Earth Sciences blog

14th May 202514th May 2025

A Field Journey through the Messinian Salinity Crisis and Beyond

During the Easter holidays, 31 Part III Earth Science students and 8 demonstrators travelled to southeastern Spain (Almería) for the students’ final fieldtrip. The region’s complex geology offered something special for everyone. Over six days in the field, we moved through geological time and explored the diverse environments—from metamorphic basements and Miocene reef outcrops, to orbitally paced sedimentary cycles and gypsum beds, and on to turbidite deposits, volcanic centres, and strike-slip fault zones.

28th April 2025

The origins of our orbicular granite

Once a year, a peculiar, polished slab of rock is hauled down from its home on a windowsill near the 1A lab and propped up on the lawn against a row of knees for the annual Sedgwick Club photo. The slab, with its striking black and white circular patterns, has featured in most annual photos in the past 60 years.

2nd April 2025

History and future of stone use in Cambridge

The time sequence of building stone use in Cambridge shows the competing influences of function, fashion and finance in the city’s historic fabric. Now natural stone is poised for a resurgence because of its strength, durability and low embodied carbon.

11th March 2025

In Conversation with Marie Edmonds

Marie Edmonds, Professor of Volcanology and Petrology, was both an undergraduate and postgraduate in Cambridge from 1994-2001 and has been a lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences since 2006. Marie reflects on her career and new role as Head of Department with Erin Martin-Jones.

4th February 2025

Listening in on the pulse of a mantle plume: IMPULSE Expedition 2024

Last summer, Cambridge PhD students Callum Pearman, Aisling Dunn and Philippa Slay joined an international scientific cruise to take the pulse of the Iceland mantle plume. Callum describes the science behind the expedition in the blog post below.

6th January 2025

Unlocking the carbon-capture potential of kelp forests

Cambridge Earth Sciences PhD student Zhenna Azimrayat Andrews visited the Ocean Rainforest Inc.’s (ORI) pilot kelp farm, off the California coast, last summer. The results Zhenna gathered alongside an international team will help her construct model simulations of carbon capture using kelp farms. Zhenna reports on her fieldwork here.

9th December 2024

Exploring water flow paths in Nepal

Sitting on the ridge top, looking over the expanse of rice paddies dotted with villages, and views down the valley for miles, it’s easy to be captivated by the rural landscape of Nepal.

We’d come to the Melamchi Valley, a few hours outside Kathmandu, to continue fieldwork exploring spring flow paths and their implications for silicate weathering and carbon drawdown in the Himalayas. Our team included us (Zara and Gio, Part III students), trip leader Ed Tipper, PhD student (now successful Dr) Al Knight and two university students from Kathmandu.

7th November 2024

From magma to magnets: a summer of fieldwork in Greenland investigating critical metal behaviour in alkaline intrusions

This summer Carrie Soderman, Owen Weller and Charlie Beard headed to Greenland to investigate how metals critical for green technologies form.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are classed as ‘critical metals’ in modern society, meaning a group of metals and minerals that cannot be easily substituted in technology but whose supply is at risk. In particular, the REEs are a vital part of green energy transition technologies, such as the magnets that go inside motors for wind turbines and electric vehicles. Demand for these elements is therefore expected to increase rapidly in the coming decades.