EGU Blogs

Highlights

SSP
Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

Desert loess: formation, distribution, geoscientific value

, and September 30, 2020
Desert loess: formation, distribution, geoscientific value

Loess is an aeolian (wind-driven) silty sediment covering over 10% of the Earth’s land surface; it occurs predominantly in the mid-latitudes. On a global scale, loess is among the most widespread unconsolidated sediments, and of crucial importance for agricultural regions where loess deposits are known to form fertile soils because of its ability to store water and retain nutrients. Loess is compr ...[Read More]

GeoLog

GeoRoundup: the highlights of EGU Journals published during September!

September 29, 2020
GeoRoundup: the highlights of EGU Journals published during September!

Each month we feature specific Divisions of EGU and during the monthly GeoRoundup we will be putting the journals that publish science from those Divisions at the top of the Highlights roundup. For September, the Divisions we are featuring are: Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE) and Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology and Volcanology (GMPV). They are served by the journals: Geoscientific Mode ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo On Monday: Blue Olivine in an unusual basalt

September 28, 2020
Imaggeo On Monday: Blue Olivine in an unusual basalt

Blue Olivine set in a matrix of pyroxene, magnetite and plagioclase in a basalt collected by the photographer, Bernardo Cesare, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel. Polarized light photomicrograph. Crossed polarizers and red tint plate. Width c. 2.7 mm. Who may have been throwing this stone a couple millennia ago?   Description by Bernardo Cesare, after the description on imaggeo.egu.e ...[Read More]

NH
Natural Hazards

Forests in danger: not only fires!

September 28, 2020
Forests in danger: not only fires!

We often talk about forests for their importance in climate as a carbon sink and oxygen source. For their great role in the preservation of biodiversity, both for vegetation and as habitat for many animal species, for their potential in recreational activities. However, we do not talk a lot about forests in relation to natural hazards. Indeed, forests can be severely affected by natural hazards. T ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Friedrich Mohs and the mineral scale of hardness

September 25, 2020
Friedrich Mohs and the mineral scale of hardness

One of the most famous identification methods in the study of mineralogy is the Mohs Scale of Hardness. A comparative scale, based on the hardness of each mineral, it is a way geoscientists can compare minerals to each other and organise them based upon an easily testable physical characteristic. Each level of hardness has a value, from 1 (the softest) to 10 (the hardest) and each number is associ ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Climate Change & Cryosphere – A brief history of A68, the world’s largest iceberg

September 25, 2020
Climate Change & Cryosphere – A brief history of A68, the world’s largest iceberg

In July 2017, the world’s largest iceberg known as A68 calved from the Larsen C Ice Shelf, located in the western Weddell Sea, Antarctica. Since then, A68 has lost two chunks of ice, A68-B and A68-C, but still remains a giant after more than 3 years. How did it feel to be the greatest, A68? Being the greatest With a length of 175 km and being about 50 km wide, this giant iceberg also appropriately ...[Read More]

NP
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences

NPG Paper of the Month “Anthropocene climate bifurcation”

September 24, 2020
NPG Paper of the Month “Anthropocene climate bifurcation”

The July 2020 NPG Paper of the Month award goes to Kolja Kypke, William Langford and Allan Willms, for their paper “Anthropocene climate bifurcation” (https://doi.org/10.5194/npg-27-391-2020). All three authors work at the University of Guelph, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. William Langford did his PhD at the California Institute of Technology in 1971 under the supervision of Herbert Kel ...[Read More]

TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

Ana Margarida Neiva – A woman as hard as granite

September 24, 2020
Ana Margarida Neiva – A woman as hard as granite

  Ana Neiva was born on May 7 1941 in Cedofeita, Porto, northwest Portugal – a city carved in granite. Her childhood and youth were spent in Coimbra, where her father worked. João Cotelo Neiva was an eminent geologist and professor at the University of Coimbra, one of Europe’s oldest universities. His influence was decisive for her interest in geology and her scientific career.     ...[Read More]

HS
Hydrological Sciences

Do you know about the 3MT competition? What a challenging experience for a PhD student!

September 23, 2020
Do you know about the 3MT competition? What a challenging experience for a PhD student!

Effective communication plays a vital role in our PhD life. We spend significant amount of time working on a desk or in a lab performing our research for many years. However, if we do not effectively communicate our results and ideas to other scientists and researchers, our research will be unacknowledged. Of course, we all learn how to give scientific talks, via PhD concept talks, final defenses ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

Venus: science! Today!

September 23, 2020
Venus: science! Today!

After many (attempted) visits to Venus in an earlier era of space exploration, the focus of terrestrial planet science was shifted towards e.g. our other neighbour Mars. Yet, lately, Venus seems to gain scientific popularity and not without reason – there remains so much to figure out about the puzzling planet. The virtual mini-workshop ‘Venus Science Today’ was held a few weeks ago to bring toget ...[Read More]