Press releases
Press releases and announcements are compiled and issued by the BGS Press Office.
BGS delves into Deep Earth at Edinburgh Science Festival
Scientists from the British Geological Survey (BGS) will be introducing people of all ages to the depths of our research and knowledge at the Edinburgh Science Festival next week.
During the day on Tuesday 16 April, a team of BGS geologists, seismologists, volcanologists, marine geoscientists, informatics experts and more, will host a drop-in event at the festival, called 'Delving Into The Deep'. A wide range of creative, hands-on activities will be on offer to help children and adults better understand the work that we do in the UK and around the world.
Five of the UK’s leading research institutions — the British Geological Survey (BGS), the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), the University of Bristol, the University of Oxford and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) — have joined forces to create a new national isotope facility.
The new facility, which includes laboratories across the UK, will drive advances in the earth and environmental sciences, spanning 4.6 billion years of earth system evolution. Research conducted through the National Environmental Isotope Facility (NEIF) will focus on a wide range of earth processes, from earthquakes and ecosystem function to human evolution and climate change.
NEIF is funded by the UK Research and Innovation and the Natural Environment Research Council (UKRI-NERC), and will streamline how the UK’s earth and environmental research community accesses some of the most cutting-edge analytical instrumentation, expertise and training available.
The Liberal Democrat politician for Orkney Islands, who is also a member of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross-Party Group for Science and Technology, and Convenor of the Cross-Party Group on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, was greeted by Dr Tracy Shimmield, Director of the Lyell Centre.
Granite from Cornwall will be examined by UK scientists as part of a £1.8 million project in order to help the country increase its use of geothermal energy.
Cornwall’s heat-producing granite has already made the area a hotbed for geothermal exploration. In late 2018, drilling began at the £18m United Downs project near Redruth, where engineers hope there could be enough resource to provide electricity for 3000 homes.
Now, scientists from the British Geological Survey (BGS), Heriot-Watt University (HWU) and the Camborne School of Mines at Exeter University will work with industrial partners Geothermal Engineering Limited, GeoScience, and Computer Modelling Group, together with the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership on a new project that will give south west England and the wider UK the knowledge it needs to harness the abundant geothermal energy beneath its surface.
Further information on BGS geothermal research:
Geothermal energy - what is it?
Some of the world’s finest geoscientists from both sides of the Atlantic have joined forces to set a course for scaling up the world’s ability to decarbonise its energy supply. The move follows a two-day workshop coordinated in partnership with the UK Science & Innovation Network, the Natural Environment Research Council, the British Geological Survey, and the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute at the University of Colorado.
During the workshop held in Boulder, Colorado, some 30 researchers, funding agents, policy-makers and regulators pooled their expertise to explore how geoscientists can accelerate the transition to environmentally safe and affordable energy production.
The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a research partner in a new £20 million project aiming to do just that. The UKRI GCRF Urban Disaster Risk Hub is a five-year venture aiming to embed disaster risk management into the urban planning of four cities across the world by integrating resilience against extreme events.
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