EGU Blogs

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GM
Geomorphology

Theoretical Geomorphology: Selling a seemingly boring topic

Theoretical Geomorphology: Selling a seemingly boring topic

Anne Voigtländer (TUM Munich) presented her poster at the EGU 2017 and attracted quite some attention. She drew everything per hand and besides chocolate bars and smiling mountains she touched some very interesting topics. Have a look and get inspired! – written by Anne Voigtländer (TUM Munich) – Have you ever tried to sell a text on theoretical geomorphology to students? Or even to your fellow sc ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Searching for clues of extraterrestrial life on the Antarctic ice sheet

Image of the Week – Searching for clues of extraterrestrial life on the Antarctic ice sheet

Last week we celebrated Antarctica Day, 50 years after the Antarctic Treaty was signed. This treaty includes an agreement to protect Antarctic ecosystems. But what if, unintentionally, this protection also covered clues of life beyond Earth? In this Image of the Week, we explore how meteorites found in Antarctica are an important piece of the puzzle in the search for extraterrestrial life. Meteori ...[Read More]

CL
Climate: Past, Present & Future

What is in the (European) air?

What is in the (European) air?

You thought that Mauna Loa was the only observatory to provide continuous measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and were disappointed because Hawaii is way too far from your study area or because you wanted to know how bad  the air is in your hometown? The US have been monitoring the composition of the atmosphere since 1972, but what about Europe? Since 2008, Europe has its own ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

Conferences – so near and yet so far

Conferences – so near and yet so far

Attending conferences is expensive and time consuming, so going to all the conferences relevant for your research topic(s) is an impossible mission. One solution might be to attend (parts of) conferences remotely. Suzanne Atkins, postdoc at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, discusses the pros and cons of remote conferencing. Last month the Geological Society of London live-streamed their celebration of 50 ...[Read More]

TS
Tectonics and Structural Geology

How Rome and its geology are strongly connected

How Rome and its geology are strongly connected

Walking through an ancient and fascinating city like Rome, there are signs of history everywhere. The whole city forms an open-air museum, full of remnants of many different times the city has known, from the Imperial to the Medieval times, the Renaissance, the Fascist period, and finally the present day version of Rome. For historians and archaeologists, unravelling the exact history of the city ...[Read More]

Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

A little fracture can go a long way: How experiments illuminate our understanding of volcanic eruptions

A little fracture can go a long way: How experiments illuminate our understanding of volcanic eruptions

What controls how violently a volcano erupts? Stratovolcanoes like Mount St Helens (USA), Gunung Merapi (Indonesia), or Volcán de Colima (Mexico) tend to erupt in two distinct ways: effusively and/or explosively. Effusive eruptions are eruptions where lava is extruded without any major explosions. Although effusive eruptions can be dangerous, at stratovolcanoes they tend to be restricted to volcan ...[Read More]

CR
Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week – Antarctica Day

Image of the Week – Antarctica Day

Today, 1st December 2017, marks the 58th anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959. The Antarctic Treaty was motivated by international collaboration in Antarctica in the International Geophysical Year (IGY), 1957-1958. During the IGY over 50 new bases were established in and around Antarctica by 12 nations- including this one at Halley Bay which was maintained for over a decade b ...[Read More]

Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

Update on the Agung volcanic eruption in Indonesia

Update on the Agung volcanic eruption in Indonesia

Since our last blog, Agung has had two months to reflect and has recently begun a strong ash venting process, with incandescence visible at night in the summit. Updates from Magma Indonesia, the official communications hub for natural hazards in Indonesia, have highlighted an elevated level of volcanic tremor and an evacuation zone to 12 km radius around the volcano is being enforced. You can foll ...[Read More]

GD
Geodynamics

On the influence of grain size in numerical modelling

On the influence of grain size in numerical modelling

The Geodynamics 101 series serves to showcase the diversity of research topics and methods in the geodynamics community in an understandable manner. We welcome all researchers – PhD students to Professors – to introduce their area of expertise in a lighthearted, entertaining manner and touch upon some of the outstanding questions and problems related to their fields. This month Juliane Dannberg fr ...[Read More]

CL
Climate: Past, Present & Future

Forams, the sea thermometers of the past!

Forams, the sea thermometers of the past!

Name of proxy Mg/Ca-SST on planktonic foraminifera shell Type of record Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Paleoenvironment Marine environments Period of time investigated 55 Million years ago to recent times How does it work ? Foraminifera (or Forams) are single-celled organisms varying from less than 1 mm to several cm in size. They are very abundant in the ocean floor (benthic species) or floating a ...[Read More]