EGU Blogs

Highlights

Geology for Global Development

Geoscience and Sustainable Cities (SDG 11) in Eastern Africa

September 23, 2017
Geoscience and Sustainable Cities (SDG 11) in Eastern Africa

Over the past seven months I’ve had the opportunity to visit four growing cities in eastern Africa: Kampala (Uganda), Nairobi (Kenya), Lusaka (Zambia) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). The importance of geoscience in delivering SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) was evident. “More than half of the world’s population now live in urban areas. By 2050, that figure will have risen to 6.5 bi ...[Read More]

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Atmospheric Sciences

Volcanic Ash Particles Hold Clues to Their History and Effects

September 22, 2017
Volcanic Ash Particles Hold Clues to Their History and Effects

Volcanic Ash as an Active Agent in the Earth System (VA3): Combining Models and Experiments; Hamburg, Germany, 12–13 September 2016 Volcanic ash is a spectacular companion of volcanic activity that carries valuable information about the subsurface processes. It also poses a range of severe hazards to public health, infrastructure, aviation, and agriculture, and it plays a significant role in bioge ...[Read More]

GeoLog

GeoSciences Column: Catch of the day – what seabirds can tell us about the marine environment

September 22, 2017
GeoSciences Column: Catch of the day – what seabirds can tell us about the marine environment

Off the coast of Germany, a male northern gannet (for ease, we’ll call him Pete) soars above the cold waters of the North Sea. He’s on the hunt for a shoal of fish. Some 40km due south east, Pete’s mate and chick await, patiently, for him to return to the nest with a belly full of food. Glints of silver just below the waves; the fish have arrived. Pete readies himself. Body rigid, wings tucked in ...[Read More]

GeoLog

GeoTalk: The anomaly in the Earth’s magnetic field which has geophysicists abuzz

September 21, 2017
GeoTalk: The anomaly in the Earth’s magnetic field which has geophysicists abuzz

Geotalk is a regular feature highlighting early career researchers and their work. In this interview we speak to Jay Shah, a PhD student at Imperial College London, who is investigating the South Atlantic Anomaly, a patch over the South Atlantic where the Earth’s magnetic field is weaker than elsewhere on the globe. He presented some of his recent findings at the 2017 General Assembly. First, coul ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Mexico earthquakes: What we know so far

September 20, 2017
Mexico earthquakes: What we know so far

On Friday 8 September 2017 at 04:49 am UTC, a magnitude 8.1 earthquake hit off the coast of Mexico, 87 km SW of Pijijiapan. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the epicentre was at 15.07 N, 93.72 W at a depth of about 69.7 km. Yesterday, another strong (magnitude 7.1) earthquake hit central Mexico, 55 km SSW of the city of Puebla and 120 km south of Mexico City. Despite the lower magnitude, y ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: What happens to mines when they become redundant?

September 18, 2017
Imaggeo on Mondays: What happens to mines when they become redundant?

When the minerals run out, or it is no longer profitable to extract the resources, mines shut down. Prior to issuing a permit for the exploitation of a resource, most regulators require assurance that once the mine closes it, or the activities carried out at the site, will not present a risk to human health or the environment. Ongoing monitoring of a mine once it is decommissioned is required to e ...[Read More]

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Solar-Terrestrial Sciences

Miho Janvier – The Quest for Solar Storms

September 15, 2017
Miho Janvier – The Quest for Solar Storms

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]

GeoLog

Mapping Ancient Oceans

September 14, 2017
Mapping Ancient Oceans

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]

GeoLog

Educators: apply now to take part in the 2018 GIFT workshop!

September 13, 2017
Educators: apply now to take part in the 2018 GIFT workshop!

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]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: A prehistoric forest

September 11, 2017
Imaggeo on Mondays: A prehistoric forest

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]