The first dinosaur to be named was Megalosaurus in 1824, but it took another 18 years for Sir Richard Owen, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, to suggest re-grouping the handful of antidiluvian beasts so far discovered into a single tribe of giant reptiles. Since then, dinosaurs have established … Continue reading
Tag Archives: geology
Rivers under the sea
A guest post from Professor Jeff Peakall, University of Leeds Professor Peakall’s Shell Lecture, ‘Rivers Under the Sea’, can be viewed on our YouTube channel: Channel networks are known from across the solar system. Rivers on Earth have long been key to human civilisation, with many of our great cities developing around them, and their … Continue reading
MOOCs – what are they and why should we bother?
Massive Online Open Courses are clearly the political flavour of the month – but should geoscientists get involved? The brainchild of two Artificial Intelligence academics at Stanford, who responded to massive demand for their courses by uploading them open access to the web, ‘MOOCs’ have been variously hailed as a revolution in Higher Education, a … Continue reading
Part two: Problems in the field
Part two of a guest blog from Layik Hama at the University of Leeds. Layik is undertaking a research project on finding techniques that will lead to the development of an app for use in the field. You can read part 1 of his blog here. Novice geologists participating in introductory level field work are … Continue reading
Keeping an eye on ocean microbes
A guest post from Dr Helen Bridle, Royal Academy of Engineering and EPSRC Fellow at Heriot-Watt University. Her blog can be found here. What’s the issue? New tools to detect ocean microbes have recently been developed by researchers at the University of Southampton. The tiny microbes, known as phytoplankton, play several critical roles in the … Continue reading
Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems: Event Summary
A guest post from Dr Valerie McCarthy, Assistant Lecturer at Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland. Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) are geologically and physio-graphically complex and are recognised as an important but, nevertheless, poorly understood set of habitats. At a recent event organised by the Hydrogeological Group of The Geological Society, held at the at the … Continue reading
What Really Happens in a Flood Basalt Eruption
A guest post from Holly Ferrie, Geosciences student with the Open University. If you’ve been keeping track of the science press in the last few months, you may have noticed a dramatic headline popping up in a number of places. ‘Life at threat from supervolcano in 200 million years!’ ‘The supervolcano forming under the Pacific … Continue reading
Krakatoa revealed? Part three
I’m in Java, Indonesia, filming a documentary on the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa – read part one and part two here. We have spent the last two days filming on and around Anak Krakatau. The boat ride out from the mainland takes about three hours, and we are accompanied by dolphins and the occasional flying … Continue reading
Krakatoa revealed? Part two
I’m in Java, Indonesia, filming a documentary on the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa – read part one here. Today was a day of mixed blessings. It started well, with filming at the 4th point lighthouse destroyed originally by the 1883 tsunami and rebuilt two years later – such was the importance of the spice trade … Continue reading
Krakatoa revealed?
So, here I am in Java, Indonesia (again) on my way to shoot a documentary (again) with Pioneer Productions ( I must say I thought they would be sick of me by now) on the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The series is called Top Ten Natural Disasters – Indonesia. On the flight out, in between … Continue reading
The Geological Society Blog 