Q: I have just been watching a programme about James Lovelock, in which he was quiet pessimistic about global warming. It strikes me that if our current ice age was triggered by the erosion of the then newly uplifted Himalayas, then it ought to be possible to cause a similar drop in temperature by increasing the mechanical erosion of some of the worlds undammed mountain rivers. A few tonnes of exp...
Geoscientist Online 23 May 2007
Amarendra Swarup reports on a new understanding of how ice sheets melt. It's not as simple as you might think…
Global warming and the dwindling glaciers around the world are an all too common refrain in today's news. But behind the headlines and the endless guides to reducing your carbon footprint lies an increasing worry that our understanding of how and wh...
Incoming! Or, why we should stop worrying and learn to love the meteorite
TED NIELD Published by: GRANTA BOOKS Publication Date: January 2011. ISBN: 9781847082640 (pbk) £9.99 ISBN: 9781847082411 (hbk) £20.00
Meteorites have had bad press in recent years. Small ones, that burn up spectacularly as they enter Earth's atmosphere producing a romantic shooting star - fine. Meteorites the siz...
February's Shell London lecture, delivered by Bryan Lovell (GSL President) at the Geological Society on 16 February 2011.
Climate change is a defining issue of our time, the full understanding of which requires the long perspective offered by geology. Earth scientists can read in detail the geological record of changes in climate that occurred long before we were around to light so much as a...
‘Follow the money’. Every investigator, in journalism or policing, knows the truth of this worldly wisdom. But, if it can be assumed that ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’, what of scientific research? The answer is – ‘it depends’.
If research is commercially or politically useless, then nobody is likely to mind who paid for it. ...
International Polar Year made an unexpected contribution to the gaiety of nations earlier this year, when a Russian expedition (billed as an IPY contribution) planted a flag on the Lomonosov Ridge…
Geoscientist 17.10 October 2007
On August 2 this year, at a depth of 4261m, a Russian submarine – part of the Arktika 2007 expedition that forms part of International Polar Year - planted...
C. Chicxulub - Yaxcopoil-1 1. Foraminifera are not dolomite crystals Smit 'strongly contests' that the images shown by Keller from the micritic limestones from the Yax-1 core (Fig. 9) are planktic foraminifera. He states that after 30 years of looking at hundreds of thin sections (he must have started as an undergraduate) he would rather abstain from identifying species in thin sections....
Sir, Nobody can disagree that there is climate change. As geologists, we know about the continual, and even continuous changes, that are the stratigraphic record; none would deny there has been an increase (but of ~1oC) in average world temperatures since ~1880, nor that CO2 is increasing; but many geologists and other scientists, do not accept that there is a proven, and unique scientific and un...
Oscar Wilde said he could resist everything except temptation. So what about the rest of us? Pretty much the same is my guess.
Global resources of fossil fuels are currently thought to equal the equivalent (burned) of 11,000 Gt of CO2. Yet a recent review* estimates that, if we are to limit global warming to 2°C, between 2011 and 2050 we can burn no more than a maximum...
Stop pulling the carbon trigger, says Society President
Geoscientist 20.11 November 2010
The Society has published a statement about the geological evidence relating to past climates, atmospheric carbon levels, and their inter-relationship. The online version (follow link) also carries a list of recommended further reading.
Dr Bryan Lovell, President, told Geoscien...