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STAFF RESEARCH
Examples of research from our multidisciplinary team of academic staff
volcanic hazard analysis
Co-creating best practice guidance for analysing explosive eruptions
In August 2024, Sheffield Hallam volcanologist Dr Natasha Dowey attended a workshop and fieldtrip in Oregon, USA, as part of the NERC-funded FIAMME project. This project has developed an international collaboration between volcanologists from the USA, New Zealand, Germany, France and the UK to improve how we analyse and model deadly volcanic hazards.
The project involves field, laboratory and numerical volcanologists who study pyroclastic density currents (PDCs). These fast-flowing, hot currents of ash, rock and gas (also known as pyroclastic flows) form during highly explosive volcanic eruptions and pose a deadly hazard to many people living on active volcanoes worldwide.
While in Oregon, Natasha and the team attended a workshop to share new updates to a global database of PDC deposits. This information will improve computer models that predict how PDCs flow and behave. They also discussed the development of new recommendations to improve field data collection. At Crater Lake volcano, in the Cascades Volcanic Arc, they carried out team fieldwork to create a new dataset to put these new recommendations into practice!
VEGAN GEOGRAPHIES
Developing international networks down under
Our Associate Professor in Human Geography, Dr. Richard White, continues to take a leading role in developing international networks focused on critical animal geographies and vegan geographies.
Over the summer this included heading down under and working with academics at the University of Newcastle (Australia), including the co-editors of Vegan Geographies: Spaces beyond Violence, Ethics beyond Speciesism.
Some of the key discussions were dedicated to thinking about how best to draw greater visibility around (i) inter-species social justice and liberation movements (ii) the devastating environmental impact of the meat and dairy industry in the context of climate catastrophe, and (iii) creating space for other perspectives of veganism, particularly in the context of indigenous/ marginalised communities.
Richard’s work on critical animal geographies also informs another of his key research themes- the geographies of activism and protest. With the aim of encouraging new definitions and understanding of activism, Richard contributed a chapter to the 4th edition of Introducing Human Geographies, a leading undergraduate human geography textbook in the UK.
under the ice
Understanding how glacial ice may respond to climate change
In August 2023 and July 2024, Sheffield Hallam glaciologist Dr Rob Storrar conducted fieldwork in SW Greenland, as part of a NERC-funded project called SLIDE (Subglacial Lakes at Isunguata Sermia: Dynamics and Evolution). As the climate warms, ice in Greenland melts more and more, producing water that drains into the ice sheet and flows underneath it. Sometimes it is stored in lakes, which can drain in sudden catastrophic events.
The project investigates what is happening underneath the ice. Water can affect how the ice moves – it can speed it up, leading to faster sea level rise, or it can slow it down. Understanding exactly how this works, and how it might change in the future is key to informing how to mitigate against, and adapt to, climate change.
Dr Storrar uses drones to make detailed 3D models of the ice surface, and measure how they change through time in response to water pressure changes underneath the ice, which can lift the ice up by several cm. Other team members have been using advanced GPS to monitor ice movement, and geophysical methods such as ice-penetrating radar to measure how thick the ice is, and what is underneath it.