Since August 2013, Elspeth and Charly, editors of Between a Rock and a Hard Place, have contributed a range of interesting and thought-provoking posts to the EGU network blogs: from a broad volcanology and petrology theme, through to sharing valuable insights they picked up during their journey towards completing their PhDs. However, the PhD theses are now submitted and defended, and Elspeth and C ...[Read More]
On a small and isolated island in the Indian Ocean you’ll find an endemic population of Dragon Blood Trees (Dracaena cinnabari). Burly, with an interesting umbrella-shaped fractal canopy, these unique trees are a sight to behold. To see them for yourself, you’ll have to travel to the little known Socotra archipelago. Off the coast of Somalia, but belonging to Yemen, the group of islands boast an i ...[Read More]
Going on a cruise for a month sounds tempting for most people and that is exactly how I spent one month of my summer. Instead of sunshine and 25 degrees, the temperature was closer to the freezing point on the thermometer and normal summer weather was replaced by milder weather conditions. The destination of the cruise was the western Nordic Sea and the east Greenland Margin. The ice2ice cruise wa ...[Read More]
The EGU offers a platform for early career scientists (ECS) to become involved in interdisciplinary research in the Earth, planetary and space sciences, through sessions, social events and short courses at the annual General Assembly in April. One of the ways of ensuring that the voice of the Union’s ECS membership is heard is via the division early career scientist representatives. Feedback gathe ...[Read More]
The b-value is that parameter of the Gutenberg-Richter relation which controls the ratio of small to large earthquakes. Intriguing temporal and spatial variations of the b-value have been reported in recent years, for example sudden b-value changes at active fault zones. Are such sharp spatial b-value variations merely a result of crude undersampling? To address this unsettling question, a recentl ...[Read More]
Late last year the Rosetta’s Plasma Consortium (RPC) announced that Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft has been studying since August 2014, was singing into space. Now, in a paper published today in the EGU’s open access journal Annales Geophysicae, the RPC team reveals more details about 67P’s song, including why the comet was singing. The sounds ...[Read More]
How many times have you turned your head up to the sky and spotted familiar shapes in the clouds? Viewing structures from afar can reveal interesting, common and, sometimes, funny patterns. Satellite images are often used to map geological terrains. They offer a bird’s eye view of the planet and the opportunity to see broad scale structures, the scale of which would be impossible to grasp from the ...[Read More]
Convening a session at a conference can seem daunting, especially if you are an early career research and a first-time convener. That’s why we’ve put together this two part series to outline the main steps of the process. With the call for sessions for the 2016 EGU General Assembly open until 18 September 2015, now is the perfect time to give it a go! The key ingredients are an idea for a session, ...[Read More]
Many studies report that hydrologic regimes are modulated by large-scale modes of climate variability such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) or the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). Climate-informed frequency analysis models have therefore been proposed to condition the distribution of hydrologic variables on climate indices. However, standard climate indices may be poor predictors in som ...[Read More]
This weeks photo is once again related to permafrost and the Arctic….something tells me I miss being there. Anyway, the gorgeous photo below shows a terrific example of polygonal patterned ground from Siberia. Patterned ground is a phenomenon that occurs frequently in cold regions and is caused by the seasonal freeze-thaw of the active layer/soil. This process can produce a phenomenon called ...[Read More]
