SpotOn London was held this weekend at the Wellcome Trust, shockingly, in London. The name stands for Science Policy, Outreach and Tools Online, with each of these representing three individual but strongly interwoven strands during the two days. As far as conferences go, it was pretty interactive. Each session was live-streamed, and through that and the power of Twitter –many people in each sessi ...[Read More]
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GeoSphere
Geology Photo of the Week # 11 – Nov 11- 17
The Photo of the Week #11 is of a superb cave decoration from Kelly Hill caves located on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. I was there in 2009. Most cave decorations are draped against the wall of the cave. More rarely stalactites, stalagmites and other free hanging features form. These are usually perpendicular to the cave floor or ceiling much like icicles. However, even more rarely, odd shape ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: Lake Louise, Alberta
The Canadian province of Alberta is known for its seemingly endless and pristine natural landscapes and the area surrounding Lake Louise, in Banff National Park, is no exception. Located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Lake Louise boasts a unique emerald colour as a result of rock flour – fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock – carried into the lake by meltwater from nearby mountain glaci ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Water Series (3): Arsenic Contamination in Drinking Water
Following our post about fluoride contamination last week, our water series is now focused on the equally serious problem of arsenic contamination. Some arsenic is present in all groundwater sources (see table 1). Of course this is only a problem if the arsenic has the chance to leak into groundwater as it filters through the rock. Arsenic leaching is more likely to occur in groundwater that is ho ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
A GeoPoetry Anthology – Accretionary Wedge #51 Compilation
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone that participated in this edition of the Accretionary Wedge. There were a few comments that the topic was somewhat out of people’s comfort zone so I am glad that there was still fantastic participation and people willing to try poetry writing out even if it was a different sort of medium. As you know poems come in all shapes, sizes and subjects and a k ...[Read More]
GeoLog
EGU Twitter Journal Club 5 — Policy briefing: Water resource resilience
It’s time for the fifth edition of the EGU’s Twitter Journal Club, our interactive online discussion about a timely scientific article. If you have not yet taken part in one of these discussions, read more about it in our introductory post and make sure to participate when we meet online next week! This time, we will be discussing the recent peer-reviewed policy briefing Water Resourc ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Chilean volcanoes: shaken, but not always stirred?
November 7th marked the 175th anniversary of one of the largest earthquakes to have struck northern Patagonia. The earthquake, which is estimated to have had a magnitude of 8, had an epicentre close to Valdivia, and was accompanied by significant ground shaking and subsidence as far south as Chiloe island, and a major tsunami that reached Hawaii. The eyewitness reports of the time have been well ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Horse poop, frozen rhinos, and crocodile skulls. All is well at the Royal Veterinary College.
Following on from the adventures in the Natural History Museum in London, checking out some of their extant crocs and the material of Theriosuchus pusillus, a dwarf croc from the Upper Jurassic of England, I made a trip to the Royal Veterinary College just north of London to see what they had on offer. John Hutchinson was kind enough to sort things out at short notice, and I actually got to check ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Hurricane Sandy: A round up of the coverage from Haiti to New York
We thought we would summarise the coverage of Hurricane Sandy and direct you to some of the wide-ranging political, scientific and development based discussion that has arisen in the last few weeks; simply follow the links in this article. Hurricanes are just one of the many natural disasters that affect countries in the Caribbean, such as Haiti. They are rarely an issue further north, but Sandy i ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Crocodiles! They’re everywhere!
The Natural History Museum in London contains some of the most diverse vertebrate Palaeontological collections in the world, in terms of number of species. As part of my PhD, I have to learn detailed crocodile anatomy, mostly skeletal (osteology), to help identify and describe the particular group I’ll be researching into. The Zoology Department would normally be a great target to go and learn thi ...[Read More]