Colorado Rocks! Attending a research meeting on sedimentary systems

By Lucy Clarke (@DrLucyClarke)

  

Continuing the blog series looking at what we have been getting up to this summer...

Last week I was lucky enough to be in the US for a research conference and I'm sharing my experiences of this with you in this blog post. This was a specialist meeting, with about 50 people attending, focusing on the “Autogenic Dynamics of Sedimentary Systems” – so basically the importance of internal processes (i.e autogenic processes) in driving change in natural systems and how this is recorded in the 'rock record'.

You may be asking yourself... why is it important to understand what's recorded in the rock record? Well, geologists use this information to reconstruct long term environmental change. Layers of material are laid down through time and over lengthy time periods these form the rocks that we see all around us (i.e. a sedimentary system). By examining the grain size, composition and structures in these rocks it can tell us information about the type of processes that formed them and what the climate was like at the time using a technique called stratigraphy. So it's important to know not only how things like climate and tectonics can influence the sediment build up and preservation as it turns to rock, but also what effect other internal processes can have on this so that a correct interpretation can be made.

Stratigraphic profile from Colorado National Monument showing a fluvial section with thick layers of floodplain with thinner, coarser bands of channel material in between

The aim of the meeting was to bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers from ecology, geochemistry, geography, geology, and palaeontology to look at the research advances that have been made in different sedimentary systems to evaluate what, if any, ‘autogenic’ signals can be determined. Presentations covered a range of topics and included field, numerical modelling and experimental approaches that were being used to try and tackle this problem.

I presented the research that I introduced in my blog on 28 August 2013: What drives change on alluvial fans? I talked about how my experiments showed that internal processes within these landforms caused observable changes in the flow patterns. 

The sessions were really interesting and thought provoking. It was designed to be a discussion rather than just a one-way presentation of information from the speakers, consequently we had lots of time for asking questions supplemented by break out groups to follow up on ideas and think about the 'bigger picture'. I found this particularly useful as it helped me to generate new ideas as to how to develop my own research, as well as starting to think about the wider implications of my research. Additionally having the opportunity to talk to people from other related, but slightly different disciplines, has certainly broadened my perspectives.

Looking over the Colorado River to the city of Grand Junction (to the left) and the Grand Junction Main Street (to the right)

The meeting was held in the city of Grand Junction - situated in central Colorado, the town sits on the Colorado River with lots of wineries and agricultural land surrounding it. Grand Junction is a small traditional mid-West town with a population of about 60,000 that boasts a university and a quaint main street that has a night market every Thursday evening during the summer. Temperatures were around 30°C every day and despite a couple of thunderstorms at the start of my trip the weather was great. Close to the town is the Colorado National Monument, this is a national park about 85 km² in size, containing stunning mesas and canyons. As part of the conference we were treated to a field day to experience the park's impressive geologic formations and see if we could explore, and apply, some of the conference themes in a field setting.

Colorado National Monument: looking over the national park (left) and geologists looking at a rock section showing preserved sand dunes (right)

I thoroughly enjoyed my week in Colorado. I got to explore a new area but most of all I made new connections for my research with the potential for new collaborations in the future. I learned about lots of current research from different, but related, areas that I hadn’t previously been aware of, which has rejuvenated my own research in this area - so all round it was a successful trip!

Enjoying the sunshine on the field day in Colorado National Monument

#madwriting in the real world – write-ins and writing workshops.

By Rebecca Williams (@volcanologist)

One of my favourite Twitter things is the #madwriting hashtag. Got 45 minutes you want to dedicate to some paper writing? Tweet it, set goals, get some allies and then dedicate 45 minutes to uninterrupted writing. Get that abstract written, that paper started or even do some #madediting and get a manuscript ready for submission. Our ever increasing workloads mean that writing up our research for publication gets shunted for delivering lectures, designing lab practicals, endless admin tasks, long, drawn out meetings and often, even more meetings. Yet, publishing papers remains one of the most important outputs of our work – grant money aside, it’s what academics are most judged on. #madwriting helps find some time to get some writing done.

Recently, I’ve been involved in some real-life #madwriting sessions. I’ve been to THE GEES Network Writing Workshop and a GEESology Writing Group Write-In. Ultimately about academic writing, both had different aims and both were successful. 

