The 2017 Great Geoadvent comes to an end!
Dear readers,
We’ve come to the end of another geoadvent season – if you’ve followed along this far, thanks so much for sticking with us!
There are now five – five! – Geological Society advent calendars to browse through – that’s a whopping 120 posts about geology, christmas, geological anniversaries, quizzes, geologists you didn’t know were geologists, and just about everything in between. If you’re stuck for reading matter this Christmas, you can find the lot here.
The Geological Society Christmas Quiz
There remains the important business of the quiz – for those who missed it, the questions can be found here.
The answers were:
- Hess – Rudolf Hess; Myra Hess; Hess Corporation (as in Harry Hess)
- Hotel New Hampshire (New Hampshire Granites)
- Ice Age: Continental Drift
- Vine – Jeremy Vine; Tim Vine (as in Fred Vine)
- Lizard (The Lizard, Cornwall)
- Magnetic stripes
- Wilson – the volleyball bore the manufacturer’s name (as in Tuzo Wilson)
- Sierra Nevada
- Hotspot
- Symphony No 7, known as the Antarctic Symphony or Sinfonia Antartica
The Great Geoadvent challenge
Each window of the geoadvent this year represented one of the sites from our new Plate Tectonic Stories resource, and we asked you to name them each day in the comments, to win a Mystery Prize. The undisputed joint winners this year are Laura Kronenberg and Jason Langford, who between them managed to identify just about every one! Well done to both – please email your address to sarah.day[at]geolsoc.org.uk and we’ll arrange posting in the new year.
Geodavent credits
Huge thanks to all the geoadvent contributors this year!
- GSL Map Librarian Paul, for a fascinating look at some of the more unusual treasures in the Society’s map collection: Cholera for Christmas, Canadian Treasure, Can’t see the Wood for the Trees and Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher…
- GSL Online Development Editor Max, for an unusual way to explore plate tectonics! (Dive into Plate Tectonics)
- GSL Policy Officer Flo, for her dispatches from Patagonia! (The Perito Moreno Glacier, The Amazing Torres del Paine National Park)
- GSL Director of Policy and Communications Nic, for the Geological Society Christmas Quiz!
- Geologist and science writer Nina Morgan, for a trip down memory lane… (Memory Books)
- GSL Conference Manager George, for a trip underground (Going Underground)
- GSL Education Officer Amy, for a look at the geology beneath Trafalgar Square’s Christmas tree
- GSL Education Assistant Will, for an exhibition review (Landscapes Below), a look at the life and death of the Dodo (Sticking with Turkey) and the 1896 ascent of Aconcagua
- The GSL Publishing House for some Christmas Lyell Collection reading (Let it Snow)
Huge thanks also to Flo Bullough and Marion Ferrat for allowing us to use material original published on the Four Degrees blog, and Geoscientist Editor Ted Nield for allowing us to republish ‘The Translators‘.
As ever, I take full credit for the rest, terrible geology puns and all.
Thanks for reading, and wishing you a very happy Christmas and New Year!
Sarah
