Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

Carbonate Minerals: the Silent Players of Climate Change – Victoria Corcimaru for GMPV for Sustainable Development

Victoria Corcimaru, Franziska Keller and Camilla Imarisio August 25, 2021

GMPV and The Sustainable Development Goals In 2015 all United Nations Member States adopted a set of Global Goals, as a universal call to protect our planet, end poverty and ensure that all people can enjoy peace and prosperity. These are called the Sustainable Development Goals – 17 integrated goals aimed at addressing the challenges our society is currently facing considering social, economic, a ...[Read More]

Do caldera eruptions occur in cycles?

Franziska Keller August 11, 2021

Aso caldera in Kyushu, SW Japan. Photo by A. Miyakawa.

Caldera-forming eruptions represent some of the most dangerous natural hazards we have to face on Earth. If happening today, a single caldera-forming eruption would have a devastating impact on the population living around the volcano, destroy the surrounding environment, and also strongly influence the global climate. But what actually is a caldera and how do scientists interpret their eruptive a ...[Read More]

Volcanoes and Wines, Part 1

Simona Gabrielli and Alessandro Musu August 5, 2021

On the left picture of Bromo Mountain in East Java Indonesia, photo by ibrahim kusuma on Unsplash. On the right a view of Mt Vesuvius through a vineyard from the Pompeii ruins near Naples, Italy. Photo by Pieter Biesemans on Unsplash

Why talk about wine on the GMPV blog? Well, this geologist-favourite drink is not only good memories of the EGU General Assembly but also a topic that spans among all the GMPV categories. Indeed, wine composition, flavour, structure and quality are inevitably bound to the mineralogy and geochemistry of the soil, making it so common and appreciated since ancient times. And what gives us a nice comp ...[Read More]

Drilling in the deep: Project Mohole and the underground space race

Elliot Carter July 28, 2021

The drilling derrick of the IODP ship DV Chikyu - winches are used to lift the drill string up section by section (Image credit: E. Carter)

The mantle makes up the bulk of Earth, extending from near the surface to the edge of the core 2900 km down. It constitutes 84% of Earth’s volume and has roughly 6 times the mass of Mars! Despite its impressive bulk, the mantle is almost everywhere covered by several km of crust. As a result we don’t have a lot of pieces of it that we can look at, hold or study. Those we have (e.g. xenoliths ...[Read More]