Back to the BGS

The British Geological Survey has drilled holes in the ground since 1835. They've managed a fair amount of drill holes in these 179 years. So many it makes the mind reel. When I was looking for interglacial sediments some two years ago I spent quite some time trawling through all the records they had from the Nar Valley, where we would do fieldwork. I found quite some promising leads. And once there we soon found out the chance of being refused to chase it up by the landowner is bigger than getting permission, but one has to start somewhere. In the end we got a fair number of interesting cores!

I'm already two universities on from there, but I'm back with the BGS. In the summer I'm going on a cruise for my new job. We're looking for the contact between sediments deposited by ice from the last ice sheet on these parts, and that deposited afterwards. We're looking for these in the Celtic Sea; the sediments draped over the top of the glacial deposits tend to be calm clays. That should be traceable in the BGS core logs. Because they don't only core on land. Oh no! The offshore areas are Swiss cheese too. Unfortunately, the offshore records are not accessible online, unlike the onshore ones. So I'm back trawling through their records, but this time it's a bit more troublesome.

 The ship I'll be sailing on later this summer. Pic by Zed Thousand

What I do is go through the BGS database, finding cores in interesting places, throwing all out that were cored in a way that makes it unlikely they have penetrated into the glacial sediments (these are rather hard, so just letting sink your core barrel into the sea floor sediments won't be good enough; a certain level of violence is needed), and then sending a list to the BGS offices. They then tell me how long my selected records are; the very short ones I throw out. And I request the rest,which then get sent to me on a CD. Then I can trawl through them again; if I like what I see, I can request to get to see, and perhaps sub-sample, the actual cores. It's a bit of going to-and-fro, but in the end we might get a few samples without having to do any coring for them ourselves, and if we don't, we have a rather good idea of how difficult it is to get to that specific stratigraphic contact, which will help us with expectation management!

A screenshot from the BGS website; it shows all the cores and samples they have in the area I was interested in. Our cruise will cover much more terrain; we'll go all around Ireland!

House make-over

My house looked fine. Nothing wrong with! But some people have a keener eye for imperfections on houses than I do, and my landlord is one of them. When I met him on the day I moved house he mentioned he would have it re-rendered. He had insisted the letting agents would make that clear! They hadn't. But it's alright, I don't think it's very disruptive. Not for me, that is. When there's work on the house I'm not there anyway!

And then it would actually happen. I waited for the chap who would do the work, and gave him the key to the garage; he needed the socket. And then he set to work! I had imagined in my mind the old layer would be sand-blasted off. I had never really thought about what rendering really is. Something like limewash, but thicker? But that was naive. He started to take the entire layer off with a jackhammer! The noise was deafening. I was very glad I'd be going off to work! I really hope I won't fall ill in the period he'sll be doing that. Sleep would be impossible! For most people in the street, I would think...

The first start in the corner

After day 1

The windows and doors seemed to have been plonked in with a lot more polyurethane foam than consideration.

After day 2

More energy issues

I like renewable energy. Who wouldn't? So in Plymouth I changed provider to one that only does only that: Ecotricity. But then I moved house. To York, where the place I rented was supplied by a run-of-the mill provider. So I changed provider again. And moved within the year. To Bangor, where British Gas was the provider. That didn't all go well, energy-wise... I got cut off due to confusion over the period the house had been empty. I got reconnected the very same night; I even got a new electricity meter. Which only said 888.8.8.8.8, but the engineer that installed it said British Gas would be in touch and get it going. It contacted me as much as it had done when I had announced my tenancy; in other words, it didn't!

I contacted both providers I wanted to switch again. That seemed fine. But when the actual switch approached I still had no electricity readings. And I wouldn't get one! I hope I won't end up paying for what BG thinks I use; they have no idea. And I do hope Ecotricity will be able to get a handle on my use. And then I hope it all becomes less of a fuss!

Vote and run

By late March I moved to Anglesey. By early May you had, at the latest, to be registered for the European elections. So I made sure to send a change of address form before I even left York. Such institutions are not always necessarily fast in data processing! So I wasn't quite sure if it would work out. But when I came back from Vienna, I found an envelope on the door mat. It was form from the electoral office! They had registered my new address, but wanted me to sign the form to confirm it. And they wanted the form back by the 6th. It was the 3rd. The next day would be a Sunday, and the Monday would be a bank holiday. So the only way of getting it there was to bring it myself. And that's OK; the Anglesey electoral office is in Llangefni, where I had bought my new wardrobe. Only some 15 mins up the road! And a look on the map disclosed that from the town, you could follow a path along a stream to a reservoir. I decided to combine my electoral duty with a run to, and around, that reservoir. And so I did!

The route was a lot prettier than I'd dared hope! I hope I'll get to vote here on the island later this year. But the run already was a success!

 The start of the path

 

A boardwalk over a sea of bluebells!

 

Bluebell up close

 

The reservoir. Notice that the disused railway goes straight through!

 

The railway in question

 

Cows enjoying the presence of some structure of sorts

Some cute path through Hobbiton I couldn't resist. The main path runs in the back.

Vienna Natural History Museum

It would be a waste to be an entire week in Vienna without enjoying at least a little bit of the culture it has to offer. So late one morning, between two interesting talks, I ran off to the Museum Quarter. I wanted to have a scamper through the Natural History Museum! It was standing there looking glorious, albeit rather scaffolded. I had only slightly more than an hour, and it deserves a whole lot more, but I'm glad I went! The building alone is worth it. And then they have amazing mineral collections, fossil collections, a zoological collection, and whatnot. If you ever visit Vienna; go there!

