THE ROYAL SCHOOL OF MINES: HENRY DE LA BECHE’S CONVERGENCE OF PROFESSIONALIZATION AND PUBLIC ADVOCACY

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-304
Author(s):  
RENEE M. CLARY
Keyword(s):  
Mining Industry ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Abandoned Mines ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
British Geological Survey ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Applied Geology

ABSTRACT Several European countries instituted mining schools in the late 1700s, including France, Germany, Hungary, and Russia. However, since England’s mining industry was privatized with little government involvement, Great Britain was decades behind with the creation of a school of mines. In 1835, Henry De la Beche (1796–1855) became the first director of the Ordnance Geological Survey, precursor to the British Geological Survey. De la Beche used this position to advance geology’s professionalization, which would include the establishment of an applied geology museum, mining records storehouse, and a school of mines. The Museum of Economic Geology, displaying the country’s mineral resources and geology, was De la Beche’s first success. Founded in 1835, it opened to the public in 1841. The Mining Records Office opened in 1840 as a repository for plans of working and abandoned mines. An early public advocate for workers’ safety, De la Beche lobbied for government inspections of collieries, immediate reporting of mining accidents, and proper plans of mines. The School of Mines was De la Beche’s third accomplishment in geology’s professionalization. As an outgrowth of the museum, it was formally opened in 1851 along with the larger Museum of Practical Geology, the Museum of Economic Geology’s successor. De la Beche’s intent for the School of Mines—instruction as a combination of science and practice—seems modern in its approach. In 1843, funding was allocated for lectures on the practical applications of geology, but these were not implemented until the School of Mines opened in 1851. In his effort to educate everyone—from miner to mine owner—De la Beche transcended social boundaries and supported open, public lectures. As a result, some considered him a class traitor. De la Beche used his position to advocate for advancement of the mining industry to include miner safety and public education. Therefore, while the Royal School of Mines emerged later than many of its European counterparts, it was part of a systematic professionalization of geology, coupled with education and a public advocacy for mining participants.

scholarly journals The Application of Terrestrial LiDAR for Geohazard Mapping, Monitoring and Modelling in the British Geological Survey

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 395
Author(s):  
Lee Jones ◽  
Peter Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Forest Canopy ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Satellite System ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
British Geological Survey ◽  
Terrestrial Lidar ◽  
Rock Stability ◽  
Close Range ◽  
Global Navigation Satellite

Geomatics is the discipline of electronically gathering, storing, processing, and delivering spatially related digital information; it continues to be one of the fastest expanding global markets, driven by technology. The British Geological Survey (BGS) geomatics capabilities have been utilized in a variety of scientific studies such as the monitoring of actively growing volcanic lava domes and rapidly retreating glaciers; coastal erosion and platform evolution; inland and coastal landslide modelling; mapping of geological structures and fault boundaries; rock stability and subsidence feature analysis, and geo-conservation. In 2000, the BGS became the first organization outside the mining industry to use Terrestrial LiDAR Scanning (TLS) as a tool for measuring change; paired with a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), BGS were able to measure, monitor, and model geomorphological features of landslides in the United Kingdom (UK) digitally. Many technologies are used by the BGS to monitor the earth, employed on satellites, airplanes, drones, and ground-based equipment, in both research and commercial settings to carry out mapping, monitoring, and modelling of earth surfaces and processes. Outside BGS, these technologies are used for close-range, high-accuracy applications such as bridge and dam monitoring, crime and accident scene analysis, forest canopy and biomass measurements and military applications.

scholarly journals Review of the Survey's activities in 1991

1992 ◽  
Vol 155 ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
M Ghisler
Keyword(s):  
Mining Industry ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
West Greenland ◽  
Mining Companies ◽  
New Information ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
Mining Law ◽  
Hydrocarbon Field

The new Mining Law for Greenland, approved in 1991 by the Danish and Greenlandic governments, was designed to encourage interest in exploration and utilisation of mineral resources in Greenland by creating more favourable operating conditions for the oil and mining industry. The activities of the Geological Survey of Greenland (Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse, GGU) in 1991 have reflected this new strategy. In the hydrocarbon field a new information prospectus has been prepared for the forthcoming licensing round for selected areas offshore West Greenland, while initiatives to attract interests of mining companies have been intensified.

scholarly journals Robert Kidston (1852–1924): biography of a Scottish palaeobotanist

2009 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Thomson ◽  
Ian P. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Plant Taxonomy ◽  
British Geological Survey ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Palaeoclimatic Reconstruction

