BGS in the media Oct 2012

... As part of a BGS team she visited the Japanese tsunami area in June 2011, three months after the impact, and again in February 2012, to conduct surveys using satellite data, on-site digital mapping and GPS. Although scientists can determine where tsunamis are likely to take place, the challenge is in knowing when. Factors such as submarine landslides and meteorite impacts are impossible to predict.

Police in Devon and Cornwall were inundated with calls reporting an earth tremor yesterday evening after a loud bang shook the region... The British Geological Survey could find no evidence of an earth tremor and suggested that the massive bang was in fact caused by the sonic boom from a meteor.

Centre with 28 permanent staff will help rescue British citizens trapped abroad by political upheavals or natural disasters... A feed of information comes in from government agencies such as the British Geological Survey, for information on earthquakes and tsunamis, and the Health Protection Agency, for information on any emerging pandemics, for example.

Britain expects to issue a new estimate of its shale gas reserves in the Bowland formation in the north before end-2012, followed by a more comprehensive figure for the whole of the country in 2013, the energy ministry said on Monday... The department has commissioned the British Geological Survey (BGS) to quantify domestic shale reserves.

The new British Geological Survey (BGS) Risk List 2012 ranks the threat to the global supply of the metals and other elements which are vital to our modern economy. The list highlights high-technology, 'critical' metals such as rare earths, tungsten and antimony where production and resources are concentrated in a few countries and so are at greater risk of supply disruption.

BGS International, whose scientists tell countries where their mineral wealth lies, has been given money by a venture capital fund to help it grow. The company is based at Keyworth and is a spin-out from the British Geological Survey. It employs geo-scientists - experts who carry out surveys which help countries like Tanzania, Sudan, Cameroon and Afghanistan understand where their minerals lie and how they might be exploited.

The Middle East may not possess the same reputation for seismic disasters as some other parts of the world, but that is of little comfort to the people of north-west Iran, over 300 of whom were killed... Marco's theory may be compelling, but other experts advise caution. Dr Roger Musson, head of seismic hazard and archives at the British Geological Survey, says that while the view from Tel Aviv carries weight, in many seismological circles other theories demand equal billing.

A fossil which has lain in a museum drawer for over a century has been recognised by a University of Leicester geologist as a unique clue to the long-lost skills of some of the most sophisticated animal architects that have ever lived on this planet... Dr Mike Howe, manager of the British Geological Survey's fossil collections and a co-author of the study, commented 'This shows that museum collections are a treasure trove, where fossils collected long ago can drive new science.'