Safe CO₂ Storage Women in Geology Shells and Skeletons
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ISSUE 14 14 ISSUE Earth Sciences Alumni Day | Saturday 13 May 2017 Be part of the future 2017 SPRING Dear alumni EARTH SCIENCES ALUMNI MAGAZINE On Saturday 13 May, we will be holding our 12th Alumni Day GeoCam and Dinner. All Earth Sciences alumni, their partners and with a gift in your Will families are warmly invited to join us for what has always been a most enjoyable day. I hope to welcome many of you back to the Department. A gift in your Will is a meaningful way to help the Department flourish far into the future, and for you to be able to make a significant and lasting contribution. Such We have put together a diverse and interesting programme of activities throughout the day. Highlights include talks by a gift can open up a world of opportunity for future students, researchers and Emeritus Professor Dan McKenzie, Professor Nick Butterfield and academics, helping to provide the environment and tools they need to continue to Dr Sally Gibson. achieve great things. The day begins with coffee in the Watson Gallery (ground floor common room) at 11am. A buffet lunch will be served from a marquee on the Archaeology Lawn. There will be a wine reception in the Sedgwick Museum at 5pm and the day ends with the Alumni Dinner in St John's College. The ticket price for the day, including the lunch and dinner is £55 per person. Lunch can be booked separately. We hope that you will be able to join us. Bookings can be made on-line at www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/escday17 or alternatively please complete the attached form and send it to us, together with a cheque. As on previous occasions, we intend to invite members of the Sedgwick Club to join us for dinner at a subsidised rate. Alumni have enjoyed meeting students and this has added to the success of the occasion. The subsidy will be provided by the Department but if anyone would like to contribute to this cause, do please let us know. If you would like any help to contact fellow alumni and organise a group, or have any questions please do get in touch with Alison at [email protected]. Simon Redfern NEWS Head of Department Cumulate peridotite from the Isle of Rum layered series. Olivine chadacrysts sit within a clinopyroxene oikocryst in a well developed poikolitic texture. Thin section image taken Safe CO₂ storage in crossed polarisers, field of view approximately 1 mm. For further information about the impact of a legacy, and guidance FEATURE on how to leave a gift to the Department in your Will, please contact: Women in Geology Alison Holroyd, Alumni Co-ordinator Department of Earth Sciences Downing Street RESEARCH Cambridge CB2 3EQ Shells and Skeletons T +44 (0) 1223 333442 E [email protected] Do you receive our termly BOOKING FORM e-newsletter? Ways of staying in touch To be added to the mailing list, contact We send our communications, Alumni Magazine, a monthly RESEARCH NEWS us at [email protected] Earth Sciences Alumni Day including our termly Earth Sciences e-bulletin and the rest of their alumni FOR ALL THE LATEST EARTH SCIENCES RESEARCH NEWS, e-newsletter and e-invitations to communications. You can let us know Saturday 13 May 2017 VISIT WWW.CAM.AC.UK/AFFILIATIONS/DEPARTMENT-OF-EARTH-SCIENCES Follow us online: events, using data held by the what our communications preferences Alumni Day & Dinner at £55.00 No. £ University Development and Alumni are by contacting Alison at Latest Research News: per person (includes lunch and Relations Office (CUDAR). In addition [email protected] Research indicates “Carbon capture and storage is seen as www.cam.ac.uk/affiliations/ dinner in St John’s College) safe storage of CO₂ essential technology if the UK is to meet its department-of-earth-sciences to the communications from Earth Our Data Protection Statement can climate change targets. A major obstacle underground possible Sciences, the University send their be found at www.alumni.cam.ac.uk/ Buffet lunch at £10.00 per person No. £ to the implementation of CCS is the LinkedIn: Earth Sciences Alumni, award winning termly Cambridge dataprotection. (no charge for children under uncertainty over the long-term fate of the University of Cambridge 12 years old) New research shows that natural CO which impacts regulation, insurance, accumulations of CO trapped 2 2 and who assumes the responsibility for Fieldwork blog: I enclose a cheque for £ Total £ underground for around 100,000 years maintaining CO2 storage sites. Our study www.esc.cam.ac.uk/escfieldwork/ (made payable to the University of Cambridge) have not significantly corroded the rocks demonstrates that geological carbon ESC Library blog: above, suggesting that storing CO in 2 storage can be safe and predictable over esclib.wordpress.com/ Forthcoming Alumni Events