THE GEES Network is a network that I got involved in when I was working as a Teaching Fellow. It is a support network for teaching-focussed academics (either those on teaching-only contracts, or those who identify as teaching-focussed). The recent workshop was part of a two-day professional development event where I was talking about taking the step from teaching fellow to getting a teaching & research lectureship. The writing workshop aimed to get together some people who were writing papers on pedagogy in GEES, or themes around teaching in Higher Education. Before the workshop participants expressed an interest in a theme and then joined up with other participants who wanted to write on the same theme and put a draft paper together. Some were already working together, others forged new collaborations. It was particularly aimed at helping those who were publishing in this field for the first time. We read each other’s drafts (in vastly different states of completion, but that didn’t matter), discussed possible destinations, research methods and how to present our data. This was particularly useful for those of us used to discipline-specific publishing.

The GEESology Writing Group Write-In is completely different. This is more like a real-life #madwriting session. We’ve done two write-ins now – one was a full day write-in and one was a half day. What we do is book a room OUTSIDE of our department. We don’t go far, just to the Student Union building who have some nice rooms with decent views across campus. We gather together and set our goals for the day. Some people need to start papers, others need to get them ready for submission, others need to write grant proposals. Goals are normally a word count, or a page count, or a section. We then get going on a set period of time of uninterrupted, no talking, no email checking, non-distracted writing. Normally we do 45 minutes, or an hour. Then, we take a short break (15 mins), review how it’s going, maybe grab a coffee or eat some of the goodies that some good soul has normally baked for us (thanks Jane!). Its important here to celebrate achievements,  no matter how small.

Then repeat. Then repeat again, and continue repeating for however long we have. At the end of the day, goals are reviewed and stickers given out to the successful. Reflecting on what we’ve achieved is motivating and helps the momentum spill out into the rest of our day or week. We find that getting a good, quiet, airy room away from our department with access to coffee works best. Going somewhere specifically TO WRITE certainly helps concentrate the mind. Sticking to the blocks of time and making sure everyone has a break after each block prevents writing burn out and helps make writing enjoyable. It also helps to celebrate those small goals – each paragraph contributes to an eventual paper!

I have found both of these workshops really useful. One actively used the group to help discuss our manuscripts and improve our papers. The other used the group for support and motivation. Both achieved their aims equally well and I’d recommend either approach though I think that the writing workshop is most suitable for research groups. The GEESology write-ins have proved so popular that we’re planning on running half-days weekly through the summer....we’d better get baking!

Transitional ecopreneurs – a conference in Sweden, June 2014 (#ecopreneurs2014)

by Kirstie O'Neill

@KirstieJONeill

I am recently back from a really stimulating conference in Sweden, discussing the role of green entrepreneurs (aka ecopreneurs) with people from many different academic backgrounds and many different geographical places.  The idea behind the conference came from Martin Hultman, a research fellow at Umea University, Sweden.  He got in touch with me a few years ago now, after reading my University webpage on the research I was doing with David Gibbs (blogged here).  So, writing departmental webpages is useful and can lead to unexpected places!

Kerstin Uddes, Sweden (author's photo)

So, writing a few paragraphs on the UoH GEES website led to me being on the organising committee for the symposium entitled ‘Transitional green entrepreneurs: Re-thinking ecopreneurship for the 21st century’, which finally materialised into the conference on 2-5^th June 2014.  The conference was held in a Swedish cooperatively-run health spa (think health benefits of the outdoors rather than manis and pedis!), which provided a beautiful and inspiring setting for a conference (and may have helped attract a few participants!).  Being this far north in Sweden in June, it never got dark, so sleeping was a challenge.

Picnic of local goats cheese and typical Swedish breads (author's photo)

Opening the floodgates! And getting the mill stones turning (author's photo)

In addition to the ‘proper’ work of the conference, and unusually for social scientists, we got the opportunity to get outside and enjoy the fresh air of Northern Sweden.  This included a visit to a goat farm for some, while others went on a forest walk and had a picnic around a campfire.  The highlight for many of us, was a beaver safari by kayak, going across the lake and into rivers feeding the lake where beavers lived.  So many people wanted to go on the safari that we had to split into two groups – I (rather foolishly) volunteered to go with the early morning one – a 4am departure!  We got to see a few beavers enjoying the early morning and playing around in the riverJ

