EGU Blogs

Highlights

HS
Hydrological Sciences

EGU is a bit like a music festival: first time experience of an ECS in hydrology

May 3, 2019
EGU is a bit like a music festival: first time experience of an ECS in hydrology

EGU is a bit like a music festival. Maybe not as crowded as the Donauinselfest, but you’ll definitively experience some of this type of event classic features: dilly-dallying a lot about what to see next, losing your friends and setting up more or less detailed meeting points, buying overpriced food and beverages. And if in the right place at the right time, you might even see some actual “rock st ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Could beavers be responsible for long-debated deposits?

May 3, 2019
Could beavers be responsible for long-debated deposits?

Following her presentation at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, I caught up with geomorphologist and environmental detective Annegret Larsen from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, about beavers, baffling sediments and a case she’s been solving for the past seven years. Back in 2012 the German geomorphology community was seriously debating the source of buried black ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Fifty shades of May (Glacier)

May 3, 2019
Image of the Week – Fifty shades of May (Glacier)

With over 198 000 glaciers in the world, you can always find a glacier that fits your mood or a given occasion. So why not for example celebrate the first Image of the Week of May with a picture of the aptly named May Glacier? May Glacier is in fact not named after the month, but after Mr May, an officer onboard the Flying Fish during her expedition to the East Antarctic coast in the 1840s. Apart ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

Travel log – The Kenya rift

May 1, 2019
Travel log – The Kenya rift

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to join a field trip to the Kenya rift organized by Potsdam University and Roma III. This rift is part of the active East African Rift System, which I introduced in a previous blog post. With a group of 25 enthusiastic participants from Roma Tre, Potsdam University, Nairobi University and GFZ Potsdam (we somehow always managed to make the 20-person bus ...[Read More]

SSP
Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

Paleontology is sexy! A selection of recent discoveries

May 1, 2019

The 2019 started with a relatively high number of paleontological discoveries published in highly ranked journals showing that paleontology is sexy indeed! Here you can find a small selection of the most recent ones. The studies in micro- and macropaleontology published earlier this year, provide a large contribution to our understanding of organism evolution and response to peculiar environmental ...[Read More]

TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

Meeting Plate Tectonics – Francis Albarède

April 30, 2019
Meeting Plate Tectonics – Francis Albarède

These blogposts present interviews with outstanding scientists that bloomed and shape the theory that revolutionised Earth Sciences — Plate Tectonics. Get to know them, learn from their experience, discover the pieces of advice they share and find out where the newest challenges lie! Meeting Francis Albarède Francis Albarède started his career as an undergraduate student in Natural Sciences at the ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: Up close and personal with Svalbard glaciers

April 29, 2019
Imaggeo on Mondays: Up close and personal with Svalbard glaciers

A University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) Glaciology student examines the calving front of the Paulabreen glacier [in Spitsbergen, Svalbard], taking advantage of sea ice in the Rindersbukta fjord to safely approach the front. Paulabreen is a surge-type glacier, which means that it periodically switches between long periods of slow, stable flow to short-lived periods of very fast flow during which it ...[Read More]

NH
Natural Hazards

Alpine rock instability events and mountain permafrost

April 29, 2019
Alpine rock instability events and mountain permafrost

Rockfalls, rock slides and rock avalanches in high mountains The terms rockfall, rock avalanche and rockslide are often used interchangeably. Different authors have proposed definitions based on volume thresholds, but the establishment of fixed boundaries can be tricky. Rockfall can be defined as the detachment of a mass of rock from a steep rock-wall, along discontinuities and/or through rock bri ...[Read More]