News

Text book (left) vs. reality (right). Zechstein carbonates, Co. Durham. “There’s no difference between theory and practice … in theory!”  

Lessons learned this month: Gathering detailed outcrop data in confined underground settings can be rather challenging (but very useful)! Given the vast geothermal potential in abandoned coal mines to provide a carbon-neutral way to generate domestic and commercial heating, we’ve been keen to take a closer look at outcrop properties of coal for some time.…

Carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) is coming soon to the UK, and we’ve got a very busy Summer ahead. Watch this space!

This month sees the launch of new industry training courses run by GeoLogica. It’s great to see how the experienced team have assembled a range of courses with impressive depth and breadth, and we’re really excited to be involved! In addition to training that focuses on sub-surface interpretation, there is also a comprehensive program of…

We’re still very busy this month preparing and running virtual fieldtrips while covid restrictions prevent most real fieldtrips from taking place. Following on from our earlier excursions, in which we’ve toured the Zagros (many times!), the Betics in SE Spain, and classic UK geology in SE Scotland and NE England, our next trip returned to…

For many years ArcMap has been our ‘go-to’ software for everyday GIS work, though we also use ER Mapper, GDAL, GMT, GRASS, QGIS, and a host of other software tools. We have always had a love-hate relationship with ArcMap –it’s overpriced, inconsistent, lacks backwards compatibility, for many years was terminally unstable (now, thankfully improved), and…

This month we’re very much looking forward to the upcoming Transition to NET-ZERO in the North of England conference, an open forum organised jointly by the Durham Energy Institute and the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers. The meeting is chaired by our long-time co-worker Jon Gluyas (Director of the Durham Energy…

As we look ahead to the important role that geoscience continues to play in the global energy transition, it’s been fantastic to put together a virtual fieldtrip that also emphasises the influence of geology on the rapid industrialisation that started in the UK in the 18th century. The five-day fieldtrip, developed with Durham University colleagues…

More Covid lockdown … so more virtual fieldtrips, as industry and academia alike are unable to venture outdoors en masse for geological fieldtrips and fieldwork! Although the main day-to-day focus for industry geologists is invariably to understand the sub-surface, available data from the sub-surface are typically sparse, biased, low-resolution, and/or remotely imaged, and successful companies…

More geo-conservation work for Natural England (and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee) again this month, to finish off the current Geological Conservation Review in the Lake District and Northern Pennines that we reported back in December. The photos here are from Warnscale Bottom, where rocks of the Ordovician Borrowdale Volcanic Group (BVG) are juxtaposed with…