts for some of the posters being displ ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Monday paper: Modelling microbial exchanges between forms of soil nitrogen in contrasting ecosystems
Pansu, M., Machado, D., Bottner, P., and Sarmiento, L.: Modelling microbial exchanges between forms of soil nitrogen in contrasting ecosystems, Biogeosciences, 11, 915-927, doi:10.5194/bg-11-915-2014, 2014. The questions It is well known that N and C combine to form organic molecules due to biological processes, although they come together from different pathways. C is extracted from carbon dioxid ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Lightening the clay (II)
According to the previous post, tetrahedral and octahedral sheets combine to form layers, and we can find two main types of clay structures: structure 1:1 (one tetrahedron sheet and one octahedral sheet) and 2:1 (two tetrahedral sheets and one octahedral sheet). The basic structure of clays is this: Substitutions between cations may occur in the tetrahedral and octahedral sheets, resulting ...[Read More]
Soil System Sciences
Lightening the clay (I)
“The more any indivisible exceeds, the heavier it is”. Democritus (c. 460 – c. 370 BC). What is clay? Clays are particles. Very, very small mineral particles. You cannot see them, you cannot handle them… but unity makes strength. Clays are one of the major mineral components of the soil, whose chemical and physical properties depend on them. The study of soil clay minerals allows a gen ...[Read More]