How the earth made us
The following programme may be of interest to you…
How Earth Made Us - BBC 2 9pm Tuesday 19 January
Explores how geology, geography and climate have influenced and continue to shape human history. Each episode examines a different force…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qbvyc
In this first episode Iain explores the relationship between the deep Earth and the development of human civilisation.
Talking of the deep earth, it reminds me of my visit to Iceland and to Heimaey to see the youngest mountain in the world. See our case study in our brochure page 19 on how the humans had to deal with this eruption in 1973.
Hope you'll be watching too! Lorraine
Posted on January 14, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0) | E-mail this
Earthquake “Tweeters” help Scientists
The Twitter Earthquake Detection project was described at the American Geophysical Union's meeting. The “tweetering” spikes just after an earthquake.
They are hoping that using the social networking phenomenon will help the scientists and the emergency response teams to get information a little quicker. The spikes of traffic on the site greatly increases after an earthquake and will maybe assist to determine the severity of a quake slightly faster to better enable the emergency teams to make an assessment. It is speed over accuracy. For more information please see the BBC page “OMG Did you just feel that quake?”
However, you will be glad to hear that this monitoring of the “twitter” traffic is there to supplement tried and tested scientific reporting.
The Icelandic Meterological office publish the earthquake activity in Iceland on a regular basis and you can access this whenever you want to see the latest seismic charts. Or even better - why not visit Iceland on one of our education trips to see the active earth in motion.
Posted on December 15, 2009 in Geology | Permalink | Comments (0) | E-mail this
Schools see the Northern Lights!
For those of you off on school trips to Iceland this month with Discover the World you might like to know what the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights might be during your stay.
Going now during the October half term is an ideal time - weather permitting. As always with wildlife and the Northern Lights nothing is guaranteed but checking out the Geophysical Institute website in Alaska will give you an indication of the probability of seeing them - if clear skies are forecast.
My own expereiece of seeing the Northern Lights was when I accompanied a school group in October 2006, thanks Paul, and we saw an incredible display combined with an amazing show of shooting stars!
Have a great trip with School Discover... and hope you are successful in hunting down these elusive Northern Lights!
Lorraine
Posted on October 20, 2009 in Study Trips | Permalink | Comments (0) | E-mail this
