How was it for you?

Unfortunately, I was fast asleep at 1am, and missed all the excitement... Would be great to have some comments with your experiences of the UK's biggest earthquake since 1984 though!

There are lots of articles on the BBC website, and several video clips showing interviews with a seismologist and with various eyewitnesses (including Matt, a former Swanwick student who is now at university in Hull!) and one video clip filmed by some students as the earthquake happened.

Particularly interesting is this article which looks at how and why small-scale earthquakes occur in the UK, despite us being quite a long way from any of the major plate boundaries.

The British Geological Survey have a press release on their website which includes seismographs of from this morning's earthquake, and a questionnaire for people to contribute their experiences to the studies of the earthquake that the BGS are carrying out.

A little bit ironic that I had had a dicussion with my Yr9 group yesterday about the fact that we have little in the way of tectonic activity in the UK though!

15,000 visits!

Well, 15033 since 11th December 2006, to be precise! Exciting news!

Anywhere is Possible!

Thanks GeoDave!

If you could be anywhere now, where would it be?

Around the world in 195 days! On a bike!

Back in August, I posted about Mark Beaumont - former pupil of a geography teacher friend - who was just setting out on his round-the-world cycle...

Well, today - just 195 days later - Mark has arrived back in Paris, smashing the previous record of 276 days!!

His former geography teacher, Val Vannet, has been blogging about the geography of Mark's journey - http://www.geobloggingwithmark.blogspot.com/... check it out now if you haven't already been following the journey!

BBC News coverage of Mark reaching the finish line here...

Questions...

Thanks to Daniel Letouzey for pointing out this unusual image in Google Earth...

Where in the world is it? And what on earth are the little coloured squares all about?!

Climate Change Champions - exciting news!

I blogged about the Climate Change Champions competition before Christmas, and had more or less forgotten about it until today... when Lauren in 9PBw came to tell me that she had entered - and had made it to the semi-finals and been called to London for an interview!! Although the judges were impressed with her, they felt that she needed more experience, and so she wasn't one of the nine champions... but fingers crossed for next year - and a big well done for getting so far!!

Geography Matters...

Of particular interest to Year 9 and Year 11 at the moment, but fascinating and thought-provoking viewing for the rest of us as well... Many thanks to David Rayner for this superb video...

African earthquakes

I've just seen on the BBC website that there has been a series of earthquakes, measuring upto 6.0 on the Richter Scale, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, in East Africa.

The most recent reports suggest that 38 people have been killed and more than 500 injured, but the death toll could yet rise as many people are thought to be trapped.

More information from the BBC here and from the USGS...

(Map from USGS)

Ten Pound Poms

Timewatch last night looked at the story of the Ten Pound Poms...

Following World War II, over one and a half million Britons went to Australia - seduced by government propaganda films selling Australia as a land of opportunity in the sun, and fares of just £10.

This article from the BBC website is an interesting read, and you can watch the programme again via BBC iPlayer here for 6 days.