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Director's Message
Dear All,
In the past week we hosted Professor Carol Frost, who gave the Inaugural Chappell Lecture. I would like to thank everyone who gave of their time during the week, ensuring that Carol was welcomed into the school and was afforded the opportunity to engage with staff and students across many different components of RSES. Thanks also to each of you who braved the weather and made the short walk across to the Robertson Lecture Theatre on Thursday afternoon to hear Carol present the lecture.
Audits of labs and offices have been completed for 2018 and David Cassar has sent around a list of WHS issues that need to be addressed to the people responsible for the work spaces. Please address the issues as soon as possible so that RSES complies with all WHS requirements.
Apparently the tour of India is going well. Simon has returned today, impressed with the high quality of the students and institutions that the delegation have seen. Steve will be back on Monday 3 December.
Paul Tregoning
Acting Director
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Inaugural Chappell Public Lecture
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Last week we had Professor Carol Frost visiting from the University of Wyoming. Carol was here to present our Inaugural Chappell Public Lecture honouring Bruce Chappell. She was busy with lectures, meeting staff and sharing her knowledge and insights with our postgrads and postdocs. Thank you to Bruce's family, past students, colleagues and wider science community who attended the public lecture. A special thanks to Ian Williams.
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CLEX Annual Workshop 2018
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18 RSES staff and students from the Climate and Fluid Physics and Palaeoenvironments Groups affiliated with the Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes have attended the CLEX Annual Workshop at Wollongong this week, including CLEX Chief Investigators, RSES Professors Michael Roderick and Andy Hogg, and Associate Professor Nerilie Abram.
Details about the event could be found here https://climateextremes.org.au/event/clex-annual-workshop-2018/ |
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Coral Coring Trip at Christmas Island
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On the 23rd of October a team from RSES and RSB headed out to Christmas Island (Indian Ocean) for a coral coring trip. The team, led by Nerilie Abram, was aiming to collect a number of Porities Coral cores around 2 metres high in order to reconstruct the last 200 years of sea surface temperatures and rainfall around the island. Over the three weeks, we managed to collect over 12 metres of coral collectively, with our longest being 2.73 metres representing about 270 years of data!
We had a very productive trip, with all our cores collected, and also managed to set up a rainfall monitoring system on the island. A couple of things we learnt over the trip;
- Don't throw shiny go-pros near hungry trevalli! It is potentially dangerous.
- When trying to kill a small centipede in front of you, beware of the large one behind you.
- Robber crabs provide excellent evening entertainment.
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UNVEILING OF ADELONG NORITE DISPLAY
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On 25th November, 2018 the National Rock Garden held the unveiling of the Adelong Norite Display by Sunzanne Orr MLA representing the ACT Chief Minister.
The Adelong Norite display specimen was placed adjacent to the existing Federation Rocks which comprise eight large rocks installed in 2013, donated by the governments of each state and territory to commemorate Federation and the foundation of Canberra. These rocks were chosen not only to reflect significant aspects of the history of each state and territory, but also for their varied and striking appearance. With some of the Federation Rocks weighing more than 10 tonnes, they will form a visually impressive backdrop to the equally impressive Adelong Norite display specimen.
Norite, often referred to as ‘black granite’, is an uncommon rock in Australia. It is most often used as a decorative stone, particularly as polished slabs for buildings and for memorials in cemeteries. Adelong Norite was quarried for use as a decorative stone in the iconic Qantas House building in Sydney. Most recently, it has been used by well-known Austrian sculptor, Andreas Buisman, to create beautiful works of art. As you may know, a large specimen (about 9 tonnes), sculpted by Andreas, sits on the grave of the famous eye surgeon, Fred Hollows, at Bourke in north-western NSW. |
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Publications
MartinâShort, R., Allen, R., Bastow, I. D., Porritt, R. W., & Miller, M. S. (2018). Seismic imaging of the Alaska subduction zone: Implications for slab geometry and volcanism. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
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ANU offers a range of counselling services for enrolled students (undergraduate or postgraduate) who might be experiencing a range of difficulties around mental health, stress, motivation, social anxiety and so on. For more information, visit:
http://www.anu.edu.au/students/health-wellbeing/counselling
In addition to the group programs and workshops they also offer confidential counselling services for individuals. If you have concerns about the welfare of any of your students, please consider directing them towards this service. |
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The 20th Australian Organic Geochemistry Conference (AOGC) - Origins of oil, old organics and organisms
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RSES in collaboration with Geoscience Australia, will host this year’s Australian Organic Geochemistry Conference (AOGC), to be held at the Finkel Theatre, John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU from 3–7 December 2018.
Details about AOGC 2018, including information about how to register and submit abstracts, are now available on the conference website:
http://www.ga.gov.au/news-events/conferences/australian-organic-geochemistry-conference
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