Geoscience and Contaminated Land Investigations

Geoscience and contaminated land investigations

Report by Alice (L6) - 

On Friday 10 May, the L6 enjoyed an interesting talk from Kate Baker on the importance of Geoscience and her career. Geoscience is the science of the Earth, the study of rocks, water, soil, plants, animals and the atmosphere, and importantly, the way in which they interlink. The study of geoscience is important in predicting human impact on the planet in the future, and coming up with ways to rectify this.

Kate is a contaminated land/geo-environmental consultant, and as part of her job she assesses the risk of contamination in land, whether contamination will harm humans and the environment and to advise clients. In order to do these investigations, she looks for evidence of spills, leaks and disposal of chemical or industrial waste, and interviews site staff. To find out about even older land uses she uses historic maps and ariel photos, and researches into what chemicals would have been used for specific processes in the past. She also considers what natural features will affect contamination, including geology, and the location of ground water. From this data, her and her team can create a conceptual site model to show what the effect of contamination will be on the land.

To demonstrate this, we looked at old maps of Reading and Caversham, showing gravel pits, old wells, floodplains and industrial activities. We then looked at geology maps showing what type of stone is underneath Reading. We combined what we had learnt from these to consider what land contamination there may be in Reading.

Kate finished the lecture by showing us how geoscience can be used in the future, especially related to climate change, and how it links to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. This was a really informative lecture on a topic that many of us had no idea about previously.