GeoLog

field work

Imaggeo on Mondays: An expedition to better understand Antarctic soils

Imaggeo on Mondays: An expedition to better understand Antarctic soils

A dramatic evening sky puts the frame to a photo taken during the Brazilian Antarctic expedition to James Ross Island in 2016. Brazilian palaeontologists and soil scientists together with German soil scientists spent over 40 days on the island to search for fossils and sample soils at various locations of the northern part of the island. The island was named after Sir James Clark Ross who led the ...[Read More]

IGLUNA: students work towards building an icy human habitat on the Moon!

IGLUNA: students work towards building an icy human habitat on the Moon!

What does it take to build a habitat in ice on the Moon? An international group of university students and professionals is working together to provide this answer and develop a sustainable and operational habitat in lunar ice. The project is called IGLUNA and is organised by the Swiss Space Center and the European Space Agency (ESA) as the first initiative from ESA_Lab, an ESA interuniversity res ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Crowned elephant seals do citizen science

Imaggeo on Mondays: Crowned elephant seals do citizen science

In the Southern Ocean and North Pacific lives a peculiar type of elephant seal. This group acts like any other marine mammal; they dive deep into the ocean, chow down on fish, and sunbathe on the beach. However, they do all this with scientific instruments attached to their heads. While the seals carry out their usual activities, the devices collect important oceanographic data that help scientist ...[Read More]

GeoSciences Column: Can seismic signals help understand landslides and rockfalls?

GeoSciences Column: Can seismic signals help understand landslides and rockfalls?

From the top of a small gully in the French Alps, a 472 kg block is launched into the chasm. Every detail of it’s trajectory down the slope is scrutinised by two cameras and a network of seismometers. They zealously record every bounce, scrape and tumble – precious data in the quest to better understand landslides. What makes landslides tick? In 2016, fatalities caused by landslides tipped 2 ...[Read More]