Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

EGU23 Wednesday Highlights

PIYAL HALDER April 26, 2023

Mineral-laden water emerging from a hydrothermal vent on the Niua underwater volcano in the Lau Basin, southwest Pacific Ocean. Source: https://www.usgs.gov/news/science-snippet/waterwords-hydrothermal-vent

Welcome to the third day of the EGU General Assembly, 2023. Hope that the participants and attendees are enjoying. Let’s start the day with a cup of tea and then enter the Hall. For virtual attendees, we have Gather.town. So don’t miss a single session wherever you are! Anyways, lets have a look on today’s sessions- The first session on “Magmatic, tectonic and hydrothermal ...[Read More]

Elemental etymology – what’s in a name?

Elliot Carter June 7, 2023

Photo of a medieval medical manuscript translated from Arabic in the 2nd half of the 13th Century.

Al-Razi's Recueil des traités de médecine translated by Gerard of Cremona, from the second half of the 13th century. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Like many scientists in the GMPV sphere, I work a lot with geochemistry – using chemical elements and their differing behaviours, abundances or isotopes as tools to understand Earth processes. While staring at the periodic table, something that’s always niggled at me is where the names of these come from: why is the stuff we breath called oxygen and the sand on the beach made of silicon? Even more ...[Read More]

The role of Geothermal Energy in the energetic and environmental challenge.

Elisabetta Billotta and Maddalena Perrini May 24, 2023

How does a Geothermal system work? Heat is a form of energy and, strictly speaking, geothermal energy is heat from inside the Earth. The large amount of thermal energy enclosed below the earth’s surface derives in part from its primordial formation process and in part originates from the decay of radioactive isotopes present mainly in the earth’s crust and, secondarily, in the mantle. ...[Read More]

EGU23 Friday Highlights

Elliot Carter April 28, 2023

Fountain of orange glowing lava above a black volcanic crater, Fagradalsfjall, Iceland, 2021

Fire fountaining during the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption, Iceland. Image by Jan Oliver Eisermann via Imaggeo https://imaggeo.egu.eu/view/17149/

It’s Friday and after a long week of conferencing you’re now on the home straight, the final day of EGU 2023! The following are some suggestions for that last bit of GMPV content to to bring your conference to the perfect close: Kicking things off first thing in the morning, there’s a big, exciting session on Volcanic processes: tectonics, deformation, geodesy, unrest with a loads of fascinating p ...[Read More]

EGU23 Thursday Highlights

Inês Pereira April 27, 2023

Polarized light photomicrograph of a thin section of graphitic granulite from Kerala, India by Bernardo Cesare (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

It is Thursday, a bit more than halfway through your EGU-GA 23, and there are many interesting sessions, talks and posters to check out! If you are like me and tend to start feeling conference fatigue around this time, you will appreciate some of these highlights. Let me guide you through the Thursday sessions. Usually, about this time, I also take the opportunity to wander around the exhibition h ...[Read More]