Yearly Archives: 2008

Volcanoes: our noble allies in the battle against export productivity

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Chris Rowan

Finally, a blogospheric spat that actually matters. Craig McClain over at Deep Sea News has accused volcanoes of being the implacable enemies of marine life, based on new research linking them to some bouts of extreme ocean anoxia (where the … Continue reading →

Categories: climate science, environment, geology, tectonics, volcanoes

When bears attack

Posted on July 23, 2008 by Chris Rowan

We’ve discussed before how geologists’ pursuit of the critical outcrop sometimes puts us in somewhat sticky situations, but in this story, rather scarily, its not so much a case of geologists ambling into danger as danger ambling towards them. At … Continue reading →

Categories: fieldwork, geohazards

Back

Posted on July 22, 2008 by Chris Rowan

So, I’m back in Johannesburg, after a very interesting trip which took us all the way from Archean congolomerates in the stable continental interior to diamond-bearing Tertiary alluvial gravels on the West Coast. Plenty of stuff to talk about, then … Continue reading →

Categories: bloggery, fieldwork

Electronic field notebooks: useful, or pain in the posterior?

Posted on July 14, 2008 by Chris Rowan

The UJ mapping class this year were piloting electronic field notebooks, with each group being given a PDA in which they could enter a locality, a description, and any structural data they were measuring. Especially with the structual data, this … Continue reading →

Categories: field gear, fieldwork, gifts and gadgets

Are jeans sensible fieldwear?

Posted on July 11, 2008 by Chris Rowan

One thing I noticed amongst the students on last week’s trip was that a fairly sizeable proportion of them were regularly wearing jeans in the field. You are unlikely to see British third year geology students opting for denim in … Continue reading →

Categories: field gear, fieldwork