DTP Cakes at the Earth and Environment Charity Bake Off
December 9, 2015DTP student Ruth Amey organised the inaugural School of Earth and Environment Geobakeoff. The aim was to bake a cake with a geophysics or environmental theme and the event raised £110 for the Teenage Cancer Trust. The entries included a fine selection of tasty DTP-related cakes. For the full story and details of prize winners see Ruth’s blog here.
Here is a summary of the cakes created by DTP students and staff. Many other DTP students helped to eat them of course…
Atmosphere, Geosphere, Biosphere DTP Cake
Administrator Lucy Sharpson created a concise and edible summary of the many things about our NERC DTP. Different sections represent our 3 ‘spheres’ – atmosphere, geosphere and biosphere.
Shale Gas Cake
A scientifically accurate representation of shale gas drilling or ‘fracking’, created by Solène Guenat and colleagues from the Sustainability Research Institute. Layer one is sponge containing chocolate drops, representing the shale gas caught within the rock formations. A jam acquifer separates this from the blue groundwater acquifer. Chocolate brownie forms the basement geology layer. A borehole to the shale gas chocolate drops reaches the surface and sets off the flare. On the surface chocolate houses with almond solar panels represent the local people who may hold concerns about fracking – including contamination of ground water and surface waters, visual disruption, social effects, noise and light pollution as well as global climate-change concerns. There are also native deciduous broccoli woodland and wildlife – real mealworms.
Chocolate Volcano
Claire Harnett and Patrick Sugden from the SEE volcanology group presented a volcano cake – complete with effusive lava flows, a hidden jam internal plumbing system and a healthy amount of chocolate icing.
Strike-Slip Earthquake and Seismograph
Ruth Amey, Katy Willis, George Taylor from the Tectonics group presented a strike-slip ‘earthcake’ and seismograph swiss roll. The surface rupture has offset a chocolate road, and the focal mechanism cupcakes reveals the earthquake was largely strike slip, with a small amount of subsidence. The chocolate and vanilla folded sediment cake has been cut by the fault with a fault gauge of buttercream and sprinkles. This earthquake has been observed on the Seimograph Swiss Roll, with graph paper sponge. You can clearly distinguish chocolate P-wave, S-wave and surface wave arrivals.
A Close Cometary Encounter
Natasha Aylett from the School of Chemistry and SEE ICAS created a cake to represent her PhD project of the impacts of a close cometary encounter. It is a multi-layered Earth cake with a solid inner core and molten outer core! Unfortunately, she still needs to write a full thesis about this work.