YEAR 12 Geography students from King’s Ely could be found at the annual Tectonics Update Conference in London on November 30th.

The conference is delivered by leading names in the fields of education and tectonics, and included David Redfern, an ex Chief Examiner plus Dr Martin Degg and Professor Iain Stewart.

Head of Geography at King’s Ely Senior, Helen Melville, said: “We were fortunate enough to be seated on the second row, which afforded an excellent up-close view and the opportunity to meet some of the speakers during the lunch break. The conference provides the students with the most up to date information from those at the cutting edge of research, and we learned the latest theories on the ‘plumbing systems’ of volcanoes and how the concept of a circular magma chamber has now been dismissed.

“We also learned about how the type of eruption changes as the volcano draws magma from different parts of its system. Dr Degg of course talked us through his concepts on risk and vulnerability whilst Professor Stewart updated us on his work with cities in earthquake zones in the Middle East such as Bam and Istanbul, and shared the shocking statistic that he is sure that during their lifetimes, our students will witness the first earthquake to kill over one million people, probably in one of these areas. An up-to-date summary of the Christchuch NZ ‘quake completed the day which was interesting, exciting and incredibly informative for all.”

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