The facade, basking in the sunlight

 Someone had made enormous models of plankton!

 

Mineral collection

 

The grand interior

A fish you wouldn't like to have an encounter with

EGU

I stood at my poster. I wasn't sure if anyone would be interested in it. But then some chap walked by. He turned out to be a guy I had emailed with; he had helped me with finding out if my relative sea level data could be explained by vertical land motion due to the waxing and waning of Icelandic ice sheets. He knew the answer had been "no"; he was looking forward to getting the final article in his hands, in which I would explain and justify a different cause for the seen changes. Nice! And then another chap who was into vertical land motion; he said they did have models that go back up to five million years; the data I was presenting fell well within that bracket. But the modellers need data to compare. So that was a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" situation; I'll tell him where we find sea level 400.000 years ago with respect to current sea level, and then he'll improve his ice models.  Everybody wins!

 My poster in the poster hall, before the session

We had a medal lecture in our session

Then a microfossil god walked by. He had some thoughts on what you can and cannot find out from any assemblage of foraminifera or pollen. Nice as well! And some guys who pointed me in the direction of useful articles. If only for that, the conference had been worth it! But that was only 1.5 hours of the entire week.

 The conference centre from the outside

The rest of the week I had attended sessions relevant to the work I do in Bangor. And sessions relevant to the work I did in York and Bangor. And sessions relevant to the work I did in Tromsø. And in Amsterdam. And sessions about things that I just find interesting in general. And sessions in which friends spoke! It was all very interesting and useful.

And when I wasn't in a session I sometimes was somewhere at a table, mailing the BGS in preparation for this summer's cruise, editing a talk I have to give the week after EGU, doing frivolous internet things and blogging. One morning, when there were no early talks I wanted to attend, I went for a run in the Prater park. That was nice! The weather had been great all week, and that park is quite big and feels genuinely green (rather than manicured), and I even saw two woodpeckers and a baby squirrel from close by. An later that morning, between a talk at 10.30 and one at 13.30, I sneaked off to the glamorous Natural History Museum. That was lovely! 

Running in summery Vienna

Quite some time was also spent being social. I saw quite many friends! I had seen Emma already the first night; I saw her again the next day, together with an old friend from Norway. On Tuesday I hung out with colleagues from Durham. On Wednesday I had a quiet night in my apartment, and on Thursday there was the BRITICE dinner. BRITICE is the project I'm working on now. I met lots of new colleagues! And on Friday, Hugh got me into the convener's party. That's meant for partying until dawn, but I'm afraid I'm too old for that. An entire week without my bicycle had left me with sore feet, and I was tired. And I had to drive for two hours the next day! But I managed until 11PM or so. It was nice!

View from the balcony of the party

Altogether it had been a good week. I think my best EGU/AGU so far. The important things are: make sure you have a phone that works, so you can contact people; have a pleasant apartment, with good wifi, where you can happily work if you have a quiet congress day. That way you can make the most of the science on offer, of the time in between, and of the people there!

 Goodbye Vienna!

To Vienna

Back in the days, it seemed that spring 2014 would be a good time to tell the world about the iGlass project. We expected results by then! So I submitted an abstract. By the time it got accepted it had become clear I would by then be employed by Bangor University. Now what? Luckily, academia is a special kind of society, with lots of collaboration, so it was quickly agreed that I would go, representing York, and paid by York, but in Bangor's time. I would present my sea level work, but also have the opportunity to liaise with my current project partners. And perhaps hang out with old friends. It sounded good!

I hadn't really counted on it being so difficult to get to Vienna from Bangor. I couldn't fly from Liverpool at all, I could only fly indirectly from Manchester... and when I then settled on a flight from Manchester via Frankfurt I found out that although I flew 12:30, I could not get to the airport in time by train. No problem; I have a car, but it shows you the extent of Bangor's isolation!

And not only Bangor displayed aspects of isolation; so did I. Quite often you book the same hotel with people from the same institute/project, and hang out a lot, but I had already been distanced from York and not excessively integrated in Bangor, so I fell a bit in between, socially speaking. And no place to feel lonely like a conference with well over 10.000 people. I didn't worry about that too much; stuff generally works out. And I don't mind being alone, really, even though it can be a bit of a waste if you know you're surrounded by old friends you only rarely get to see.

I also needed to stay somewhere. I knew with the conference you would get free travel on Vienna public transport. So I made sure I found a place along the underground line going to the congress centre. And then quite far in the direction of the latter; it's too expensive in town! And I found a nice-looking apartment. I prefer these over hotels...

 The building my apartment was in. Yes that scaffold is bad news, noise-wise... otherwise all spiffing!

 Inside

 View

And then the day came. I had made a poster, and sent it to York, where Roland had it printed. He would bring it. That was nice! Nu lugging around of a clumsy poster case. And it took me almost 12 hours from door to door, but I got to my little apartment without trouble. It was rather snug! Looked out over a small park. And after all that travelling I wanted company and a beer, and both desired were fulfilled; Emma was in town too, and she indirectly directed me to a pub where she was having beer with some friends. Excellent! So after some käsespätzle, märzen and banter I was all ready to face a week of early starts, late nights and an information overload. Bring it on!

Vienna by night