What Lies Beneath: Unlocking secrets of the past

In the film Jurassic Park, dinosaur DNA is discovered preserved in the abdomen of a mosquito. Dinosaurs are brought back to life and chaos ensues. One of the most common questions posed to Dr Susie Maidment, a dinosaur researcher at the Natural History Museum, is “could Jurassic Park happen?” In this talk, she will be exploring the science behind Jurassic Park, discussing some of her recent research on the geological preservation of soft tissues, including dinosaur blood cells and discuss some of the advances in our understanding of the palaeobiology of dinosaurs since the film first came out.

Volcanoes are hot, loud and scary. As a result we know little of their internal structure and still struggle to predict accurately when they might erupt. Prof. Chris Jackson tackles this by X-raying the Earth’s interior and mapping out the internal workings of these volcanoes with the aim of better understanding when and how active volcanoes may behave. With clips from his documentary ‘Jungle Volcano’ and go-pro footage from Chris’s actual descent, join him for a journey through his career and experiences exploring these violent windows into our planet’s interior.