“Crazy Lace” is an agate collected in Mexico, which offers great opportunities for aesthetic photomicrography. Here we see the common arrangement of fibers of chalcedony (microcrystalline quartz) in parallel bands alternating with black thin layers of Fe oxides. Polarized light photomicrograph, crossed polarizers and red tint plate. width 5.4 mm. Sample kindly provided by Denise …[Read More]
There are not many scientific publications that tackle the issue of subjectivity in geological studies and its impact. In one of them, Baddeley et al. (2004), they state it clearly in some sentences: “the judgements of experts can be biased by their use of heuristics to guide the formation of their opinions” or “accepted or …[Read More]
It’s the end of 2021! For our HS Blog, it is time to recap what we have published during the year (in case you want to go further back in time, you can also check the 2019 and the 2020 recaps). In 2021, we published 23 posts, covering a large range of topics, as you …[Read More]
At the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet, surface melt releases old layers of dust, that have travelled thousands of years into the ice. Under sunny weather, the dust heats up with radiation, melts the ice underneath, and thus accumulates in tiny potholes and meltwater creeks. However, this photo was taken after a rainy day. …[Read More]
It’s Christmas! Time for celebration! Time to write your EGU abstract! Time to unwrap your presents! And for some, time to start writing yor PhD dissertation! Rudoplh is one of the lucky ones! But he has a question: How should I start on my PhD dissertation? Dear Rudy, What better time to get started on …[Read More]
With 2021 coming to an end, we wanted to wrap up the year with a blog post summarizing all the things that happened within the Geodesy division. And, although we are still in the middle of a pandemic, there are a number of things to look forward to in 2022! Looking back on 2021 New …[Read More]
In June 2020 I made (my first!) blog post for the EGU blog on the topic of teaching, describing what I learned by for the first time teaching a full class on my own. It was at the time when teaching suddenly had to shift from in person to online teaching. Last quarter I was …[Read More]
When I started as Division president, at the General Assembly in 2019, I thought: “Well, my predecessors were very nice; people did not complain (at least not too much), so I guess I can do exactly as they did.” I was not expecting a virus pandemic that would change so many things, including moving, with …[Read More]
Annual ridges and troughs (called wave ogives) are formed as the ice of the Gates Glacier (in Alaska’s Wrangell Mountains) flows through a steep icefall. Down-glacier, as the ice melts, the rushing meltwater is funnelled into streams, carving ice canyons as it flows, but ultimately directed by these topographic constraints. Description by Allen Pope, …[Read More]
Scaling law behaviours are ubiquitous in geosciences both from a theoretical and practical point of view. They are required to better understand, analyse and simulate the underlying processes, which yields the observed variability of geophysical fields over wide ranges of spatio-temporal scales. A group of scientists within the Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences (NP) Division of …[Read More]