Evidence of beavers - this was a huge tree some distance from the river 

So, what do we mean by ‘ecopreneurs’?  Green entrepreneurs (or ecopreneurs) and the idea of a green economy more broadly are increasingly seen as an important strategy for reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and for combating the recession.  The popular media and a small, but growing, set of academic literature have argued that these entrepreneurs are leading a shift to a new green economy and helping to address fears over global warming, climate change and the associated negative environmental impacts.  However, both popular accounts and academic research have placed too much emphasis on the role of the lone individual or the ‘entrepreneur as hero’ approach, as well as relying heavily on anecdotal evidence.  In particular, charismatic individuals such as Anita Roddick (Body Shop), Yves Chouinard (Patagonia) or Dale Vince (Ecotricity) have come to be viewed as icons.  Many of the people at this conference, including our own research paper, are working to develop a more detailed and nuanced picture of ecopreneurship.

In a forthcoming paper (O’Neill and Gibbs), we argue that ecopreneurs are a diverse set of actors whose motivations, ethics and practices can vary significantly, indicating a more complex picture than has previously been recognised. 

We had three days of interesting talks, with keynotes from Robert Isaak, who was one of the first to publish on ecopreneurs, and Anne de Bruin, a NZ economist with a particular interest in sustainability entrepreneurship.  We also had talks from local ecopreneurs and social activists, such as Sofia Jannok, a Sami singer working to protect Sami rights to land in northern Scandinavia – her singing and images were a haunting reminder of the impacts of modern development on some rural areas and those who live in them.  Torbjörn Lahti spoke of his work to develop ecopreneurial activities in his community, in response to declining population and lack of local employment opportunities – his work and initiative has been popular and has led to projects in many overseas countries.  What I found particularly inspiring was the gender balance - there were more women than men, all doing interesting, critical research (of course, the men were too, but women are usually under-represented).

Sofia Jannok singing and talking about the Sami homelands and folklore (author's photo)

In combination with the wide range of papers that were given by the participants, we left the conference feeling that ecopreneurship was a much wider phenomenon than we might have imagined when we arrived.  Many participants were from business school backgrounds, but the range of perspectives covered during the conference made it clear that ecopreneurs are having social, political, economic and environmental benefits!  The conference was a really inspiring event with many people saying they would like to meet again to continue the conversation...in the meantime, we are planning a book including many of the papers, and a special issue of the journal Small Enterprise Research is planned.

View from the jetty with  hot tub, sauna and ladder to the lake - we didn't want to leave! (author's photo)

Cheltenham Science Festival – a lesson in public engagement

By Rebecca Williams (@volcanologist)

Last week I was part of a University of Hull team who went to Cheltenham Science Festival (CSF), one of the biggest science festivals in the UK. CSF is a six day event of talks, demonstrations and general science fun aimed at everyone from school children to retired adults. We were involved in activities across this spectrum. The GEES team had a River in a Box display in the Discover Zone to show how rivers work, headed by Dave Milan and Dan Parsons, and delivered by an army of awesome postgrad students. Dave Milan debated 'A waterproof World?'. Dave Bond and I gave a talk on mass extinction and volcanism. March Lorch and Phil Bell-Young seemed to be doing a million things from workshops for school children on ‘your body the chemical analyser’ to a talk on ‘iPads and avatars’ - the motion capture monkey who stars in this had been entertaining the Green Room with his antics, including a few celeb scientists!

The GEES' 'River in a Box' at CSF. Photo courtesy of Chris Unsworth (@unsteadyriver)

For me, it was one of the first times I gave a talk to a true ‘public’ audience. I do a fair amount of public engagement and outreach activities. I do schools events, I run a Twitter account and have done chats to school children using it, this blog’s original intention was for a general audience, and I’m booked in for talks this year at both the Hull Geological Society and the Rotunda Geology Group (Scarborough). This was the first time though that I was giving a talk to a genuinely unknown audience, who didn’t have a particular interest in geology. And they were paying!

Can volcanoes wipe out life on Earth? Mine and Dave's talk at CSF. Photo courtesy of Leiping Ye (@Leiping_Ye)

Dave and I were quite happy with our talk. It showcased some of Dave’s NERC funded research and we’d developed a pretty cool ThermiteVolcano especially for the event, with a lot of help from our pet chemist Mark. We got lots of great questions and were followed by a group to The Times Talking Point for further discussion. People in the audience have contacted me since to say how much they enjoyed it.

