When we think of dunes our thoughts automatically go to deserts and sand. But on Earth, as well as on other celestial bodies of the solar system, dunes exist also in a completely different environment. I am talking about gigantic dunes consisting of snow. On Earth they are called megadunes and you can find them only in East Antarctica, where they extend for thousands of km. If you want to know mor ...[Read More]
A few weeks ago, at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly EGU23, a group of researchers from different disciplines briefed the media about the impact of war on the oceans, sands, and people. Among them, Florian Ulrich Jehn’s presentation stood out for its rather unlikely proposition: that seaweed appeared to be a promising candidate as a resilient food solution in nuclear winter. I ...[Read More]
Have you ever pondered the significance of reference frames in the reconstruction of tectonic paleo positions? In this edition of News & Views, we feature Jonathon Leonard as he delves into this subject, aided by illustrations from Rachel O’Brien. In the 1600s, in an effort to show why we cannot feel the Earth orbiting the sun at speed, Galileo came up with a thought experiment. In his e ...[Read More]
Dear Readers of the SSP Blog, Today, we detected suspicious and non-approved blog entries that were published in the name of one of our authors on the SSP blog webpage. We start from the premise that the release of these entries was a result of a hacking attack on the author’s computer/email post-box and immediately deleted the associated content from our webpage. Please apologise for any ...[Read More]
Landmannalaugar is a unique and beautiful area in Iceland, nestled in the highlands of the country. It is known for its stunning scenery, including green-covered mountains, vast lava fields, and natural hot springs. This area served as the end destination of my hiking adventure where I crossed Iceland from north to south, and it’s easy to see why. Aside from its natural beauty, Landma ...[Read More]
This year, like in the last few years, we are experiencing the effects of global heating in increasingly personal ways. The summer of 2022 exposed us to ever more extreme heat waves in North America, Europe, and Asia. For instance, the heat wave in India and Pakistan reached temperatures of 49C in Nawabshah, Pakistan. North America too experienced devastating heat waves and wildfires. Los Angeles ...[Read More]
In the past weeks and months, we have introduced you to famous female geodesists who won the Vening Meinesz medal of the EGU Geodesy division. This week we turn our eyes to Susanna Zerbini, who was awarded with the Vening Meinesz medal in 2009 for her important work at the interface of geodesy and geodynamics using space geodetic techniques. Having this in mind, we were curious to find out what sh ...[Read More]
Try typing the phrase ‘period in geosciences’ into Google. You’ll get something like ‘divisions of geological time’, and how we divide ancient earth time into eras, periods and epochs. We learn about this in the first year and again in every subsequent year of geological training. We are both geochronologists, so this is a topic we are deeply familiar with. But we are also both women. To us, and e ...[Read More]
Whether they are natural occurrences or experimentally induced, permafrost and Arctic ecosystems are responding fundamentally to recent climate extremes. Good writing and statistics material for us scientists, but bad news on pretty much every other level. Are we effectively communicating how fundamental these changes are? And can we use our personal experiences, stories and artwork to support us ...[Read More]
Probably all of us academics have someone outside the office for whom we care, with whom we want to spend our time, and for whom we spend some of our earned money. This time and money shared with people that we care about can become a significant factor that impacts our academic work and even careers. When this is the case, we need to acknowledge to ourselves that we need help, ask for help, and h ...[Read More]