Abstract Developing an advanced understanding of the Earth's fundamental processes and resources is essential to fulfil the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) is the oldest and most successful example of scientific co-operation between a non-governmental organization, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), and an intergovernmental organization, UNESCO. During almost 50 years, this programme has been the gateway to successful scientific careers in pioneering research for thousands of IGCP project scientists. After almost 50 years of evaluating IGCP projects, the programme itself was evaluated through statistical analysis of the annual progress report during four periods: 1981–82, 1991–92, 2001–02 and 2011–12. Subsequently, these trends were compared to the trends of the last four years (2015–18). This study provided insight into trends and changes in the location of studies, participating countries, involvement of developing countries, gender equality, etc. To fully understand the added value of the IGCP brand identity and its seed funding, project leaders over a period of five years (2008–12) were asked to complete a survey about its work. Overall, both studies confirmed the value of the main aim of the IGCP: enabling and facilitating international collaboration between Earth scientists. Even though IGCP funding has been reduced, the IGCP brand still opens doors to new collaborators, new research and national funding agencies, often impacting the career of the involved researchers very positively.

Abstract It is often thought that earthquakes do not occur in the UK; however, the seismicity of the UK is usually classified as low-to-moderate. On average, a magnitude 3.2 M w moment magnitude or larger earthquake occurs once per year, and 4.2 M w or larger every 10 years. The latter is capable of causing non-structural damage to property. The damage caused by British earthquakes is generally not life-threatening, and no-one has been killed in a British earthquake (at the time of writing, May 2013) since 1940. Damage is caused by shaking, not by ground rupture, so the discovery of a fault surface trace at a construction site is not something to be worried about as far as seismic hazard is concerned. For most ordinary construction in the UK, earthquake hazard can be safely discounted; this is not the case with high-consequence facilities such as dams, bridges and nuclear power plants.

ABSTRACT In 1921, exploration for oil and gas was substantially assisted by the discovery that foraminifera could be used to more accurately correlate subsurface strata. This changed everything. It was at a time when the petroleum industry did not have the benefit of geophysical logging tools or seismic mapping capabilities. Micropaleontology was quickly embraced by industry and almost instantly expanded to global use. Three young women were responsible for this technological breakthrough—Alva Ellisor, Esther Applin née Richards, and Hedwig Kniker. They were hired by Texas oil companies in 1920–1921 for the express purpose of using paleontology, specifically macropaleontology, to try to solve the Gulf Coast stratigraphic problems. They were encouraged to collaborate—in itself an unusual phenomenon in the highly competitive oil and gas business—which they did with grace and skill and which led to their discovery of foraminifera as a major biostratigraphic tool. However, their role was downplayed over time, and by 1975 credit for this important technology was shifted to four men—men who had themselves failed to recognize the application, in fact one had ridiculed the idea, but who quickly embraced it when the women presented their evidence. It is time to recognize their revolutionary contribution to the improved economics of oil-finding as well as to the sciences of biostratigraphy and paleontology.

ABSTRACT Today, women make up about one-third of all scientists who go to Antarctica for research. However, it was just under fifty years ago that the first woman principal investigator was funded by the then United States Antarctic Research Program, which today is known as the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). Colin Bull, Director of the Institute for Polar Studies (today called Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center or BPCRC), had advocated for women to be allowed in Antarctica since 1959. At the time, female graduate students worked on Antarctic research, but were not able to conduct their own fieldwork; thus they relied on men to collect samples and gather the data they needed up until the ban was lifted. One such woman was Lois Jones, whose Ph.D. adviser was The Ohio State University geochemist Dr. Gunter Faure. Once she completed her dissertation on the geochemistry of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, she submitted a proposal for fieldwork in Antarctica to be funded by the USAP. Her proposal was approved and she and her field party of three other women went to Antarctica during the austral summer of 1969–1970. In addition to fieldwork in the Dry Valleys, they gained the honor of being four of the first six women to make it to the South Pole. While the women faced many challenges and chauvinism, their field season was successful. This has led to a legacy of women in Antarctica. Faculty, alumna, and staff from The Ohio State University figure prominently in this story, due to the affiliation of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center with Ohio State.