Some of the FameLab International Final winners (Alumni and Audience awards) being presented with their prizes by Prof Alice Roberts

That night though, we all went along to the FameLab International Finals and I was blown away. If you don’t know it, FameLab is a competition of science communication, a kind of XFactor for scientists. Contestants get 3 minutes to entertain and educate the audience about a particular scientific concept. This year, finalists presented science stretching from how language works in the brain (done in sign language as well as spoken!) to how exercise can boost stem cells to combat dementia to how honey bees can be trained to detect explosives and drugs (and are better than sniffer dogs!). The science is not dumbed down, nor is it jazzed up. It is explained beautifully and clearly, sometimes with props and sometimes without.

This got me thinking back to my talk. Did I really need all those powerpoint slides? Did I really need all those facts and figures? Events such as the brilliant Cafe Scientifique movement would argue that we don’t need powerpoint at all and my experience at FameLab would back that up. So, what next for my engagement activities? Mark has finally convinced me to give the Beverly Cafe Scientifique a go, so I’ll see how I’ll fare without my powerpoint comfort blanket. Dave and I are planning on doing our ‘Can volcanoes wipe out life on Earth?’ talk in Hull this year, maybe as the Christmas Lecture. In the meantime, I’ll be taking part in ‘I’m a scientist...get me out of here!’ over the next couple of weeks, an exciting chance to chat science to school children.

Cheltenham Science Festival - I loved the giant molecules scattered about the place

I’ll leave you with a question though. Engagement isn’t about us, as GEESologists, it’s about you guys – the people reading this blog and coming to these events. What do you want to see, hear or read about? And how best can we tell you about it? Let us know your thoughts!

A quick shout out to those awesome postgraduate students: Leping Ye, Chris Unsworth, Claire Keevil, Dave Jordan and Xuxu Wu. Special thanks also to Cameron Webb, who only popped down for the day to see our talk and ended up getting roped in to help!

Environmental Microbiology and Me!

Researcher profile: Karen Scott (@DrKarenScott)

As an environmental microbiologist with a biological background I didn't think I would end up working in a geography department. In fact thinking back to my childhood I never thought I would end up in academia, or geography come to that - to be honest my only memories of geography from my school days involved writing a news article on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and drawing a cross section of the Earth! Having always been fascinated by animals, I grew up wanting to work with them in some way or another (once my dad had burst my bubble about a career in bricklaying not being like an episode of ‘Auf Wiedersehen, Pet’!).

I got a place on a BSc Animal Behaviour and Science course at Bishop Burton College in the East Riding of Yorkshire, which I thoroughly enjoyed. However, I found studying animals less engaging than I expected and instead was drawn towards modules assessing the impact of the environment on them. Developing my skills in this environmental sector made me re-evaluate the direction of my career.

Anaerobic workout in the lab

Once I’d completed my degree I got a job working in a microbiology laboratory testing a wide variety of samples ranging from fresh food to environmental water samples. It was a demanding job with long hours but it had its perks, such as free turkeys for the family at Christmas! After a year of working there I’d managed to save up enough money to cover the fees for a Masters degree. I joined the University of Hull Biological Sciences Department and spent a year assessing the effect of contaminated water on shore crab behaviour.

Thoroughly enjoying my year researching and writing I decided the research route was for me, and that’s when I started looking for PhDs. I picked up another microbiology role, similar to the previous one, while I hunted for a PhD and after a few months of looking I found one back at Hull based in Geography. The project investigated the ability of organic matter to decompose within the drainage system in the City of Hull, in particular studying the microbial community, and assessing if it could be increased in some way (outlined in my earlier blog post). Although the project was out of my area, it was cross disciplinary with biology so with a bit of extra background reading before starting, I was able to hit the ground running.

Nice day for fieldwork at Winscar 

After I completed my PhD, I commenced a six month research position in the department where I was split between two environmental projects. I'm now based in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds for the next 13 months working in moorland management and hydrology. The project enables me to expand my skill set within the environmental area, while allowing me the opportunity to get my teeth into some research within the department, which remains a great passion of mine. While I'm not sure if after this project’s completion I will take my career into industry or remain within the academic sector, I am excited by the opportunities for both that come my way.

