When reading fantasy novels, we are usually brought to worlds of elves, dragons, and epic battles, all surrounded by breathtaking magical forests, or castles above impervious cliffs. However, even fantasy stories take inspiration from the real world and its geology. Who does not remember the ascent of Mount Doom of Frodo and Sam, or the …[Read More]
I am finally going back to Vienna this year for the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly (GA) in April, for the first time since 2019. Strangely, I am now with this feeling of “finally back ‘home’ at the Austria Center Vienna”. I have been asking myself what is going to be different after these …[Read More]
When we look at the history of science, we mostly see male presence in inventions and discoveries. However, this is not actually a true representation of scientific history. A lot of fundamental aspects/parts of science were discovered by female scientists such as Caroline Herschel, Ada Lovelace, Alice Ball, Marie Curie, Chien-Shiung Wu, Grace Hopper and …[Read More]
In the early days of 2023, nearly 100 researchers gathered in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, one of the last permanently inhabited places before reaching the North Pole (see my previous blogpost about Svalbard). The Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) held its fifth Polar Night Week. SIOS is an international partnership of research institutions that study …[Read More]
It is common to hear that a good illustration is better than a lengthy textual explanation, and we fully agree with that statement. We are used to retrieving information and understanding things through visual illustrations. In the scientific community, any paper comes with a number of plots to show the data, and diagrams to explain …[Read More]
Have you arrived at that moment in your career when you have some potential ideas that you think would be relevant to science? Do you need financial support to advance your science career, and decided to apply for a grant? Today’s blog post brings you a good starting point with advice from three grant winners …[Read More]
Contribution about the September 2022 M 6.6 and M 6.8 earthquakes in South-East Taiwan Dr.Yifan Yin , recent graduate at the Swiss Seismological Service (SED) at the Earth Sciences department of ETH Zürich. On 17 September 2022, a magnitude 6.6 quake shook the southern-east Taiwan. The merely 8.6 km deep quake was widely felt across …[Read More]
We are getting used to perceiving glaciers more and more distant and disconnected from our mountains. With each passing year, it is more difficult to observe them, reach them or climb them. They are becoming an exotic element of the Alpine imagination. When our gaze rests on a mountain glacier, with its crevasses and large …[Read More]
The upper atmosphere of Earth is constantly being impacted by the flow of charged particles being released from the sun. This flow (the solar wind) carries with it a magnetic field which distorts and reshapes that of Earth, ultimately resulting in a large amount of electromagnetic space weather energy being channelled into the polar regions. …[Read More]
We are running out of time in fighting the effects of climate change. With the greenhouse gasses emissions steady, the planet is reaching warming levels that could cause some large ecosystems to tip in different states. A tipping point in the climate system refers to a threshold beyond which a small change in a particular …[Read More]
