January news items

10th January - Summer School starts

This January and February, Southern Cross GeoScience will hold its inaugural Summer School. For four weeks, students from various Australian universities will undertake research with some of GeoScience's leading researchers. During their time at GeoScience, students will research diverse problems ranging from:

• water quality in the acid sulfate soil-affected Tuckean Swamp after heavy rainfall,
• the influence of silicate on release of iron and adsorbed arsenic form the mineral schwertmannite, and
• the microscale variability of iron abundance in surface minerals and porewaters from the East Trinity acid sulfate soil remediation site near Cairns.

For further information on the Summer School visit www.scu.edu.au/geoscience/summerschool

27th January - Nick wins local 'mullet throwing' competition

GeoScience staff have a wide range of skills, including mullet throwing!

Postdoctoral Project Officer Dr Nick Ward, yesterday took out the highly coveted 'mullet throwing' competition at New Brighton. Nick won the open men's section with a throw of over 30 meters.

Congratulations to Nick on this fine award, and for racking up ten years of being an Australian citizen.

31st January - GeoScience researchers travel to Oamaru, New Zealand

This week, Dr Vanessa Wong and Mick Cheetham travelled to Oamaru, New Zealand to present at the Australia and New Zealand Geomorphology Group's 14th Conference. Vanessa will present a paper entitled "Climate and landscape drivers of estuarine deoxygenation events", highlighting some of her work on the Richmond Floodplain in northern NSW, whilst Mick is presenting a paper "Occurrence and distribution of sulfidic sediments in the Wakool River".

The pair are looking forward to the conference, and checking out the rocky coastline of the South Island during their stay.

Updated: 13 December 2011