How I Got To Be An Academic

by Jane Bunting (@DrMJBunting)

Time for my 'researcher profile', and particularly timely as Jacqueline Gill over at the wonderfully named "Contemplative Mammoth" blog has just announced a call for a blog carnival of posts about people's post-PhD-training careers, whether in academe or elsewhere.  I WILL begin my story with my training, but as I defended my PhD in 1993, it will cover 20 post-training years as well.  I'll try not to go on too long...

I'm currently a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences at the University of Hull.  I'm a palaeoecologist (I study long term ecological systems using the remains of plants and animals preserved in stratigraphic order in lakes and bogs as my 'time machine' to look back and see how things have changed), using mainly pollen analysis, with a particular research interest in the uncertainties and limitations of our methods.  I teach biogeography, environmental change, Quaternary Science and 'skills' type modules, mostly, with a bit of environmental archaeology or landscape history some years.  Being an academic suits me because I like both teaching and research about equally (unless I'm asked the question in Marking Marathon Week).

Pond behind my childhood home (outlined in blue) - googlemaps

As a kid, I liked to know how things work - but not in a taking-apart-and-rebuilding-gadgets way, more in a systems and connections way.  Although I was raised in a really rather dull suburb of Manchester, our identikit suburban semi had an old field pond at the bottom of the garden (one of a series along a recharge zone in the clays in the area).  My parents had thoughtfully made a hedge between the tidier garden and the pond, which gave us kids privacy, and it was our own little bit of wilderness (more mine because my sister was scared of frogs and more averse to getting muddy).  I fell in it (quite a lot), fished creatures and plants out of it and identified them with the aid of a variety of books, made dens of various kinds, dug clay out of the banks and made pots, spent months of summers reading under the willow tree, collected and pressed the wild flowers... muck can be magic! I was also an obsessive reader of anything, history enthusiast, talked a lot, and played 'school' endlessly - I didn't like school, exactly, and liked it less the older I got, but I liked being the teacher and explaining stuff.

 Well into my teens, what I wanted to be when I grew up varied between an explorer, an English eccentric or a part-time hermit (I wanted two social afternoons a week, and a cabin in the hills the rest of the time.  I had it all worked out!).

I dropped Biology as soon as I could at school (didn't like the teacher, didn't want to dissect an eyeball which was the highlight of the next year's syllabus), but did get an O-level in Geography (one of the teachers was gorgeous - oh, the things that shape students' choices at 14!).  I wanted to take History, Latin and Double Maths at A-level, but when that couldn't be accommodated rather grumpily took the more conventional Double Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and realising that I wasn't good enough at maths to be a mathematician (I got A's, but there was a lad in the class who was just So Much Better than me...) applied to university to do natural sciences with a physics focus (my back-up choices were physics courses).  I messed up my first interview at Cambridge royally, was 'pooled' to Newnham College which kindly took me on, and went up in 1987 to study Natural Sciences.  Oh, the joy of a 24/7 library in the building I slept in!  But Physics quickly became my least favourite part of the course, as the theory went fine but the practicals did NOT - electronics and I are not good friends.  I soldered a lot of things together but rarely got anything to work.  I realised that the two topics in physics I most enjoyed in theory, sub-atomic and astronomy, required extensive electronics and optics, so came back for my second year not knowing what to do.  I took theoretical chemistry, history and philosophy of science and botany (chosen on the grounds that you didn't have to cut up animals or remember the names of biochemicals - despite my lack of school biology, the university sent me off with a summer reading list and let me switch), switched to the 'ecology' route in the second term which happened to include one lecture from Professor Richard West on the Quaternary History of the British Flora and that was it - I'd found my academic field.  I spent my final year in the Botany department, did dissertations on a historical topic (my first paper!) and on a pollen record from Star Carr in Yorkshire, got my first and got a NERC 'Framework' PhD studentship to continue in the department working with Dr (now Professor) Keith Bennett (sounds so tidy - hides a LOT of stress, panic, sweat etc. etc.).

Ring of Brodgar, Orkney - pic from Orkneyjar.

