A few things have caught my eye in the news recently, a mix of good and tragic: Toilets in India: The BBC reported last week that the Indian Supreme Court have ordered that every school have clean water and suitable sanitation facilities within six months. If this is obeyed, and goes hand in hand with appropriate hygiene training it could lead to many positive results, as outlined on the Tearfund ...[Read More]
If you didn't find what you was looking for try searching again.
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: Trees of time
The Namib-Nauklufy National Park in Namibia is a stunning ecoregion that encompasses part of the Namib Desert and the Nauklufy mountain range. With an area of almost 50,000 square kilometres, the park covers a wide range of landscapes, including gravel plains, tall sand dunes, and an ephemeral river. The park also includes one of the main visitor attractions of Namibia, the Sossusvlei, a large dry ...[Read More]
VolcanicDegassing
Montserrat: Open for Business
One of the great privileges of working on volcanoes is that you get the chance to visit some amazing places, and to meet some extraordinary people. Recently, I got the chance to return to Montserrat, a small volcanic island in the Caribbean which has been the site of a dome-forming eruption since July 1995. I had first visited Montserrat in early 1998, when I had a short tour as one of the staff s ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Horsedrosaurus, the dinosaur that wanted to be an equid.
The title of this makes no sense, but kind of emphasises the main point of this post. It’s pretty much a summary of a new paper, one on the feeding habits of hadrosaurid dinosaurs. These are the big advanced ornithopods, often considered to be the ‘bland’ lineage of ornithischians, and referred to as the ‘cows of the Cretaceous’. They also happen to be my favourite group of dinosaurs, simply becau ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
The Wooden Wall
It is once again time to write about geology and classics and the incredibly important impact the geosciences had on the ancients and their way of life. My previous post on this topic can be found at my old blog location as the post: The Odyssey and Geology. I’ll begin by relating a story: The two fleets, the Persians the the Greeks, which was composed of the navies of all the city states, b ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Geosciences Column: Predicting glacial lake outburst floods
In this month’s Geosciences Column, Amanda Gläser-Bligh writes about SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellites and how they can be used to map glacier lakes and mitigate related flood hazards. Glaciers are a natural storage system and provide a perennial source of fresh water to the surrounding low-lying areas, which can be used for drinking water, irrigation, or even hydroelectricity. But when gl ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
Friday Photo (51) – Loess Collapse/Subsidence
Heifangtai, Gansu Province, China: Collapse in Loess Deposits Ground collapse/subsidence in China, most likely caused by movement of water through the loess deposits from the high relief in the right of this picture, to the low relief in the left of the picture. The scale of the collapse can be seen in relation to the man at the forefront. (c) Geology for Global Development, 2012 For other images ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
New Palaeontology podcast series
Palaeocast is a little side project I co-run with Dave Marshall and Joe Keating. It’s a new podcast series focusing on Palaeontology (shocking), and about getting the science directly from the scientists. We recognise that science is a process, not a series of facts, and wish to convey this process; the methods, the ups and downs, the snake bites, the everything, and really open up the world ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Ancient crocodiles were a bit like killer whales. Go figure.
When you cast your mind back to the Mesozoic and think of the predators of the time, your mind goes to dinosaurs. You just thought of a T. rex didn’t you? Didn’t you. Crocodiles are the unsung heroes of the past, probably due to the fact that they’re still around today, so not considered as exotic as many of the extinct species we all know and love. But how similar were they to modern species? Or, ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
The Accretionary Wedge #51 Call for Posts – GeoPoetry
The time for the 51st edition of the Accretionary Wedge is upon us and I am really excited to be hosting the Wedge here at GeoSphere this month and see all of the great submissions and ideas of the geo-blogosphere. The topic of this edition is Geo-poetry. Obviously that term could do with some explaining, especially since I’m the one who made it up. As geologists/geology enthusiasts we love ...[Read More]