In Switzerland, nothing is really remote, but some places are more so than others. Dense infrastructure networks typically provide convenient access to research sites in the Alps where it is difficult to feel far away from home. However, this is not always the case… For us, our home for the summer is a bit different. …[Read More]
An interview with Arie van Wettum In many universities, students and staff will go out into the field to deploy seismometers, collect data, and service instruments. Students get a sense of the area their data is coming from, the difficulties that are involved with deploying and recording data, and although inexperienced at the beginning, they …[Read More]
There is a place in the NE of Mexico where anyone can learn heaps about the dynamics of the ground beneath our feet while enjoying the wonders of the desert. Geologists call the area ‘La Popa Basin’. La Popa means “The Bow”, a name that comes from the shape of one of the mountains in …[Read More]
Stuck at home, Roger keeps alive the hope of returning to fieldwork. Obviously, he wants my thoughts on: What are your top tips for planning fieldwork during a pandemic? Dear Roger, I see you started the long and costly process of planning remote fieldwork, only to have it cancelled by a pandemic. Given the huge …[Read More]
When the Antarctic ice sheet loses mass, the pressure it exerts on the underlying solid Earth decreases. As the ice sheet becomes less heavy, the Earth’s surface is not pressed down as much as before and therefore slowly rises up. In some regions, this rebound process is much faster than previously thought and could stabilise …[Read More]
In this week’s post, Mohamed Gouiza discusses the challenges of living under constant stress, paralysed by the possibility of failure and self-perceived inevitability of impending breakup. Continental rifting, of course! Oh… did you think I was talking about life as a researcher? Under tensile stress, the lithosphere stretches, the asthenosphere rises, the crust fails, and …[Read More]
Importance and challenges of snow modelling in Turkey Snow and glaciers in the high mountains play a crucial role for 1.6 billion people living downstream of mountainous areas. Thus, understanding snow dynamics is crucial for downstream irrigation, hydropower, flood control etc. In eastern Anatolia, Turkey (the mean elevation is around 1140 m), much of the …[Read More]
Chi Jishang was born on the 25th of June 1917 in the Anlu County in the Province of Hubei, central China, but she moved to Beijing when she was four years old. Because her family was poor and she had three older siblings, her parents did not allow her and her younger sibling to go …[Read More]
Back in the day when my group organised the yearly retreat, we would also plan for a movie night. Usually, we would not get far because a heated discussion would break out about the quality of the movie: “…but this is a terrible movie!”, my colleagues would scream in agony and despair. In my opinion, …[Read More]
With the Natural Hazards 101 series, we meant to bring our readers closer to the terminology often used in the field of natural hazards, but that may not be so familiar. We started defining the very concept of hazard and natural hazard. We moved then to the concept of risk, which brought us to define …[Read More]