The topic we came up with was the Vegetation History of Orkney, and I spent three mostly happy years visiting one of the most beautiful and addictive places in Britain, reading masses of archaeological and historical literature alongside the palaeoecological stuff, counting challenging pollen samples and learning a huge amount about Geography and Environmental Change (by auditing classes, reading, listening, arguing, going to seminars, volunteering on other people's fieldwork...).  Keith gave me some very good advice on day one: "the chances of you getting an academic job are not zero, but at this point they aren't statistically distinct from zero.  If you get to the end of your PhD, can't get or don't want an academic job, and are starting out in a graduate career three years after your friends, will you regret the time lost?  If so, you should think very seriously about carrying on."  I never expected to be able to carry on after my PhD - I had vague ideas about teaching or accountancy (with a view to working for an environmental charity or the like, since they'd all need to have their books kept) - so I made the most of my chance to do nothing but learn (and row and sing, hobbies are important, but the learning was the point of it all).  At the end of my second year, Keith suggested it might be worth me applying for funding to do a year or two of post-doctoral work.  I liked the idea of spending some time overseas and being a typical near-monoglot Brit wanted to go somewhere English-speaking so contacted a few people in Sweden and Canada.  I put in a few (maybe 4?) applications for funding, then got on with my PhD, thinking of them more as a lottery ticket than a career plan.

picture borrowed from tourist board web-site - can't find my photo folder!

 But much to my surprise, I got one - and became a NATO Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Wetlands Research Centre, University of Waterloo in Canada, with Professor Barry Warner for the next two years.  In short order, I learnt a lot about sub-zero winters, the importance of air-conditioning in humid summers, coffee shops, TimBits, black flies, bug jackets, the relative lack of slang in Canadian English and teaching in the North American system - oh, and wetlands.  I enjoyed the landscape ('fall' was as amazing as the tourist brochures promised), the people, the wildlife (a chipmunk raised babies just outside our office window, SO CUTE), I missed pubs, people who talked fast and crisps in single-serving packets, and got very frustrated by my project.  A lot of things went wrong and I actually spent about half my time working with surface samples rather than on lakes as planned... in the end that turned out to be a Good Thing, but at the time it was very stressful!

View from the city of Stirling towards the university - a lovely place to live

After two years of that, I came home with a few more papers on the way, spent a few months living at my parents (we all deserve medals for surviving that) and applying for everything that came my way, a six week stint in Sheffield doing some lab work, then got a six month contract at Stirling University on an environmental archaeology related project.  Relocating to Scotland and working on environmental archaeology was exactly what I wanted to do, but the scarcity of jobs was getting me down, even as I began to get some interviews.  Richard Tipping, my boss in Stirling, kindly helped me sort out an unpaid affiliation to the university after my contract ended which gave me a desk, library access etc., and passed little bits of contract work my way when he had them, but I got depressingly familiar with the whole process of signing on, proving you're looking for work every week, applying for housing benefit cycle.  Throughout 1996 and 1997, I applied for post-docs and academic jobs across the UK, and when my first contract in Stirling ended I also developed an exit plan and set myself a timetable for either getting another academic contract or stopping the academic jobhunt altogether.

And then, just like London buses, two jobs came along at once.  I took the one in Hull because it had the longer contract, despite not knowing anything about the place, and I've been here ever since.  Most days, I think that's a good thing!  Palaeoecology definitely lets - nay, encourages! - me to get muddy and to explore how the natural world works, I get to read archaeology and history books and have it count as work, and I get to teach as well.  You'll have to ask my students how I'm doing on the English Eccentric career path... but I don't despair of achieving that goal one day too.

Geographers' gadgets: notebooks

Sadly this image doesn't come on a notebook...

by Jane Bunting

This week is kind of quiet around the Department - the second years are away on their overseas field study weeks, along with just over half the academics, the first years have mostly gone home for a break (hopefully with plenty of reading to catch up on, since it is technically reading week for them) and the third years are working away on their dissertations.  Watching the different teams get their equipment together and listening to students (and colleagues) swapping the usual "my trip will be more work/more fun/sunnier than your trip" banter reminded me again of just how varied our subject is.  We study... well, pretty much anything that comes our way.  Geographers don't just study the world, we poke our noses into every corner of the world of study.  However, the field trips also point up things we have in common.  The students are going overseas to experience places on their own terms, to try to observe objectively what happens, to compare it with what happens in other places, and then to understand something of why and how it happens, whether "it" is a piece of public art, a type of agriculture or a distinctive rock formation.  Observation, then trying to understand what we see, then trying to explain that understanding to other people, lies at the heart of the business of being a geographer.

Stationery lust objects.  I WANT THEM ALL.