ABSTRACT This is one of several chapters based on a themed oral session on “Women and Geology: Who Are We; Where Have We Come From; and Where Are We Going?” presented at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting in 2015. In this chapter, I will attempt to describe why I chose geology as a profession, how it has influenced my career, and what I perceive to be major changes in the geoscience field and more broadly science in general. In addition, I will touch on what has and hasn’t changed and what needs to happen to effect change as well as some ideas with which we can all identify and perhaps make conscious decisions to improve upon. A few lessons learned are interspersed with the hope that some may be useful to those beginning their scientific careers. I chose a career in federal government research rather than academia and that has taken me to places I never would have dreamed possible. A few references are provided to underscore my remarks and personal opinions but in no way are they intended to provide a comprehensive review of the subjects discussed nor do they reflect the views of any federal agency.

ABSTRACT In the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Erving Goffman conducted gender studies on images and roles in advertising that established a framework for analyzing gender displays in print publications. Current efforts to increase diversity in professions advocate for media outreach to represent diverse populations so the groups they want to attract can imagine themselves fitting in. GSA Today , whether deliberately or not, is doing just that. This paper adapts Goffman’s “gender advertisements” methodology to analyze the portrayal of women in volumes 5 through 25 of GSA Today , the last full twenty years of monthly publications on news and information for the Geological Society of America. Two forms of gender identity are explored: photographs containing people and authors of content articles. While the number of women GSA members increased over the past 20 years, the representation of women in the Society’s publication also increased. In January 1995, women comprised 22% of people pictured in GSA Today and 17% of named authors providing written content. By December 2015, women accounted for 56% of individuals in photos and 36% of content authors. Trends demonstrate periods of rapid increase in representation and plateaus. Shifts in percentages did not correlate directly with changes in Society leadership or GSA Today editorial staff. Thanks to the ease of access to archived publications, future work can provide further insights assessing efforts to inspire career choices in geology and to encourage women to feel valued and welcomed in this profession.

ABSTRACT Much attention has been paid to what students and the general public should know about geoscience content through discipline literacy documents (cf. Geoscience Literacies, 2017), but there is little effort to teach about the identity and life of scientists, especially female geoscientists. The stereotypical view of a scientist being an older white male in a laboratory begins in the second grade, with adults viewing scientists’ personalities as robotic, potentially dangerous, and not necessarily a group that can be trusted (Rutjens and Heine, 2016). Social media can provide a platform to reach audiences that range in age, geographic location, and formal/informal settings. The use of selfies and hashtags on social networking services such as Twitter and Instagram can educate others in what scientists do and what scientists are like. Online campaigns such as #ActualLivingScientist and the Earth Science Women’s Network’s #dayofscience are examples of ways to generate conversation and build community in breaking the scientist stereotype. Whether a campaign is one month in length, as the National Science Foundation’s #NSFstories during Women’s History Month, or a year-long daily snapshot into the life of scientists during #365scienceselfies, the images and stories of female scientists become available to a global audience, especially to teen girls and young women who are more likely to use these visual social media platforms. Existing hashtags will continue and new social media campaigns will emerge with time, but to fully educate others about the lives of female geoscientists, we need to diversify our scientist participation on social media and post honest, unfiltered information about the ups and downs of being a scientist in this discipline.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine the work of Ellen Henrietta Swallow Richards who is known more commonly to some individuals as the founder of the field of home economics. Richards’ first scientific studies focused on the compositions of ore minerals and later evolved into studies of water, air, and food quality. The first woman to earn a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she achieved the position of Instructor of Sanitary Chemistry there. Throughout her lifelong career as a scientist, Richards’ work ranged so widely that it is difficult to classify her among any particular group of scientists. Herein I focus on Richards’ scientific work within both the context of the existing knowledge of her time and twenty-first-century developments in science of “the environment.” Rather than reinscribe Richards as the doyen of home economics—an antiquated field of study—I trace her evolution as a scientist and resituate Richards as a source of inspiration for present-day earth scientists who dedicate themselves to the idea that scientific work should be undertaken for the public good.