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Department of Earth Sciences

 
Read more at: Geological Society awards for Cambridge researchers

Geological Society awards for Cambridge researchers

4 March 2019

Congratulations to Professor Marian Holness, Dr Nigel Woodcock and Dr Brendan McCormick Kilbride who each received awards from the Geological Society of London. The awards were presented on President's Day on 6 June 2019.


Read more at: Magnetic properties of meteorite ‘cloudy zones’ revealed

Magnetic properties of meteorite ‘cloudy zones’ revealed

25 January 2019

A team led by Cambridge Earth Sciences' Joshua Einsle and Richard Harrison have used advanced microscopy techniques and numerical simulations to gain new insight into the formation, composition and magnetic behaviour of the meteoritic composite known as the ‘cloudy zone’.


Read more at: Research shows what it takes to be a giant shark
Research shows what it takes to be a giant shark

Research shows what it takes to be a giant shark

24 January 2019

Have you ever wondered why the Megalodon shark became to be so big? Or wondered why some other sharks are much smaller?


Read more at: Cambridge team reach bedrock to complete Antarctic ice core

Cambridge team reach bedrock to complete Antarctic ice core

9 January 2019

A team of scientists and engineers from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic Survey has successfully drilled over 650 metres in to an Antarctic ice cap to obtain an ice core that will show how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet responds to warming. The team, now consisting of six people, has been at Skytrain Ice...


Read more at: Liz Hide appointed as first full-time Director of the Sedgwick Museum
Liz Hide appointed as first full-time Director of the Sedgwick Museum

Liz Hide appointed as first full-time Director of the Sedgwick Museum

30 November 2018

The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, the oldest of the University of Cambridge museums, has appointed its first full-time director.


Read more at: Taking to the skies: measuring volcanic gas emissions using drones
Taking to the skies: measuring volcanic gas emissions using drones

Taking to the skies: measuring volcanic gas emissions using drones

19 November 2018

Many of the world’s most hazardous volcanoes are either too remote or too active to make measurements safely from the ground. Cambridge Earth Scientists are now taking to the skies to investigate the gases being released by these elusive volcanoes.


Read more at: Metals mark magma for life
Metals mark magma for life

Metals mark magma for life

19 November 2018

Gases erupted by volcanoes contain various volatile metal products. New research by Marie Edmonds and Emma Liu in Cambridge and Tamsin Mather in Oxford has discovered that different kinds of volcanoes have distinctive metal ‘signatures’, which reflect differences in how their magma forms.


Read more at: Dating the emplacement of the Shap granite using zircon
Dating the emplacement of the Shap granite using zircon

Dating the emplacement of the Shap granite using zircon

19 November 2018

G5a - the distinctive coarse-grained, pink granite exposed at Shap in Cumbria - has long been a favourite igneous hand specimen for Earth Sciences teaching in Cambridge. New research uses the age of zircon crystal formation to suggest a long gestation period in the mid-crust before its final emplacement 405 million years ago.


Read more at: Lessons about a future warmer world using data from the past

Lessons about a future warmer world using data from the past

19 November 2018

Selected intervals in the past that were as warm or warmer than today can help us understand what the Earth may be like under future global warming. A latest assessment of past warm periods, by an international team of 59 scientists from 17 nations including Cambridge Earth Sciences' Professor Eric Wolff, shows that in response to the warming ecosystems and climate zones will spatially shift and on millennial time scales ice sheets will substantially shrink.