August 2013 ESE Newsletter

Burgess Shale from Emerald Lake. Credit: Nachosan, Wikimedia Commons.

Mystery fossils, Martian rocks and a flurry of awards and publications for the department. A great summer all round!

Publications
Awards
Conference Lectures
Research Activity
Impact and Media
Rio Tinto Scholarships
Summer Outreach Program
Earthclass

Publications

Barrott, J.J., Dudeney, A. W. L. and Mason, P. J. (2013). Spatial and temporal relationships between Eocene sand horizons and iron contamination in streams in the Thames Basin west of London, UK. Geochemistry: Exploration, Environment, Analysis. Doi: 10.1144/geochem2009-020.

D’Emic, M.D., Mannion, P.D., Upchurch, P., Benson, R.B.J., Pang, Q. and Cheng, Z. (2013). Osteology of Huabeisaurus allocotus (Sauropoda: Titanosauriformes) from the Upper Cretaceous of China. PLoS ONE. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069375.

Lewis, M.M., Jackson, C.A.-L. and Gawthorpe, R.L. (2013). Salt-influenced normal fault growth and forced folding: The Stavanger Fault System, North Sea. Journal of Structural Geology. Doi: 10.1016/j.jsg.2013.07.015.

Paluszny, A. and Zimmerman, R.W. (2013). Numerical fracture growth modeling using smooth surface geometric deformation. Engineering Fracture Mechanics. Doi:10.1016/j.engfracmech.2013.04.012.

Spencer, A.R.T., Wang, S.J., Dunn, M.T. and Hilton, J. (2013). Species of the medullosan ovule Stephanospermum from the Lopingian (late Permian) floras of China. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. Doi: 10.1016/j.jseaes.2013.07.030. 

Xu, F., Almeida, T. P.,  Chang, H., Xia, Y., Wears, M. L. and Zhu Y. (2013). Multi-walled Carbon/IF-WS2 Nanoparticles with Improved Thermal Properties. Nanoscale. Doi: 10.1039/C3NR03844K.

Awards

Jianguo Liu has been awarded the (London) Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers’ Prize for the best paper published by the Institute of Measurement and Control in 2012 on ‘the development or application of scientific instrumentation’. His paper, entitled ‘ PCIS Subpixel Technology’, was published in September 2012.

Peter Fitch has been awarded the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts (SPWLA) Best Poster Presentation at the 2013 Symposium in New Orleans for his paper “The petrophysical link between reservoir quality and heterogeneity: application of the Lorenz coefficient”. Following from this, SPWLA have invited him to be a Distinguished Speaker 2013-2014. 

ESE swept away this year’s National Student Survey (NSS). The department scored the maximum of 100% satisfaction on 17 out of 22 NSS questions and 95% or over in the remaining 5 questions. The results were released on 13^th August.

Conference Lectures

Trevor Almeida gave a talk at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2013 in Indianapolis on ‘Oxidation of pseudo-single domain Fe₃O₄ particles and associated magnetic response examined by environmental TEM and off-axis electron holography’.

Research Activity

Zita Martins, Matt Genge and Renato Santos went on a fieldtrip to Western Australia to collect geological samples that are analogues to Mars.

Impact and Media

Sanjeev Gupta appeared on BBC News to talk about the Curiosity rover's first year on Mars. 

Mystery stolen fossil identified! Kimberley Johnston helped determine the origin of fossils confiscated at the Canadian border under suspicion of illegal removal from the Burgess Shale deposit. Kimberley’s previous work linking the sedimentary layers of the Burgess Shale to chemical mud volcanism, served as a baseline geochemical signature against which to compare the mystery fossil samples. Her study used geochemical and mineralogical evidence as refined “fingerprinting” techniques to link the suspect samples to known Burgess Shale locality data and show that it could not be from some other, unprotected, locality.

Zita Martins was interviewed by The Telegraph on her research about astrobiology. Zita was also selected to have her portrait sketched for the Royal Society exhibit about women in science (exhibit until 19 September).

Rio Tinto Scholarships

Our Rio Tinto Scholars have been undertaking their internships this summer and you can read about some of their experiences via their blog (written by Hayley Meek, Isobel Mackay and Harry Fisher of ESE, and Liam Bale of Chemical Engineering). The blog was featured as a News item on the IC homepage in August to promote the ongoing Educational Partnership between Rio Tinto and Imperial College. 

Hayley Meek and Isobel Mackay with the Rotary Breakage Tester.

Summer Outreach Program

Headstart, 2 July 2013

ESE once again played host to 60 sixth form students as part of a week-long summer school to encourage applications for STEM subjects at university. 

Craig Magee showed the group “HOW TO TAME VOLCANOES”, using an interactive presentation and explosive demonstrations of volcanic phenomena. Emma Passmore then gave them an introduction to geological field skills in the workshop “ROCKS, MINERALS AND MICROSCOPES: LIFE AS AN EXPLORATION GEOLOGIST” where students developed rock and mineral identification skills in the search for diamonds. Emma Passmore closed the day with a geosciences quiz, awarding prizes to the most accomplished exploration team. The workshops were assisted by Jennifer Quye-Sawyer, Rachael Shuttleworth, Alex Norori-McCormac, Chandra Taposeea and Katy Murphy, and overseen by Emma Passmore.

BG Group Summer School, Exscitec, 18 July 2013

ESE hosted 120 students during one day of a week-long summer Geo-Marine summer school, designed to encourage applications for STEM subjects at university.

After an introduction to the Department of Earth Science and Engineering from Lorraine Craig, Director of Undergraduate Studies, the students attended Earth Sciences workshops. Becky Bell designed and delivered a workshop, “SHAKE UP: WHY, WHERE AND HOW DO EARTHQUAKES OCCUR?”, which included a series of demonstrations into stick-slip behaviour on faults and liquefaction. The students also had a chance to locate the epicentre of the 2010 Christchurch (New Zealand) earthquake using real seismograms. Sanjeev Gupta delivered a workshop on, “CURIOSITY”, where teams of five had to perform an analysis of potential rover landing sites on Mars.

The workshops were assisted by postgraduate students Annabel Dale, Sarah Dodd, Mitch D’Arcy and Chandra Taposeea, and undergraduates Sasha Dorai and Reece Broome. The day was organised by Emma Passmore, and overseen by Tanya Chong and Shilpa Madhaparia. 

London International Youth Science Forum (LIYSF), 26 July 2013

Craig Magee presented a talk, “HOW TO TAME VOLCANOES”, on volcanic hazards and how, as geologists, we employ different techniques to further understand magmatic systems and hopefully mitigate the impact of future eruptions. Paul Grant then gave an introduction to our dynamic Earth, giving practical demonstrations of seismic events, and showing participants how to play “Earthquake battleships” to determine the locations of plate boundaries. Mike Streule wrapped up the day with a Geosciences quiz.

The workshops were assisted by first year undergraduates Matt Lisley, Sasha Dorai and Sarah Howarth, overseen by Mike Streule and organised by Emma Passmore.

Earthclass

The date for the next Earthclass is Thurs 19^th September. Please contact the Earthclass team at earthclass@imperial.ac.uk if you would like to help with an activity.