Saturday 8 May 2010

Interesting geographical things to do....

Mark Beaumont (aka "The Man who Cycled the World" and "The Man who Cycled The Americas") is doing a lecture tour at the moment, and will be at the Assembly Rooms in Derby on Friday 14th May. I went to the Loughborough lecture, and it was brilliant.... More information and the link to book tickets on Mark's website... Go and see him!

Also, if you are in Nottingham, you might like to visit the Nottingham Contemporary, where there is a new exhibition starting today - "Uneven Geographies: Art and Globalisation"... looks interesting!

How big is the oil spill?

Attempts to manage the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are still ongoing and, in amongst all the election talk, there are various news articles about the impacts of the oil spill and the consequences for BP. The BBC's coverage is here.

Below is a screenshot from a nice Google Earth interactive map that allows you to compare the extent of the oil spill (which might not look that big when it's in the sea) to various cities around the world. Click on the picture to link to the site.

Sunday 2 May 2010

Eyjafjallajokull

It might not be making the headlines in the UK any more, now that it's not stopping flights and inconveniencing us so much, but the Eyjafjallajokull activity definitely hasn't stopped. The image below was the view from the Vodafone webcam a few minutes ago...

US oil spill

The situation in the Gulf of Mexico and on the south coast of the USA continues to worsen following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

11 workers were killed when the oil rig exploded on 22nd April, and it is thought that upto 5000 barrels of oil a day are continuing to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. The map below (from the New York Times) shows the extent of the oil spill which has been described as a "true catastrophe", and which has caused a state of emergency to be declared in Louisiana. Click on the map to link to the interactive version on the NY Times site, and here to link to the coverage of the disaster from the Guardian.