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“We learn geology the morning after the earthquake,” the 19th-century essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson . The quote has a pithy resonance as we grapple with the fallout of our inaction on so many fronts, from pandemic prevention to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
Applied to geology itself, it is a case of “if only”. These days, hardly anyone learns the subject. In the UK, just over 1000 pupils a year gain an A level in geology, .
There are many reasons for that squeeze, not least the narrowing of the…
