Name of proxy Levoglucosan Type of record Biomass burning Paleoenvironment Lake and marine sediments and ice cores Period of time investigated Present to approximately 130,000 years ago How does it work? Levoglucosan is a molecule that is exclusively formed during the combustion of vegetation at low-temperature. It is therefore considered to be a source-specific tracer for biomass burning. During ...[Read More]
At some point in your career, usually, sooner than later, you will need to write a grant proposal to ensure yourself a paid research position. Funding agencies are out there waiting to receive your great and original ideas and possibly grant you some money to transform these ideas into actual science. One can spend an entire day just researching on the internet the best funding scheme. To h ...[Read More]
Early career scientists studying polar climate are one lucky group! The 29 young scientists who took part in the 10 day Polar Prediction School this year were no exception. They travelled to Arctic Sweden to learn and discuss the challenges of polar prediction and to gain a better understanding of the physical aspects of polar research. The Year of Polar Prediction The Year of Polar Prediction (YO ...[Read More]
Congratulations again to Sara Bruni for receiving the Geodesy Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award 2018! A summary of her research on new findings in the gravity field time series from Medicina is posted below. Maybe you know an Early Career Scientist who does as outstanding work as Sara Bruni does? Nomination is the first crucial step in order to receive an award, don’t let this oppo ...[Read More]
Mind Your Head is a blog series dedicated towards addressing mental health in the academic environment and highlighting solutions relieving stress in daily academic life. Research has shown that almost 50% of people working in academia suffer from mental health issues (e.g. Winefield et al. 2003; The Graduate Assembly at the University of California Berkeley 2015; Levecque et al. 2017). Factors li ...[Read More]
Being a stratigrapher or not, there’s one stratum you have all trod upon if you ever went to the General Assembly (GA), without probably noticing it. The uppermost unit of EGU’s GA floor, a ca. 5 mm thick layer with a soft rubbery texture and peculiar light-grey colour, outcropping over the whole poster halls: Carpet! Yes, the focus of this post is the carpet draping the GA’s floor wit ...[Read More]
View of the Medicina observatory. The site hosts a superconducting gravimeter (SG) installed in a dedicated building next to a piezometer. Local height variations are monitored by means of two GPS stations, located at the end of the N-S segment of the “North Cross” radio telescope. The two GPS stations are about 30 m apart and are close to a VLBI antenna. ...[Read More]
Whilst we tend to think of the ice flow in Antarctica as a very slow and steady process, the wonders of satellites have shown over the last two decades it is one of the most dynamic places on Earth! This image of the week maps this dynamical change using all the satellite tools at a scientist’s disposal with novel statistical methods to work out why the change has recently been so rapid. Why do ...[Read More]
Konichiwa from Tokyo and JpGU2018! This week, 20-24 May, the Japanese Geoscience Union (JpGU) is holding its annual union meeting just outside of Tokyo, in Chiba (about 40 minutes by metro). I am fortunate enough to be on a research visit to the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Tech over on the other side of the city and so attending JpGU was a bonus. It is my first time in attendance ...[Read More]
![Fire, Fog, Frost, Famine – French Revolution? The Lakagígar eruption in Iceland, 1783-1784 [Part 2]](https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/gmpv/wp-content/blogs.dir/19/files/2018/05/banner1-2-700x400.jpg)
PART II: Were the Haze Hardships caused by Men? Famine Before the Lakagígar eruption, the population of Iceland was 48810 people; four years later, it was down to 38518. Disregarding about 1500 deaths which were caused by a smallpox epidemic, the eruption may still have killed about 1/6 of the population [5]. These deaths were not directly caused by the lava or by toxic gases. The main cause was h ...[Read More]
