Geomorphology

From caves explorer to landslides scientist: Fausto Guzzetti 2021 Soloviev Medal

Luigi Lombardo March 8, 2021

The photograph shows a rockfall that occurred near Valtopina, Umbria, Central Italy, on an unknown date. Photo Credit: Fausto Guzzetti (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Dr Fausto Guzzetti, current Research Director of the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy, has been awarded the 2021 Sergey Soloviev Medal for “his fundamental contributions to the field of natural hazards and his remarkable efforts to link the scientific community and civil protection authorities to mitigate risk for exposed populations”. From his passion for mountains and caves and his “hope ...[Read More]

Climate Change: is Viticulture under threat?

Paolo Tarolli December 21, 2020

Figure 1 - Supercell reaching Soave hills, north-eastern Italy. (Photo credit: Elizabeth Zanella, Coffele Estate Wine Farm)

In the afternoon of August 29, 2020, an intense supercell, which is a thunderstorm characterized by the presence of a deep, persistently rotating updraft, affected the province of Verona in the north of Italy (Figure 1). It was not the first event of this kind; several other events, including tornado episodes, had already occurred during summer 2020. Here the video of the downburst recorded during ...[Read More]

Alpine rock instability events and mountain permafrost

Stefano Alberti and Margherita Cecilia Spreafico April 29, 2019

Figure 1 – Deposits on the Porchabella Glacier where ice was found on top of a boulder. Ice was also present in the detachment zone of the rock slope failure, as observable in the upper left corner zoomed photo (from Phillips et al., 2017[13])

Rockfalls, rock slides and rock avalanches in high mountains The terms rockfall, rock avalanche and rockslide are often used interchangeably. Different authors have proposed definitions based on volume thresholds, but the establishment of fixed boundaries can be tricky. Rockfall can be defined as the detachment of a mass of rock from a steep rock-wall, along discontinuities and/or through rock bri ...[Read More]

InSAR Norway: the big eye on Norwegian unstable rock slopes

Gabriele Amato April 15, 2019

Fig.1. Screenshot from insar.ngu.no that shows, for each coloured point, its mean movement (in mm/y) and the time series of its displacement.

Marie Keiding is a researcher in the Geohazard and Earth Observation team at the Geological Survey of Norway. Together with her colleague, John Dehls, who is leading the project, she works to develop and operate the new mapping service called InSAR Norway. Before we start, let’s briefly describe what is InSAR. First, the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) is a day and night operational imaging system ...[Read More]