Geobulletin alpha

Another day of research at The Natural History Museum, London 

London, England — I spent most of my museum time today at a keyboard, but in a splendid and collegial setting. Very productive and stimulating conversations with Paul Taylor and Consuelo Sendino, but mostly screen time. I drew little map boxes on a brachiopod, for example, as shown above. I also used Image J to

Conversations with a Climatologist 

Tony Barnston, a scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, took a few hours out of his day and answered questions on a Reddit “Ask Me Anything”

Captivating Conversations with the Caption: Part II, by JR Caption Terry Skinner 

How does the evacuation process work when dealing with a dangerous scenario? read

Captivating Conversations with the Caption: Part I, by JR Caption Terry Skinner 

How long have you been a Captain? A long story that I will make short. I have been Captain on the JOIDES Resolution for 5 years. However before joining the JOIDES Resolution some 19 years ago I have sailed as Captain on larger offshore fishing boats. I have worked as a Ship’s Officer since 1980 (34 years) Display on Kids page read

Guest Blog: Volcanology in Vanuatu! 

Ben Clarke and Eleri Simpson are about to start their 4th year at the University of Leicester. Having shown a strong interest in applying geoscience to development through the conversations we’ve had with them over the past two years – we were really pleased to hear they has successfully arranged some work experience in Vanuatu. We’re also

On the Road with Kate & Maddy: America Talks about Water 

Both of us are interested in the intersection of the environment and public health, and we wanted to explore a public health issue about which we felt ignorant. Water kept coming up in our conversations, because we felt that while water is a global issue, it often gets overlooked domestically among our peers. As such, we put together a six-week cross-country road trip, along which we are collecting stories about regional water

Five conversations 

5. Brian Kraatz, 2004 In the spring of 2004, I was killing time over in Tony Barnosky’s lab at Berekeley, talking to Brian Kraatz about something–mammals, probably. Brian told me that I should consider going to the International Congress of Zoology that was happening in Beijing that fall. He’d actually told me about it several

Family time & me time: Have the best of both at HMNS this holiday season 

It’s the holiday season – full of food, festivities and family. Sure, you look forward to this month year-round, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get sick of it. Conversations start to get stale, your mother (or worse – mother-in-law) … Continue reading

This Week's Geo-Quiz: Other Planets 

Geologists are working in a great time of history: Using spacecraft, we have now taken close-up looks at all of the rocky planets, the rocky satellites, and several major and minor asteroids, and at the moment we have documented thousands of planets circling other stars. In another decade the planetary catalog will support a cadre of graduate students and professors. The conversations that have started between geologists, planetologists and exoplanetographers are already really exciting. How [...]

This Week's Geo-Quiz: Other Planets 

Geologists are working in a great time of history: Using spacecraft, we have now taken close-up looks at all of the rocky planets, the rocky satellites, and several major and minor asteroids, and at the moment we have documented thousands of planets circling other stars. In another decade the planetary catalog will support a cadre of graduate students and professors. The conversations that have started between geologists, planetologists and exoplanetographers are already really exciting. How [...]

Invest in Mining in the Downturn (Recession/Depression) 

One of the miracles of the free-market system is that when one person sells a share, there is another who is buying.  Who are the current buyers when all are seemingly selling? I chatted today to one buyer.  We meet occasionally outside at the back of the office building for a smoke. Our conversations are casual

From seat 21B to the Hill: Scientists talk climate with Congress 

As a paleoclimate scientist, I was thrilled to take part in the third annual Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill. The associated training was substantive and engaging and focused on helping us be heard through the din on the Hill. While my prior experiences with Hill visits have tempered my hopes for effecting lasting change, I believe that such conversations help put a face on climate

How disruptive is PeerJ? 

Matt and I were discussing “portable peer-review” services like Rubriq, and the conversation quickly wandered to the subject of PeerJ. Then I realised that that seems to be happening with all our conversations lately. Here’s a partial transcript. – Mike: I don’t see portable peer-review catching on. Who’s going to pay for it unless journals give an

As the end of the first field season approaches 

After almost three weeks in Chile, the end of the first part of our field campaign is approaching. Emma is leaving tomorrow and Ed is travelling around the Arauco area (further north) and then Chiloe (further south) for another couple of weeks of field work with colleagues from the US and Chile.All in all it's been a successful first field season - we've been to 6 new sites, collected 225 modern marsh samples, and nearly 4 metres of sediment to analyse when we get back. That's going to be a lot [...]

Picturing Scientific Lives with 1000 Words 

There's a thread in a place on the Well, my online community for more than 20 years, where we hold conversations using only words of one syllable. (Another example, conversely (also admittedly smaller), houses conversations without using any monosyllabic lexemes.) It's fun and creative, and something very much like that permeates a wave of posts among science bloggers, in which the writers try to describe what they do using only the thousand most common words in English. The results are being [...]

This Week's Geo-Quiz: Other Planets 

Geologists are working in a delicious age: Using spacecraft, we have now taken close-up looks at all of the rocky planets, the rocky satellites, and several major and minor asteroids, and at the moment we have documented thousands of planets circling other stars. In another decade the planetary catalog will support a cadre of graduate students and professors. The conversations that have started between geologists, planetologists and exoplanetographers are already really exciting. How ready are [...]

Alan Alda says science and romance aren’t so different 

“What’s hard to say?” This was Alan Alda’s first question to an audience full of particle physicists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory on October 25. Alda’s talk, “Helping the Public Get Beyond a Blind Date with Science,” started by evoking the types of conversations, both personal and professional, that leave us fumbling for the right

Sarah Andrews "Rock Bottom" geology murder mystery set in Grand Canyon 

Sarah Andrews new geology murder mystery, "Rock Bottom," was released last week and is set on a raft trip down the Grand Canyon.    I haven't gotten my copy yet, but in conversations with Sarah over the last year, count on the geologic setting and details to pass the muster of the most discerning Arizona geologist. This is 12th in the series featuring geologist Emily ("Em") Hansen as

A multiresolution tool and a personal goodbye 

In this post we´d like to show a short tutorial on how to use the new multiresolution tool that is included in the latest build of the 3D extension for gvSIG 2.0. We can see how working with a huge dataset of points can be very taxing for the performance, making the system unresponsive and difficult to work. This new tool allows us to massively improve the performance with a very small hit on visual quality. We hope this tool can be useful for you! I´d like to use this post also as a [...]

Richard Seager 

"What I like," says Richard Seager, "is the fact that the Earth Institute has so many people working on the climate change and variability issue - from people like me doing the straight climate research to others working on how to build resilience to climate variability and change, to others working on how to prevent the worst climate change through, for example, carbon capture and storage. Whenever I am in that mix, conversations strike up that touch on areas of overlap, which, once opened, [...]