Changes in the ice shelves surrounding the Antarctic continent are responsible for most of its current contribution to sea-level rise. Although they are already afloat and do not contribute to sea level directly, ice shelves play a key role through the buttressing effect. But which ice shelf regions are most important for this? The role of ice-shelf buttressing In architecture, the term “buttress” ...[Read More]
This is the first post of “Talking hydrology”, an interview-based series of posts in the HS Blog that present the experience and personal views of hydrologists and people interested in talking about hydrology. The “Talking hydrology” series is edited by the team of the HS blog together with Leonie Kiewiet (University of Zurich, Switzerland). Here, we will talk about experimental hydrol ...[Read More]
The earliest continents played a fundamental role on Earth’s habitability. However, their generation is still not understood, and it requires an integrated approach between petrology and geodynamic modelling. In a new study, Piccolo and co-workers developed a method to handle the effects of chemical evolution on the geodynamic processes. They show that the production of the earliest felsic c ...[Read More]
by Rémy Bossu, Laure Fallou, Sylvain Julien-Laferrière, Matthieu Landès, Julien Roch, Fréderic Roussel, Sébastian Soriat and Robert Steed I set the area of interest, and then tried to adjust the magnitude threshold. Either the threshold was too high and I did not get information for the earthquakes that I felt, or it was too low and I got tens of notifications a day for earthquakes that nobody not ...[Read More]
EGU is a bit like a music festival. Maybe not as crowded as the Donauinselfest, but you’ll definitively experience some of this type of event classic features: dilly-dallying a lot about what to see next, losing your friends and setting up more or less detailed meeting points, buying overpriced food and beverages. And if in the right place at the right time, you might even see some actual “rock st ...[Read More]
With over 198 000 glaciers in the world, you can always find a glacier that fits your mood or a given occasion. So why not for example celebrate the first Image of the Week of May with a picture of the aptly named May Glacier? May Glacier is in fact not named after the month, but after Mr May, an officer onboard the Flying Fish during her expedition to the East Antarctic coast in the 1840s. Apart ...[Read More]
A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to join a field trip to the Kenya rift organized by Potsdam University and Roma III. This rift is part of the active East African Rift System, which I introduced in a previous blog post. With a group of 25 enthusiastic participants from Roma Tre, Potsdam University, Nairobi University and GFZ Potsdam (we somehow always managed to make the 20-person bus ...[Read More]
The 2019 started with a relatively high number of paleontological discoveries published in highly ranked journals showing that paleontology is sexy indeed! Here you can find a small selection of the most recent ones. The studies in micro- and macropaleontology published earlier this year, provide a large contribution to our understanding of organism evolution and response to peculiar environmental ...[Read More]
These blogposts present interviews with outstanding scientists that bloomed and shape the theory that revolutionised Earth Sciences — Plate Tectonics. Get to know them, learn from their experience, discover the pieces of advice they share and find out where the newest challenges lie! Meeting Francis Albarède Francis Albarède started his career as an undergraduate student in Natural Sciences at the ...[Read More]
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]