Asked to write a post at short notice, I decided to write about some of the tools I use as a GEESologist, then realised that just the list would take up most of the post!  So perhaps we can have a series, along with the "my story" series... we all have our favourite pieces of kit.  I get that "ooooooo, Jane waaannnnttttt" reaction some women get at the sight of Jimmy Choos to a really well-made collapsible quadrat, to almost anything in the latest Nikon microscopy catalogue or Van Walt field soil sampler catalogue... and to a really decent notebook.  Last week one of our colleagues arrived at the Departmental Meeting with a brand new Moleskine notebook - a rich red, A5 one.  At least half a dozen people watched with varying degrees of envy as he removed the plastic, snapped back the elastic, and smoothed open that first all-important page. One of the nice things about working as a GEES-ologist is being around other people who share some quirks with me!
 As a youngster, I had a bit of an obsession with stationery, and would regularly spend my pocket money on notebooks, pens, stickers and so on.  I especially liked notebooks, and often made my own by cutting scrap paper to size, sewing a binding, making and decorating the cover...  Actually that should be in the present tense: I like notebooks.  There are about twenty empty notebooks of various kinds stashed in a drawer in my house and another 30 or so around the office at work.  Notebooks are neat, and I like to know I'm not in danger of running out any time soon.  I'm clearly not alone: in searching for images for this post, I came across a blog devoted to notebooks - oh dear, another procrastination location for me!  

One essential supply item for the undergrad field trips is the issuing of the Field Notebook, a.k.a. Field Diary.  This emphasised to me that, like all scientists, our most basic toolkit consists of our ability to observe what is actually there in the world, and to record our immediate observations for later consideration.  I find myself frequently telling students that they need to have "something to write ON and something to write WITH" for classes, field trips, meetings etc. and the same is definitely true of the professional GEESologist, even if some are beginning to transfer these functions to a virtual electronic notebook.

A page from Lyell's 1840 field notes

a page from Darwin's field notebook

The notebook tradition is quite well established - the picture on the right is a page from Darwin's notebooks kept during the Voyage of the Beagle, and on the left a page from Lyell's 1840 notebook.  Clearly the tradition of quick sketches and crossings out has a decent history!  Darwin wrote:

'Let the collector's motto be, "Trust nothing to the memory;" for the memory becomes a fickle guardian when one interesting object is succeeded by another still more interesting.'

Technology, I'm pleased to say, HAS moved on a little - the mechanical pencil (removing the need for carrying a pencil sharpener in the field), the gel or cartridge pen  (ink without the bottle!) and best of all the waterproof notebook all make it easier to take notes under field conditions - but observation, and the recording of observation, is still and always will be at the heart of the GEES-ologist's toolkit.

How do you become a volcanologist?

Researcher profile: Dr Rebecca Williams (@volcanologist)

How do you get to be a volcanologist? That’s a question I get asked a LOT. And a question that I’m happy to talk to anybody about, because I think it’s the best job in the world. It’s a question that I never had anybody to ask it to, when I was thinking about what career I might want to have. Through my GCSEs I got more and more interested in physical geography and my rock collection at home was growing (on the journey back from a Girl Guides camping trip, the coach driver asked me “what have you got in here, rocks or something?!” as he loaded my bags. He was stunned when I replied “yes, actually”). For a GCSE project we did an information pamphlet for the people of Naples about the volcano Vesuvius. Could you do this as a job?!

Pantelleria caldera lake - studying volcanoes means travel to some beautiful places.

But when I met with the ‘careers guidance’ teacher at school, they didn’t know what you could do to study volcanoes and geology. “Perhaps you could be a geophysicist?!” Well that was a word I’d heard of, being an avid Time Team watcher, so I thought that it sounded like a good idea. I chose my A levels based on that careers advice and started collecting university prospectuses based on who offered geophysics, but found myself narrowing down my UCAS choices by who emphasised volcanology on their courses.

Working at HVO as a gas geochemist.

The promise that ‘some of our undergraduates have volunteered at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO)’ made me head off to Royal Holloway to do a BSc in Geology. By that point I’d had a Nuffield Science Bursary and been awarded a Gold Crest Award for a summer’s work experience at TGS-NOPEC, where I discovered that geophysics probably wasn’t for me. But I knew that studying Geology would be ace, and I wasn’t wrong. My degree instilled a love of fieldwork, a sense of travel and adventure and a never ending curiosity about rocks: where did they come from? how they were formed? I entered my 3^rd year not really knowing what career I’d end up having, but knew I wanted it to be geology related. I applied constantly to the HVO until they finally offered me a placement. So, a week after graduation I flew to Hawaii where I worked as a gas geochemist for 6 months. This was not only an amazing experience (walking on lava flows, contributing to important science, hiking across volcanic terrain, snorkelling at the weekends) but also the moment when I realised that I could be a volcanologist as a career.

