A Song of Ice and Fire...and Clay

We tend to think of glaciers as slow, predictable and, sadly, disappearing. But a small number of glaciers break all the rules. About 1% suddenly accelerate, racing downhill for months or even years after decades of barely moving. In this talk, Harold will lift the lid on these mysterious “surging” glaciers, showing how they can disrupt communities and create surprising hazards. Come along to discover why advancing glaciers still matter in a warming world.

Smectite clay absorbs water easily causing construction problems such as foundation subsidence and slope failure. Current geotechnical testing is time consuming and expensive and does not routinely identify clay species. Near-infra red spectroscopy can identify clay minerals but the smectite feature hides within other clays. Using a targeted dye we can draw out the hidden features and identify hazardous ground conditions more quickly and reliably.

Britain’s summer of wildfires in 2022 is a taste of what’s to come. As global heating transforms the southeast of England to a more Mediterranean climate, wildfire will become an ever-increasing risk in the UK. In this talk Dr Mark Hardiman considers wildfire and the British landscape. What was the driver of these wildfires, how might this change over the coming decades under climate change and how we can positively manage this change?