reservoirs deep underground is much many hundreds of thousands of years.” Name(s) of guests: safer and more predictable over long In addition to our Earth Sciences Alumni Day and Dinner on Professor Mike Bickle, Director of the ESC Library on Twitter periods of time than previously thought. Saturday 13 May 2017: Cambridge Centre for Carbon Capture @EarthSciCam and Storage Monday 20 November 2017 The panel will be chaired by Simon Ages of children: ESC Library on Flicker: Alumni Panel Discussion at the Redfern, Professor of Mineral Physics www.flickr.com/photos/earthscicam/ READ MORE http:// goo.gl/r01v5S Geological Society, London and Head of Department. Simon Any dietary requirements: is a member of the Committee on Earth Sciences alumni are warmly Earth Sciences on YouTube: Radioactive Waste Management invited to join us for our third annual youtu.be/sUj4as55658 providing independent advice to panel discussion at the Geological A brief look at the earth sciences course the UK Government on long-term Society. Our expert panellists will to encourage the next generation of management of radioactive waste, give short talks and will then answer Earth scientists. including storage and disposal. questions from the floor. Afterwards Name: there will be drinks and canapés in the Our panellists include Dr Ian Farnan, Lower Library, and a chance to meet Reader in Earth and Nuclear Materials; Address: fellow alumni and the panel informally. Dr Nigel Woodcock, Emeritus Reader and and Dr Liz Harvey (Jesus Deep Geological Disposal 2003), Senior Consultant at Galson Sciences Ltd. The safe disposal of high-level Telephone: radioactive waste has been well Notifications for this event are sent Fossilised dinosaur brain An unassuming brown pebble, found researched and the international by email only. If you do not currently E-mail: tissue identified for the more than a decade ago in Sussex, has consensus is that deep geological receive our e-invitations and would been confirmed by a team including Earth Year of Graduation: Part II or III first time repositories are the preferred method. like to be added to the mailing list Sciences’ David Norman and Alex Liu as Only a handful of countries however let Alison know, at the first example of fossilised brain tissue PhD Below: Image of the specimen – Finland, Sweden, France and the [email protected] from a dinosaur. US – have started building permanent storage facilities. The fossil displays distinct similarities Return form with payment to: to the brains of modern-day crocodiles and birds. Meninges – the tough tissues surrounding the actual brain – as well as Alison Holroyd, Alumni Coordinator tiny capillaries and portions of adjacent Department of Earth Sciences cortical tissues have been preserved as Downing Street mineralised ‘ghosts’. Cambridge CB2 3EQ © T +44 (0) 1223 333442 JAMIE HISCOCKS JAMIE READ MORE http:// goo.gl/GFJNCR E [email protected] DETACH ALONG THE PERFORATION THE ALONG DETACH www.esc.cam.ac.uk Design and production H2 Associates, Cambridge © JIAN HAN, NORTHWEST UNIVERSITY, CHINA UNIVERSITY, NORTHWEST HAN, JIAN SPRING 2017 3 Welcome I’m delighted to welcome you once more to GeoCam, where you’ll find a little about what is going on in the department. For up to the minute news of our latest research, field trips and teaching initiatives, do take a look at the department web pages (www.esc.cam.ac.uk) if you get a chance. This GeoCam is flavoured by the theme of “women in Earth Sciences”, following our receipt of an Athena SWAN award during the last year. Athena SWAN is a national scheme that aims to encourage and advance gender equality in science, and to break down barriers to progression for all members of the Artist’s impression of Saccorhytus department. It’s fascinating to read of the early women pioneers in Cambridge geology: Mary Hughes and Gertrude Elles. I can’t Saccorhytus – humans’ oldest help but reflect on how they would react to the efforts we are making today to try and build family-friendly ways of working known ancestor that free everyone to pursue the scholarship we treasure. Researchers have identified what they suggest is the earliest Last year James Jackson signed off his term as Head of ancestor of humans – a microscopic, bag-like sea creature, Department with an article outlining our plans to bring which lived about 540 million years ago. Saccorhytus, named “downtown” and “Bullard” together, at last, in a new building in after its sack-like and elliptical body with a large mouth, was north-west Cambridge. The concept for this new building has found in China. been scoped out over the past few months, and in the coming If their conclusions, co-authored by the Department’s year you can expect to hear more details about those plans Simon Conway Morris, are correct, then Saccorhytus was the and how we hope to bring them to fruition.