5 February 2022 | New Scientist | 45on land and in the seas were affected
differently by climate change in the past,
with life in the ocean often getting hit harder.
The air getting hotter is one thing, but that
also leads to oceans becoming more acidic and
that is another thing entirely for the animals
that live in the marine realm. We humans
are land-dwelling creatures, but we rely on
the oceans for food and energy, so we need
to be aware of this geological history and
how it could replay in our time.
Why do you feel that geologists don’t
have the best reputation?
Geology is naturally a global subject: the
processes are not limited by country borders.
But a lot of people’s understanding of geology
is through a colonial lens of resource piracy:
“I know there’s a mine here and I know this
mine basically killed a bunch of people” or
“there’s an oil field and people make a load
of money and they come down in fancy cars,
while we don’t have any food”.
In other words, many people’s
understanding of geology is a net negative
one, and I understand why. We’re going to
have to learn from the past. My plan, as chair
in sustainable geoscience, is to continue
to make the public and government aware
of the key role geoscience plays, and will
continue to play, in tackling the climate crisis.
How can geology help fight climate change?
Geology is going to be fundamental to
developing low-carbon economies. If we are
to have more energy sources that are not based
on fossil fuels, we need geologists to help locate
and develop geothermal and hydrothermal
resources for power, for instance. Geologists
are trained to visualise and model heat transfer
and fluid flow in the Earth’s subsurface. This
is critical to understanding which rocks and
locations might be most productive in terms
of hydrothermal energy, and for drilling wells
that help optimise the use of this resource.
Exploring the rocks of the UK, the stuff
right beneath our feet, is really exciting.
It turns out we have fantastic geology suitable
for geothermal heat extraction in Cornwall,
for example.
We also need geologists to contribute
to carbon capture and storage. They have
the skills to locate rocks and structures that
may trap carbon dioxide securely for hundreds
of thousands to millions of years. They are
trained to use borehole data and geophysical
scans of the Earth’s subsurface to build up
an understanding of the distribution of
different rock types. This kind of analysis
is teaching us that the Irish Sea and the
North Sea are locations where the geology
is appropriate for CO2 storage.
By the way, geoscience is also reallyimportant for helping us achieve many of
the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the
internationally agreed targets for improving
people’s standard of living around the world.
Some of the most important goals include
giving people access to energy and water.
Geology has been, and will continue to be,
crucial for locating these resources.Earlier this year, you were a co-author of a paper
about the racial diversity crisis in geosciences in
the UK. What did you find out?
It was a study of racial and ethnic diversity in
UK geosciences higher education. The results
were totally depressing, but not surprising.
We saw there’s a gross under-representation
of Black, Asian and minority ethnic students
in undergraduate geosciences, and we see
the same pattern for postgraduate geoscience
studies as well. Roughly 19 per cent of 18 to
25-year-olds in the UK population come from
a Black or ethnic minority background. But
if you look at people of those ages studying
science generally, it’s only around 17 per cent,
so a slight under-representation. Our study
found that in geology, it is substantially
smaller again, at only 10 per cent.Have you seen any changes in this respect
since the start of your career?
Not in terms of statistics, but I have seen
an increase in the willingness to discuss
and address the underlying issues. This gives
me hope for the future. But it takes a huge
amount of effort, and it takes away from
the thing you want to do, which is science.
Not many people grow up saying: “You know
what? I want to spend a lot of time discussing
these really emotionally challenging things,
which are upsetting to talk about and might
not lead to change.” We’re drawn into that fight
to help more junior people. It is a difficult space
to navigate, and it will never make you popular.
But I don’t particularly care about that. ❚Abigail Beall is a feature editor
at New ScientistGeologists often help find oilfields
(below). They can also locate sites for
geothermal power stations, like this
one near Reykjavik, Iceland (left)DESIGN^ PICSIN
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