September 2016 ESE Newsletter

ESE away day is a huge success

Contents

Publications
Conferences, Lectures and Seminars
Awards
Outreach
Impact and Media
Research Activity
Away Day
Notices

Publications

Alam, S. M., Cossio, M., Robinson, L., Wang, X., Kenney, J. P. L., Konhauser, K. O., MacKenzie, M. D., Sik Ok, Y., and Alessi, D. S., (2016) Removal of organic acids from water using biochar and petroleum coke, Environmental Technology & Innovation.  v6 141-151 doi: 10.1016/j.eti.2016.08.005

Selley, R.C. and van der Spuy, D. (2016). The Oil and Gas Basins of Africa. Episodes. 39. 429-445. doi: 10.18814/epiiugs/2016/v39i2/9578 

Bridgestock, L., van de Flierdt, T., Rehkämper, M., Paul, M., Middag, R., Milne, A., Lohan, M.C., Baker, A.R., Chance, R., Khondoker, R., Strekopytov, S., Humphreys-Williams, E., Achterberg, E.P., Rijkenberg, M.J.A., Gerringa, L.J.A., de Baar, H.J.W (2016) Return of naturally sourced Pb to Atlantic surface waters. Nature Communications, 7: 12921. Doi: 10.1038/ncomms12921. 

Hampson, G.J. (2016) Towards a sequence stratigraphic solution set for autogenic processes and allogenic controls: Upper Cretaceous strata, Book Cliffs, Utah, USA. Journal of the Geological Society, 173, 817-836.

Martin-Short, R., R. Allen, and I.D. Bastow, 2016. Subduction geometry beneath south-central Alaska and its relationship to volcanism, Geophys. Res. Lett., 2016GL070580, doi:10.1002/2016GL070580 

Tennant, J. P., Mannion, P. D. & Upchurch, P. U. (2016). Sea level regulated tetrapod diversity dynamics through the Jurassic/Cretaceous interval. Nature Communications 7: 12373. doi: 10.1038/ncomms12737.

Conferences, Lectures and Seminars

Robert Zimmerman delivered an invited keynote plenary lecture (co-author: Adriana Paluszny) entitled "Modelling of primary fragmentation in block caving mines using a finite-element based fracture mechanics approach" at the International Conference on Geo-Mechanics, Geo-Energy and Geo-Resources, in Melbourne, Australia, on 29 September.

PhD student Helen Lacey presented her work on ‘The spectrum of fault slip behaviour controlled by carbonate crystallisation’ at the Slow slip workshop, Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Japan and at the DTP conference 2016: Perspectives on Environmental Change at King’s College London.

Zita Martins gave two lectures at the PhD Summer School of Astrophysics "Francesco Lucchin", in Bertinoro (Italy).

Awards

On 7 September at the Annual Conference of the Remote Sensing & Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc), Philippa Mason received the Society's highest award, the RSPSoc Award, for sustained and distinguished contributions to the science and application of remote sensing through education. She received a gold medal and honorary life membership of the Society. At the same conference, Xue Wan received the prize for the best PhD thesis last year, and Christine Bischoff (a graduate of RSM now undertaking a PhD in the department of Civil Engineering) won a prize for her first poster.

Philippa Mason receives the RSPSoc Award

Xue Wan receives an award for the best PhD thesis from RSPSoc

PhD student Robin Thomas, who was voted as the GTA of the year in ESE, was also awarded the “Faculty of Engineering Highly Commended GTA of the Year award” for his work as a student demonstrator.

Outreach

Early in September Sarah Dodd visited Westminster School to deliver two hour long, and one half an hour, introduction to rocks and the rock cycle.  The students got involved handling rock samples and they also started thinking about the environments in which they formed and any processes involved – a great day!

Impact and Media

As ever ESE is leading the way in Geoscience teaching and has developed an external facing area of the website for prospective students and other stakeholders in our educational mission. Read about our departmental activies in Geoscience Teaching Excellence at //www.imperial.ac.uk/earth-science/prosp-students/teaching-excellence-in-ese/. If you have an questions or comments please get in touch with Mike Streule.

Craig Magee has been invited by the Geological Association to be their Halstead Lecturer for the British Science Association Festival, which will be held in Bradford in September 2017 

Zita Martins joined astronaut Tim Peake for a special edition of the BBC Radio4 show “Inside Science”.  

Zita Martins, presenter Adam Rutherford, astronaut Tim Peake, and oceanographer Helen Czerski

Zita Martins spoke with the Microbiology Society during the opening day of the New Scientist Live Festival. Watch here.

ESE PhD student Luke Bridgestock’s paper “Return of naturally sourced Pb to Atlantic surface waters” received lots of news coverage this month and was reported on the Imperial College News site. Read the report here. 

Research Activity

PhD student Christian Potiszil and Wren Montgomery are spending a week at SOLEIL Synchrotron collecting data for their projects "Fourier Transform Infrared and Raman Spectroscopic Mapping of CI and CM Organic Rich Meteorites" and "Searching for a geobarometer." 

Away Day

The 28th September 2016 saw the Department host its 3rd annual away day for Staff and PhD students. The event was an overall success with approximately 150 Staff and Students attending to enjoy Career and Personal Development workshops, Posters displayed by PhD Students and Research Staff, free coffee and food throughout the day, not to mention the Murder Mystery, Networking drinks and Comedy Show in the evening. 

Thanks go to everyone who participated in the Morning Career Development workshop. All feedback from this session and the day itself will be reviewed and we will be creating actions to make the ESE the best place to develop your careers.

Congratulations to “Team Crossword” who won the murder mystery after being selected at random from the 8 teams that made the correct accusations! Well done to the 7 runner-up teams and thank you to everyone that took part! For those that were unable to stay for the result, our very own Head of Department was killed in the boardroom by Mark Rehkamper using a sledgehammer …don’t worry, no one was actually hurt!

We hope that everyone enjoyed the day and found it interesting and informative and are looking forward to the 2017 Away Day!

Notices

The Annual Conference of RSPSoc will be hosted in ESE next year (5-8th Sept 2017) and organised by myself and staff in ESE and Civil Engineering. Contributions are welcome from anyone working with any kind of remotely sensed (Earth observation) data in the fields of Planetary science, Ground deformation and change, Geosciences, Ice and fire, Oceans and atmospheres, Land surface science, Spectral & hyperspectral science, Biosphere & environment, Hazard & Risk, Current & new satellite observing systems, UAV technology and science, Close range measurements, laser scanning & LiDAR, Sensors & technology, Remote site investigation. In addition there will be a workshop on the exploitation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) data and Very High Resolution imagery, organised by the British Geological Survey. Selected papers will be published in a special issue of the International Journal of Remote Sensing. There will also be opportunities for students to attend the conference in return for helping to run the event.