In the remote places where geoscience is practiced — canyons, fault lines, mine shafts far from institutional oversight — a survey of 289 researchers has found that four in five carry the weight of harmful interactions alongside their field equipment. Published in AGU Advances, the study reveals that professional harms like gatekeeping and the deliberate devaluation of work cut deepest, while women, nonbinary scientists, and early-career researchers bear a disproportionate burden. That three-quarters of the most serious incidents go unreported speaks not to indifference but to the quiet calcul
80% of geoscience researchers report harmful fieldwork interactions, survey finds
Women and nonbinary researchers experience disproportionate devaluation of work, bullying, unwanted sexual attention, and privacy violations during fieldwork.