EGU Blogs

Laura Roberts-Artal July 1, 2016

Geosciences Column: Pollen tells a 7300 year old story of Malta’s climate and vegetation

Figuring out what the climate was like, and how it changed, throughout Earth’s history is like trying to complete a 1000 piece puzzle. Except that scientists usually don’t have all the nuggets and building a comprehensive picture relies on a multidisciplinary approach in order to fill in the blanks. This is particularly true during the Holocene, which spans the last 11,700 years of the Earth’ ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of The Week – A Game of Drones (Part 1: A Debris-Covered Glacier)

Matt Westoby July 1, 2016

What are debris-covered glaciers? Many alpine glaciers are covered with a layer of surface debris (rock and sediment), which is sourced primarily from glacier headwalls and valley flanks. So-called ‘debris-covered glaciers’ are found in most glacierized regions, with concentrations in the European Alps, the Caucasus, Hindu-Kush-Himalaya, Karakoram and Tien Shan, the Andes, and Alaska and the weste ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: Heavy machinery

TJ Young June 27, 2016

How do you get heavy machinery, such as a drill spool onto an ice sheet? This week’s imaggeo on Mondays’ photography captures the freighting of components of a hot water drill to directly access and observe the physical and geothermal properties at the ice-bed interface. In the image, SAFIRE principal investigator Bryn Hubbard and post-doc Sam Doyle help fly in the drill spool at the start o ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Gender equality in the geosciences: is it a numbers game?

Hazel Gibson June 24, 2016

Here’s a tricky question for you. Try and name a woman in geoscience who has won an award for their studies in the last 5 years? How about a man? Chances are it is much easier to think of a male geoscientist who has won an award than a female one, but is that because more men win awards in geoscience than women (compared to the number of male and female geoscientists)? This was the question that w ...[Read More]

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Seismology

A tale about MERMAIDs

Kathrin Spieker June 24, 2016

Once upon a time there was a little mermaid, with the upper body of a human and a tail of a fish, happily diving within the seven seas. Wait … I’m sorry, that is the wrong story. I will tell you today something about a different generation of MERMAIDs, that are pretty useful for seismologists. It is a very exciting story indeed. Over the last decades seismic station coverage dra ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Canyons Under The Greenland Ice Sheet!

Michael Cooper June 24, 2016

The Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough water to raise sea level by 7.36 meters (Bamber, et. al. 2013) and much of this moves from the interior of the continent into the oceans via Jakobshavn Isbræ – Greenland’s fastest flowing outlet glacier. An ancient river basin hidden beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, discovered by researchers at the University of Bristol, may help explain the loca ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Finding Funding: a how to guide to applying for research grants

Laura Roberts-Artal June 22, 2016

Drafting your first grant proposal can be daunting. Grant writing improves with experience, so how do early career scientists compete on an equal footing with those who are more established? At this year’s General Assembly we tackled this very question at the Finding Funding (SC46) short course. Grant Allen, an atmospheric scientist, who has plenty of experience in applying for funding spoke abo ...[Read More]

GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: A sunrise over Kelimutu’s three-colour lakes

Laura Roberts-Artal June 20, 2016

Volcanoes are undeniably home to some of the most beautiful landscapes on Earth. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture slopes of exceedingly fertile mineral rich soils, covered in lush vegetation; high peaks punching through cloud cover offering stunning vistas and bubbling pools of geothermally warmed waters were one can soak ones worries away. What about strikingly coloured crater lakes? Y ...[Read More]

GeoLog

GeoPolicy: 8 science-based projects improving regions in the EU

Sarah Connors June 17, 2016

As scientists, it can sometimes be difficult to see the real-world implications of some of our research. Concepts can often seem abstract and remote when sitting in a lab or taking field measurements. But researching the Earth sciences can have profound effects on global society. Understanding how the natural world works can help protect and improve human, animal, and plant life. This month’s GeoP ...[Read More]

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Cryospheric Sciences

Image of The Week – Ballooning on the Ice

Nanna B. Karlsson June 17, 2016

A curious experiment is taking place in Greenland. An experiment involving very large balloons and – of course – a lot of snow. Read on to discover why balloons are an environmentally friendly tool when constructing an ice core drill camp. Last year, a small team traversed 400km from northwest Greenland to the EastGRIP site (read more about the traverse here). This year another strenuous task is w ...[Read More]