This week in News & Views, Anne Glerum, postdoc at GFZ Potsdam, discusses how her numerical models support a lithosphere-driven mechanism for the rotation of large continental microplates, like Victoria in the East African Rift System. The East African Rift System (EARS) is a newly forming divergent boundary between the Nubian and Somalian plates (Fig. 1). The plate boundary system includes se ...[Read More]
650 metres below the chilly waves of the North Atlantic Arctic Ocean, equidistant between Norway, Iceland and Greenland, are the Jan Mayen Vent Fields. Home to a series of hydrothermal vents strung along a set of normal faults and fissures that run parallel to the seafloor ridge, this is a strange and fascinating place. Hydrothermal vents are places where tectonic activity provides a way for the h ...[Read More]
Istanbul – an economic, cultural, and historic centre. Its unique geography, natural resources and beauty have drawn the attention of not only geoscientists but also poets, merchants, painters, sculptors, architects, kings and emperors for centuries. Throughout its history, the city has witnessed the rise and fall of some of the world’s greatest empires. Owing to its geopolitically important ...[Read More]
The illustration above shows a sketch of the evolution of Arctic sea ice for different levels of warming and the different months of the year, based on the simple extrapolation of observations. A new study, in which I was involved, uses the latest available global climate models and shows that the Arctic Ocean could become practically ice free at the end of the summer for the first time before 205 ...[Read More]
Yu-Seok has depleted his streaming service queue, thrown all of the stocked board games off the table, and eagerly seeks new ways to squander his energy after a long workday of couch-surfing underneath his laptop: What should a scientist do as a pastime? Dear Yu-Seok, Where can you find the time? And the energy? Aren’t we all simply working continuously? I go to extremes to even find the energy an ...[Read More]
Today’s our blog hosts a review article by the 2016 EGU Richardson medallist Peter Read, together with Daniel Kennedy, Neil Lewis, Hélène Scolan, Fachreddin Tabataba-Vakili, YixiongWang, Susie Wright, and Roland Young for the special issue of NPG celebrating 100 years of IUGG (https://npg.copernicus.org/articles/27/147/2020/npg-27-147-2020.html). One of the great achievements of the past 100 ...[Read More]
One of the basic tenets of plate tectonics states that deformation occurs along plate boundaries while plate interiors remain almost undeformed. Intraplate earthquakes defy this principle and hence are quite enigmatic. In this week’s News and Views, Prof. Attreyee Ghosh from the Centre for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, tries to explain the reasons behind intraplate ea ...[Read More]
By Carole Dalin The coronavirus outbreak is a global shock that has affected labour supply, productivity and aggregate demand around the world. However, less is known about what impact this shock will have on global water resources. Disruptions of global food systems caused by the Covid-19 pandemic are, at least for now, more linked with the supply chain than with food production or food s ...[Read More]
This is an aerial image taken from a balloon at around 150m height, at the eastern shoreline of the Dead Sea. Such “selfies” are scientifically valuable, providing important data that help researchers to analyze the morphology of the retreating lake and investigate associated hazards like sinkholes, subsidence and landslides. The older shorelines, visible as lines on the shore stand fo ...[Read More]
Volcanoes arouse emotions in the soul of men: at the same time, they are fascinating and frighten the population that lives on their slopes when they erupt (Fig. 1). Volcanoes can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death. As such, in the ancient time, volcanoes discharging explosive eruptions have been interpreted as the wrath of gods that destroys and annihilates all around ...[Read More]
