The new snow melting season has just started in the mountains of Europe and will last, in many alpine places, until the end of June. Weather in the middle of April is changeable. In the last few days sub-zero air temperatures have prevailed in the mountains during the day. In a frame of an international research project, me (Charles University) and Daniel Remias (Applied University Upper Austria), ...[Read More]
Each month, Jesse Zondervan picks his favourite posts from geoscience and development blogs/news which cover the geology for global development interest. Here’s a round-up of Jesse’s selections for the last month: California seems to be overdue for earthquakes, meaning there has been a so-called earthquake ‘drought’ in the last century. Paleoseismic studies show that this hiatus is unprecedented i ...[Read More]
Lucie Parsons, a ten-year old girl from the small village of Walkington, in England, is on a personal mission to save the environment from plastic pollution. After seeing on the BBC Blue Planet II documentary how litter in the ocean is damaging ecosystems, she decided to take action. Now she gives talks and is co-researcher in her mother’s PhD on climate change and the youth voice. Lucie has come ...[Read More]
The annual division meeting for Hydrological Sciences is the place to get updated on the latest developments of our division. It was great to see that hundreds of you attended. For those that did not attend (or for those that appreciate a reminder of what happened), here are some of the highlights: The Hydrological Sciences Division has a new president: Maria-Helena Ramos will serve as the preside ...[Read More]
Establishing a human presence on Mars is increasingly seen by space agencies and private organizations as the horizon frontier in human space exploration. These long-duration missions however, impose a high degree of technological, operational, physical and psychological challenges. Mars analog habitats, such as the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) in Utah (U.S.) are established to conduct fiel ...[Read More]
A 10km-long, 4-km-wide and 350m-high cavity has recently been discovered under one of the fastest-flowing glaciers in Antarctica using different airborne and satellite techniques (see this press release and this study). This enormous cavity previously contained 14 billion tons of ice and formed between 2011 and 2016. This indicates that the bottom of the big glaciers on Earth can melt faster tha ...[Read More]
We tend to think of glaciers as spotless pristine settings. But “if plastic is everywhere, why not on the surface of glaciers?” This occurred to Roberto Sergio Azzoni, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Milan in Italy, who decided to find the answer to this question for himself. At the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Azzoni and his team pres ...[Read More]
This year Vienna was (for me) awfully cold. Sitting in the sun in the midst of happy conference attendees was definitively not an option at EGU this year. Due to the new EGU schedule with parallel sessions and longer oral sessions, making it until the lunch break was also a big challenge, at least for someone like me, who has more of a northern lifestyle. Luckily, this year posters were scheduled ...[Read More]
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 Eric Calais Eric Calais is Professor of Geophysics and Head of the Geosciences department at the Ecole Norm ...[Read More]
The color and symmetry of the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) sticks out against the endless green of the rainforest. Built in a remote and pristine location, the ATTO tower is the tallest construction in South America. In a joint Brazilian-German project, atmospheric scientists aim to unravel the interaction of pristine rainforest with the atmosphere. With its height of 325 meters, the ATTO ...[Read More]