SynopsisThis brief biography summarizes the life of Scots-born Robert Kidston (1852–1924), who was arguably the best and most influential palaeobotanist of his day. In over 180 scientific papers he laid the foundations for a modern understanding of the taxonomy and palaeobiology of Devonian and Carboniferous plants. His expertise was critical to the research and curation of the Geological Survey and British Museum (Natural History) and excavations of Glasgow's Fossil Grove introduced the great Carboniferous forests into the public imagination. Despite their age, his meticulously documented collections of slides (deposited in the Botany collection University of Glasgow) and hand specimens and notebooks (deposited in the collections of the British Geological Survey, Nottingham) provide a wealth of important scientific data with modern applications in plant taxonomy, biostratigraphy and palaeoclimatic reconstruction.

scholarly journals Review of the Survey's activities in 1992

1994 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
M Ghisler
Keyword(s):  
Mining Industry ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Hydrocarbon Exploration ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Exploration And Exploitation ◽  
West Greenland

The activities of the Geological Survey of Greenland (Grønlands Geologiske Undersøgelse, GGU) in 1992 were strongly influenced by political initiatives to increase interest in the hydrocarbon and mineral resources of Greenland. GGU has supported the Mineral Resources Administration (MRA) with both an international promotion drive to present the investment potential of Greenland to the mining industry and with presentations in connection with a licensing round for hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation offshore West Greenland south of 66°N.

scholarly journals Chinese Mining Companies in Peru: Is There a Single Cause of Problems?

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 141-150
Author(s):  
Nikolay Goryachev
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Mining Industry ◽  
Mineral Resources ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
Chinese Enterprises ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mining Companies

China’s dependence on the supply of mineral resources is becoming stronger than ever. The activity of Chinese investors in the mining industry on a global scale has increased significantly during the last years. Moreover, the activity of Chinese mining investors in the developing countries has some special characteristics such as large-scale projects and protests of local communities during their implementation. This article discusses the activities of Chinese mining companies in Peru, in which both of these conditions were present. The author analyzes the activities of “Shougang”, “Chinalco” and “MMG Ltd” in Peru. The hypothesis is as follows. If there is a special Chinese way of investing, the problems of listed investors (which lead to conflict with local communities) should have a single reason that is unique for all Chinese enterprises. In these conditions, investors should keep the distance between themselves and Peruvian authorities and the local citizens. As a result of the study, the conclusion is made that such reason cannot be identified at this stage. The causes of problems for each of the considered enterprises are unique, but not common for all of them. The origins of these problems are the economic situation, the bureaucratic problems of the Peruvian authorities, as well as the general trends in the relations between transnational mining companies and the Peruvians. At the same time, Chinese companies try to take into account the experience of their predecessors. Most likely, in the future that could possibly lead to greater openness and expansion of dialogue between investors, government and the public worldwide.

The elementary forms of digital culture. Knowledge, connections and sociality

2020 ◽  
pp. 316-328
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Susca
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Point Of Intersection ◽  
Dark Web

Contemporary communicative platforms welcome and accelerate a socio-anthropological mutation in which public opinion (Habermas, 1995) based on rational individuals and alphabetic culture gives way to a public emotion whose emotion, empathy and sociality are the bases, where it is no longer the reason that directs the senses but the senses that begin to think. The public spheres that are elaborated in this way can only be disjunctive (Appadurai, 2001), since they are motivated by the desire to transgress the identity, political and social boundaries where they have been elevated and restricted. The more the daily life, in its local intension and its global extension, rests on itself and frees itself from projections or infatuations towards transcendent and distant orders, the more the modern territory is shaken by the forces that cross it and pierce it. non-stop. The widespread disobedience characterizing a significant part of the cultural events that take place in cyberspace - dark web, web porn, copyright infringement, trolls, even irreverent ... - reveals the anomic nature of the societal subjectivity that emerges from the point of intersection between technology and naked life. Behind each of these offenses is the affirmation of the obsolescence of the principles on which much of the modern nation-states and their rights have been based. Each situation in which a tribe, cloud, group or network blends in a state of ecstasy or communion around shared communications, symbols and imaginations, all that surrounds it, in material, social or ideological terms, fades away. in the air, being isolated by the power of a bubble that in itself generates culture, rooting, identification: transpolitic to inhabit

Groundwater abstraction across the Indo-Gangetic basin (2010)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabin Archambault
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Geological Survey ◽  
Groundwater Abstraction ◽  
British Geological Survey ◽  
Full List

This 1 km resolution grid shows the estimated mean annual groundwater abstraction in millimeters across the Indo-Gangetic basin based on data from 2010. Methodology and a full list of data sources used can be found in the peer-reviewed paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2791.epdf?author_access_token=_2Z_fJZxRkSVmgVJ7xHTVdRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0O07GfIlzqIVm44UgFPb1r62_FUJLao4zkJSzYpv-4gIWJorRXEpgh4iarB8vlRNY_tGV_18CAf2j-_GnADYbdp The raster and a high resolution PDF file are available for download on the website of British Geological Survey (BGS): http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/groundwater/international/SEAsiaGroundwater/mapsDownload.html Abstraction Groundwater Stress

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