My path to volcanology wasn't always linear. For a while I worked as a PADI Divemaster.

On return from HVO I spent a year and a half working at the Hydroactive Dive Centre as a PADI Divemaster. I spent this time saving up and applying for Grad School so I could get a Master’s degree in Volcanology. I was awarded a teaching assistantship to study at the University of Buffalo in the USA. Here, my interest in hazardous volcanic flows developed, starting with my Master’s research on lahars.  Developing and driving my own research was something I’d really enjoyed so I then searched high and low for a great PhD project so I could continue doing volcanic research. I returned to the UK to do my PhD at the University of Leicester on pyroclastic density currents.

Logging volcanic deposits in the field

After my PhD I sailed as an igneous petrologist on an IODP expedition, and held a series of short-term teaching contracts at Leicester. This post-doc time of anyone’s life can be tough – when you’re never sure if that holy grail of an academic job can be found. I stuck it out, worked hard, juggled a part-time job as a teaching fellow and a part-time research job and gained some invaluable experience. Then, a year ago I made the move to Hull as a lecturer in geology, undertaking research in volcanology and now hold a permanent position. I made it. I’m a volcanologist. Now, I'm training up a new generation of budding geographers, geologists and hopefully, a volcanologist or two.

Taking the long route - how I got here...

by Kirstie O'Neill

(@KirstieJONeill)

As you can see from reading through this GEESology blog, geography is indeed a broad discipline covering all manner of exciting areas.  The ways which each of us GEESologists have come to this are equally varied – so here’s my version as a social geographer! 

1970s singer Kenny Loggins
(Source: www.last.fm)

I always loved geography, and reading maps – I had great teachers at school which really helped, although sometimes the singing was a drawback (‘footloose’ by Kenny Loggins sticks in my mind!).  

I knew I wanted to do geography at A-level and did better than expected so was able to study it at University too. I got a place (unexpectedly) at Newcastle University.  Studying geography at University was different to school, and we got to specialise in areas that hadn’t even come up at school – rural geography appealed to me, I just seemed to enjoy and ‘get’ it.  But, I couldn't believe our first fieldtrip was back to West Cumbria and my old school's barn (below) - no exciting field trips anywhere exotic unfortunately!

Bakerstead Barn, Eskdale, West Cumbria - on a rare sunny day!

After university I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but knew it would be geography and rural based – luckily, the rural community council in Cumbria, Voluntary Action Cumbria, had Lottery funding to train up rural community development workers.  The interview was a baptism by fire, a whole day with the other candidates and being ‘interviewed’ by the staff and trustees all day.  But, I got the job and needed to quickly buy my first car to do the job, and enjoyed a few years back in my native Cumbria doing rural community development.  But all good things must come to an end.

Over the next six years, I moved to Durham County Council, Yorkshire Rural Community Council and finally North Yorkshire County Council all doing rural development stuff.  I was working for North Yorkshire County Council when I saw a PhD advertised – I’d been thinking of doing one for a while, although didn’t realise you could actually get funding to do one.  The one advertised was funded, and was a collaborative research project with the local council – so I had a chat to the people at Hull University.  It sounded really exciting – local food was an area I was really interested in, and the opportunity to learn Italian and getting to do research in Italy didn’t sound so bad either!

               Researching rural development and local food in the Abruzzo region of Italy

So, in 2007 I also gave up my job and went back to University full-time (fieldtrips have improved!), I passed my PhD viva in 2012 (my thesis is available here) and have been lucky to get postdoc positions after the PhD too – I’m about to start a new job at Lancaster University looking at food and whether peoples’ decisions about what to buy include any consideration of sustainability.  This brings my PhD work (food) and my post-doc work (low carbon, green entrepreneurs, sustainability) together and hopefully I’ll get to write something about it soon...

I’d like to continue researching green building (here) and food (here), both of which are really important in relation to sustainability, but as ever, it all depends on what’s around at the end of the next short-term contract!