I cannot believe that a full year has passed since this very cute pink unicorn wished you a Happy New Year. Yet, over the past 12 months our blog has attracted more than 16,200 visits. And the blog analytics show that you, our dear readers, are based not only in Europe but literally all over the world! With 67 new posts published in only 52 weeks, it’s more than likely that you missed a few inte ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Geosciences Column: Do coastlines have memories?
Did you know that the shape of coastlines is determined by the angle at which waves crash against the shoreline. It has long been thought that fluctuations in the wave incidence angle are rapidly felt by coastlines, which change the shapes of their shores quickly in response to shifting wave patterns. Or do they? Researchers at the British Geological Survey, Duke University (USA) and Woods Hole Oc ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: Tones of sand
With rocks dating as far back as the Precambrian, mountain building events, violent volcanic eruptions and being covered, on and off, by shallow seas, Death Valley’s geological history is long and complex. Back in the Cenozoic (65 to 30 million years ago), following a turbulent period which saw the eruption of volcanoes (which in time would form the Sierra Nevada of California) and regional uplift ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Shaking on Christmas Day: what we know about the 7.6 M Chile earthquake
While the majority of us were midway through our Christmas Day celebrations, a powerful 7.6 M earthquake struck off the western coast of the Chile. Natural hazards are not bound by time, location or festivities; an earthquake can happen at any time in any place, regardless of the significance of the day. As a result, in this earthquake prone region, raising awareness of the risk posed by natural h ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – The Sound of an Ice Age
New Year’s Eve is just around the corner and the last “image of the week” of 2016 will get you in the mood for a party. If your celebration needs a soundtrack with a suitably geeky touch then look no further. Here is the music for climate enthusiasts: The sound of the past 60,000 years of climate. Scientist Aslak Grinsted (Centre for Ice and Climate, University of Copenhagen, Denmark) has transfor ...[Read More]
GeoLog
The best of Imaggeo in 2016: in pictures
Imaggeo, our open access image repository, is packed with beautiful images showcasing the best of the Earth, space and planetary sciences. Throughout the year we use the photographs submitted to the repository to illustrate our social media and blog posts. For the past few years we’ve celebrated the end of the year by rounding-up some of the best Imaggeo images. But it’s no easy task to pick which ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Looking back at the EGU Blogs in 2016: a competition
The past 12 months has seen an impressive 360 posts published across the EGU’s official blog, GeoLog, as well as the network and division blogs. From a lighthearted Aprils Fools’ Day post featuring an extreme chromatic phenomenon (otherwise known as FIB); through to how climate change is affecting mountain plant’s sex ratios; features on natural hazard events throughout the year and children’s dis ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
Limits to global groundwater use
Post by WaterUnderground contributor Inge de Graaf. Inge is a postdoc fellow at Colorado School of Mines, in the USA. Groundwater is the world’s most important source of freshwater. It supplies 2 billion people with drinking water and is used for irrigation of the largest share of the world’s food supply. However, in many regions around the world, groundwater reserves are depleting as the re ...[Read More]
Planetary and Solar System Sciences
A water ocean inside Saturn’s moon Dione
Deep inside Saturn’s moon Dione lies a global ocean of liquid water, according to scientists of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Such discovery places Dione as the third Saturn’s moon, beside Enceladus and Titan, to have a subsurface ocean. Previous models of planet interior, based on gravity and shape data of Cassini, predicted no ocean at all for Dione and a very thick ice crust for ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: Ice drilling
This week’s Imaggeo on Monday’s post, captured by Maksim Cherviakov, shows students from Saratov National Research University practicing a method to measure lake ice thickness. The students are using an ice auger to manually burrow through the ice. Afterwards, the ice depth is recorded using a tape measure. “We measure ice thickness every year on the lakes located in the floodplain of the Vo ...[Read More]