In this month’s (first ever for our blog) Life of a Scientist interview, we are very happy to talk to Dr Miho Janvier, a Researcher at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay (France), whose work has shed some light on the understanding of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (or solar storms) from their birth in the Sun’s corona to their evolution in interplanetary space ...[Read More]
This guest post is by Dr Grace Shephard, a postdoctoral researcher in tectonics and geodynamics at the Centre of Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED) at the University of Oslo, Norway. This blog entry describes the latest findings of a study that maps deep remnants of past oceans. Her open access study, in collaboration with colleagues at CEED and the University of Oxford, was published this week i ...[Read More]
The General Assembly is not only for researchers but for teachers and educators with an interest in the geosciences also. Every year the Geosciences Information For Teachers (GIFT) is organised by the EGU Committee on Education to bring first class science closer to primary and high school teachers. The topic of the 2018 edition of GIFT is ‘Major events that shaped the Earth’. This year’s workshop ...[Read More]
This stunning vista encompasses the south-western wilderness of Tasmania as seen from the Tahune air walk 60 m above the Huon river valley. In front lies the beginning of a huge UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering almost a fourth of the area of Tasmania. The site mostly consists of a pristine, temperate rainforest of Gondwanan origin that is home to the tallest flowering trees in the world; Eucal ...[Read More]
Although traditionally used to study earthquakes, like today’s M 8.1 in Mexico, seismometers have now become so sophisticated they are able to detect the slightest ground movements; whether they come from deep within the bowels of the planet or are triggered by events at the surface. But how, exactly, do earthquake scientists decipher the signals picked up by seismometers across the world? And mo ...[Read More]
“Summer break is over, which means we will continue with our Minds over Methods blogs! For this edition we invited Andrew Cross to write about his experiments with a new rock deformation device – the Large Volume Torsion (LVT) apparatus. Andrew is currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, USA. ...[Read More]
Most of the energy that drives glacier melting comes directly from sunlight, with the amount of melting critically dependent on the amount of solar energy absorbed compared to that reflected back into the atmosphere. The amount of solar energy that is reflected by a surface without being absorbed is called the albedo. A low albedo surface absorbs more of the energy that hits it compared to a high ...[Read More]
Climate change is calling for various and multiple approaches in the adaptation of cities and mitigation of the coming changes. Because buildings (residential and commercial) are responsible of about 40% of energy consumption, it is necessary to build more energy efficient ones, to decrease their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. But what is the relation with the atmosphere. It is two fold ...[Read More]
With more PhD and postdoc positions than there are tenured posts, landing a permanent job in academia is increasingly challenging. For some, years of funding and position uncertainty, coupled with having to relocate regularly is an unwelcome prospect. A changing job market also means that aspiring to the traditional, linear career path might be an unrealistic expectation. Skills acquired by those ...[Read More]
From last week’s unusual desert landscape to this week’s lush valley in Cuba… The picture shows the Vinales Valley, a karstic depression with mogotes in western Cuba. Karst is the general term for landscapes formed when limestone is disolved by carbonic acid, in rain water. This leads, in particular, to the formation of an underground network of caves and rivers. In the tropics, ...[Read More]
