Watching volcanoes: Natural Environment Research Council podcast 19 May 2009Posted by admin in Caribbean, current research, geoscience, Soufrière Hills, volcano monitoring, volcanology.
Tags: British Geological Survey, Natural Environment Research Council, NERC, Soufrière Hills, volcano research, volcanology
The Natural Environment Research Council ‘is the UK’s main agency for funding and managing research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences’ (says the NERC ‘what we do’ page). The NERC is responsible for the British Antarctic Survey and the British Geological Survey, among many many other things, and has a strong commitment to natural hazards research, including (of course) volcanoes. To give a notable current example of the NERC’s involvement in this field, it provided emergency funding for the recent important studies of ashfall at Chaitén carried out by a University of Oxford research team.
All this is by way of background, and to point out that if you’re interested in volcanological and natural hazards research, the NERC is an agency to watch. Today there’s a new podcast available on the NERC’s Planet Earth Online environmental news service: ‘Watching volcanoes’. In the podcast (duration 6 min 42 sec) Richard Hollingham talks to Dr Sue Loughlin and Dr Kathryn Goodenough of the British Geological Survey about how studying currently active volcanoes (Montserrat) and the remains of ancient volcanoes (Edinburgh) informs our knowledge of volcanic processes and improves our ability to forecast future volcanic behaviour. It’s a model of clear exposition and an excellent example of scientific outreach.
The Planet Earth podcast – ‘Watching volcanoes’ (18 May 2009)