An important part of science is to share your results in the form of papers. Perhaps, even more important is to make those results understandable and reproducible in the Methods section. This week, Adina E. Pusok, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, shares some very helpful tips for writing the Methods in a concise, efficient, and complete way. Writin ...[Read More]
Natural Hazards
Stromboli: The Lighthouse of the Mediterranean
In the last months two paroxysmal explosive eruptions took place at Stromboli volcano: the first one, totally unexpected, on 3rd July (Video 1) that sadly cost the life of a person and the second and, currently, last one about three weeks ago, on the 28th August (Video 2). Today we try to answer a couple of questions about Stromboli and its eruptions. Are these paroxysmal eruptions common or rare ...[Read More]
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology
#mineralmonday: tiptopite
#mineralmonday: your weekly* dose of obscure mineralogy, every Monday** [*not guaranteed; **or possibly Tuesday-Sunday] What is it? Tiptopite: K2Na1.5Ca0.5Li3Be6(PO4)6(OH)2•(H2O) What’s it made of? Take a deep breath and recite after me: potassium, sodium, calcium, lithium, beryllium, phosphorus, oxygen and water (H2O). Is it pretty? Yes, it’s a beautiful fibrous mineral. You wouldn ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Climate Change & Cryosphere – Why is the Arctic sea-ice cover retreating?
The Arctic Ocean surface is darkening as its sea-ice cover is shrinking. The exact processes driving the ongoing sea-ice loss are far from being totally understood. In this post, we will investigate the different causes of the recent retreat of the Arctic sea-ice cover, using the most updated literature… Arctic sea ice is disappearing Due to its geographical position centered around the Nort ...[Read More]
Geodynamics
The Sassy Scientist – Pluto Panic
Every week, The Sassy Scientist answers a question on geodynamics, related topics, academic life, the universe or anything in between with a healthy dose of sarcasm. Do you have a question for The Sassy Scientist? Submit your question here or leave a comment below. After a distraught period (of more than a decade!) since the news first came out that Pluto was not considered a true planet anymore, ...[Read More]
Atmospheric Sciences
A brighter future for the Arctic
This is a follow-up from a previous publication. Recently, a new analysis of the impact of Black Carbon in the Arctic was conducted within a European Union Action. “Difficulty in evaluating, or even discerning, a particular landscape is related to the distance a culture has traveled from its own ancestral landscape. As temperate-zone people, we have long been ill-disposed toward deserts and ...[Read More]
Hydrological Sciences
YHS interview Martyn P. Clark: “rainfall-runoff modelling, per se, is dead”
In its “Hallway Conversations” series, the Young Hydrologic Society has recently published an interview with Martyn P. Clark, who is currently professor and the Associate Director of Centre for Hydrology and Canmore Coldwater Lab, at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. The interview was conducted by Sina Khatami, a PhD student at the University of Melbourne. With their agreement, we reproduce ...[Read More]
Geodynamics
The geodynamics of Enceladus: exotic and familiar
This week, Gael Choblet, CNRS research associate in the Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique (University of Nantes and Angers), tells us everything about the interior of Enceladus, an interesting icy moon of Saturn! This is my first contribution in these pages. The choice of Saturn’s small moon Enceladus as a topic mostly results from my acquaintance with this planetary body. Yet, the reade ...[Read More]
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences
Abrupt Warming could bring our planet a “Hothouse Earth” with catastrophic consequences for our economy and society
Most of us have enjoyed swings in childhood. Some have even tried to swing faster and make a full 360 degrees’ loop. Those who succeeded had a very strange feeling of not being able to predict whether, increasing the energy of the swing, the transition from normal oscillations and 360 loops would happen. Indeed, there is an energy threshold such that the swing goes from oscillations to full loops ...[Read More]
Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences
Workshop report: Mathematics of the Economy and Climate
Just before the summer a group of about 40 scientists gathered in an old Monastery in the Netherlands (Kontakt der Kontinenten, Soesterberg) for a rather special collaborative workshop entitled “Mathematics of the economy and climate”. Mathematicians, climate scientists and economists – a group of scientists that normally does not mix and are rather unfamiliar with each other’s researc ...[Read More]