Environmental and Earth Sciences

Arctic Science, Geography, Geology, Oceanography, Hydrology, Glaciology, Seismology, Meteorology, Climate Science, Limnology, Remote Sensing, Natural Resources, Mining, Green Tech, Renewable Energy, Sustainable Development, Archeology, Paleontology

Meet Cam McClelland

fRI Research Biology and Life Sciences, Environmental and Earth Sciences
Most high school students don’t know what career they should aim for, at least in my experience. One of my friends wanted to be a lawyer and that ended up working out for him, but the rest of us were more like Cam – just following our interests with no big plan carved in stone, and that’s worked out too. I met Cam a lot later, when we’d both found our way to fRI Research…

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Une pénurie de main-d’oeuvre? L’avenir du Québec

Harvey Mead Environmental and Earth Sciences, General Science, Policy and Politics
L’adhésion à la mythologie de la croissance est tellement ancrée dans la pensée politique contemporaine qu’il est difficile à voir comment aborder les éléments de la situation, par exemple celui de la démographie, qui est, finalement, une de surpopulation, au Québec, dans les pays riches, dans le monde entier. D’une part, mon calcul de l’empreinte écologique quand j’étais Commissaire au développement durable montrait que notre mode de vie ici dépasse par trois fois la capacité…

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Why So Many Yellow and Purple Flowers?

chloevanloon Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach, Environmental and Earth Sciences
After a summer in BC, a short stint in Bellingham and Northern California, we are stationed along the central California coastline. We quickly took to walking the nearby golden hills in search of any remaining wildflowers still miraculously blooming despite the ongoing drought conditions. What became quickly apparent to me was the overwhelming main colors out and about were yellow or purple-colored petalled flowers. But why? California Aster Corethrogyne filaginifoliaDunedelion Malacothrix incanaCalifornia Goldenbush Ericameria ericoidesCrisp Monardella Monardella undulata ssp. crispa The flowers…

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Le véhicule électrique ne nous sauvera pas

Harvey Mead Environmental and Earth Sciences, General Science, Policy and Politics
Dans le dernier article de mon blogue, j’ai indiqué au départ que je n’allais probablement pas commenter le récent rapport du GIÉC, tellement il ne faisait qu’insister sur les tendances dramatiques qu’il met en relief depuis plusieurs rapports maintenant. Ici, je note presque en passant que je ne commenterai pas non plus l’élection fédérale au Canada où les quatre ou cinq partis tournaient autour du pot (en dépit des feux qui ont fait rage pendant…

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Will a merger save SEG, AAPG and SPE?

Matt Hall Environmental and Earth Sciences
Earlier this year AAPG and SPE announced that they are considering a merger.Read the PRESS RELEASE and FAQs about the AAPG and SPE merger considerations at: https://t.co/9tAQFKeERt. pic.twitter.com/2RwJCTjjnh— AAPG (@AAPG) May 25, 2021 There’s now a dedicated website to help members follow the developments, but it looks like no decisions will be made before next year, following a member vote on the issue.In a LinkedIn post from SEG President Anna Shaughnessy earlier this week, I…

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What I learned from The Cougar Conundrum, by Mark Elbroch

chloevanloon Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach, Environmental and Earth Sciences
This summer I read The Cougar Conundrum, by Mark Elbroch, ecologist, author, accomplished wildlife tracker, and lead scientist for the Puma Program director for Panthera. Having a particular love and passion for the puma, I knew the book was going to be good, and provide perspectives I hadn’t considered before. But I really didn’t expect to learn so much, to take away so many points, and to continue to mull over topics months later. I…

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Why do wavelets have sidelobes?

Matt Hall Environmental and Earth Sciences
Brian Romans (a geology professor at Virginia Tech) asked a great question in the Software Underground’s Slack earlier this month: “I was teaching my Seismic Stratigrapher course the other day and a student asked me about the origin of ‘side lobes’ on the Ricker wavelet. I didn’t have a great answer [...] what is a succinct explanation for the side lobes?” Questions like this are fantastic because they really aren’t easy to answer. There’s usually…

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Rocks in the Playground

Matt Hall Environmental and Earth Sciences
It’s debatable whether neural networks should feature in an introductory course on machine learning. But it’s hard to avoid at least mentioning them, and many people are attracted to machine learning courses because they have heard so much about deep learning. So, reluctantly, we almost always get into neural nets in our Machine learning for geoscientists classes.Our approach is to build a neural network from scratch, using only standard Python and NumPy data structures — that…

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iNatting Big Creek Provincial Park, British Columbia

chloevanloon Biology and Life Sciences, Communication, Education and Outreach, Environmental and Earth Sciences
In the spring of 2020 and 2021 my husband and I went backpacking in the Big Creek Provincial Park. We spent five and six days respectively, spanning most of the park. But we still have creeks to cross and ridges to walk on the to-do list. Something will always pull us back, and if history keeps repeating it will be a rare plant or insect that lures us back.  While most people recreating in the…

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Des distinctions à faire

Harvey Mead Environmental and Earth Sciences, General Science, Policy and Politics
Cet article est publié alors que nous venons d’obtenir le dernier rapport du GIÉC (AR6). Finalement, ce rapport se situe tellement en ligne droite avec les précédents rapports et leurs trajectoires sans faille, montrant l’incapacité des sociétés à répondre aux exigences nous permettant d’éviter la catastrophe, qu’il n’y a presque pas lieu d’en faire un grand plat. J’ai lu le résumé pour décideurs, lui-même assez technique et qui doit se lire en premier à travers…

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