The evolutionary line from theropod dinosaurs is absolute. There is no question that this is one of the greatest stories that life on Earth has ever told us, But evolution is not linear; it’s chaotic. It’s bizarre. Along this theropod line, dinosaurs were experimenting – they were the evolutionary scientists of their time. One of the weirdest things that theropods did was become herbivores again – ...[Read More]
If you didn't find what you was looking for try searching again.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
PhD interview preparation
The following post is written primarily for those who are applying for a PhD project where the funding is supplied by a research council, such as NERC. All PhD interviews are all different, and this post definitely won’t cover everything, but it should help you prepare for most eventualities.
GeoLog
Geosciences Column: Shifting the O in H2O
Wherever you are in the world’s oceans, you can identify particular bodies of water (provided you have the right equipment) by how salty they are. You can get a feel for how productive that part of the ocean is by measuring a few chemical components in the water column. And, year on year, you will see a recurring pattern in how things like temperature, salinity and oxygen content vary with depth. ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
Aerosols and the pause
There is a new commentary piece in Nature Geoscience by Gavin Schmidt and colleagues on ‘Reconciling warming trends’. The paper investigates several potential causes for the discrepancy between climate model projections and the recent ‘slowdown’ in global surface temperatures, which is nicely illustrated on Ed Hawkins’ Climate Lab Book blog. One of the aspects the pap ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (117) – Volcan Agua, Guatemala
Volcan Agua, Guatemala Taken from the side of the Acatenango, another volcano, this image shows the stratovolcano Agua towering over the landscape. Agua was the location of a catastrophic debris flow/lahar in the mid 16th Century, destroying the then capital city of Guatemala. (Credit: Joel Gill, 2014) (This image, and others taken in Guatemala, is available for free use (subject to terms and cond ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
London Event: ‘JUNGWA, THE BROKEN BALANCE’
GfGD are involved in a hazards education project in Ladakh, India, later this year. You can read more about this work on our website here. On Wednesday 26th March, King’s College London’s Intrepid Explorers team will be hosting a screening of ‘JUNGWA: The Broken Balance’ – a documentary about living with environmental change in this region of the western Himalaya. Liv ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Last chance to enter the EGU Photo Contest!
If you are pre-registered for the 2014 General Assembly (Vienna, 27 April – 2 May), you can take part in our annual photo competition! Winners receive a free registration to next year’s General Assembly! Every year we hold a photo competition and exhibit in association with our open access image repository, Imaggeo and our annual General Assembly. Last year, we also introduced a moving image compe ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
How do the chemical ghosts of dinosaurs help their preservation?
For some years now, Mary Schweitzer and her team have been researching the idea that organic molecules can be preserved for millions of years, specifically within dinosaurs. They have used a plethora of chemical and biotechnological techniques to demonstrate that, within animals like Tyrannosaurus rex, it is possible to find the residue of structures such as blood vessels and even proteins. Natura ...[Read More]
Polluting the Internet
Fires in South East Asia
Smoke from a number of agricultural fires is currently blanketing Thailand and Cambodia. This is shown below in the satellite image from the MODIS instrument on the TERRA satellite. The red dots are classed as ‘thermal anomalies’ by the satellite instrument and are usually indicative of fires burning in these locations. The majority of the fires are occurring in grass and cropland area ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Small volcanic eruptions and the global warming ‘pause’
A new paper in Nature Geoscience by Santer and colleagues revisits the volcanic scenarios used in modern climate model simulations. The authors consider the effects of including a ‘more realistic’ model for the influence of small volcanic eruptions on the climate system over the past two decades. Of course, more realistic means more difficult.. and one of the long-standing and unresolv ...[Read More]