Like all people, geoscientists can sometimes forget the importance of language. How scientists use language is important because it not only allows us to communicate effectively with different groups, from policymakers to concerned citizens and other researchers, but it can also influence how people respond on an emotional or personal level. The way we use language can even influence how much som ...[Read More]
Measuring the aurora. This picture was taken while doing an optical/radar coordinated campaign in Svalbard, Norway, near the settlement of Longyearbyen. In this campaign, we were measuring for the first time the polarisation of the auroral ‘red line’ of atomic oxygen with a photopolarimeter and were running the radars in order to have a better understanding of the state of the ionosphe ...[Read More]
Uluru in Australia is one of the most visibly recognisable geological features in the world. This sandstone formation covers an area of 3.3 kilometres and stands 345 metres above the plains around it. According to geoscientists, the rocks that form Uluru were deposited in an inland sea during the Cambrian Period approximately 500 million years ago. The arkose sandstones were then uplifted and fold ...[Read More]
This picture shows a 30 micrometer thick rock section of a gabbro from the Rum Layered Intrusion (Scotland). Large clinopyroxene crystals are enclosed in a foliated fine grained groundmass of plagioclase and olivine. The clinopyroxene core crystallized at an early stage, at 1160°C. They were partly molten at 1200°C during successive hot magma injections and subsequently recrystallized, enclosing h ...[Read More]
