For today blog, we have interviewed Clemens Eisank about OBIA and its application in Natural Hazard. Dr. Clemens Eisank is Remote Sensing Specialist & Project Manager at GRID-IT Company in Innsbruck (Austria). He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS at Salzburg University in 2013. In his Ph.D. research, he proposed a …[Read More]
Division blogs
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the week – Skiing, a myth for our grandchildren?
Ski or water ski? Carnival season is typically when many drive straight to the mountains to indulge in their favorite winter sport. However, by the end of the century, models seem to predict a very different future for Carnival, with a drastic reduction in the number of snow days we get per year. This could …[Read More]
Solar-Terrestrial Sciences
Social media response to geomagnetic activity
Social media platforms offer every person with internet access the possibility to share content of various kind. The recent increase in social media use globally give birth to new tools and insights, from a different perspective. The size of, and the global nature of the user driven social media, makes one expect it to include …[Read More]
Climate: Past, Present & Future
Mountain glacier variations: natural thermometers and rainfall gauges
Name of proxy Fluctuations of mountain glaciers Type of record Geomorphological features Paleoenvironment Continent – High mountain areas Period of time investigated From historical periods (c.a. 300 years ago) to the end of the Pleistocene (up to 200 000 years back in time) How does it work? Mountain – or “alpine” – glaciers are small …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the Week – The Gap, the Bridge, and the Game-changer
The Gap, the Bridge, and the Game-changer are three series of satellites. They carry instruments that measure the microwave radiation emitted by the Earth (called passive microwave instruments), while flying 800 km above our heads at 7,5 km/s. Since the late 1970s, most sea ice properties (concentration, extent, area, velocity, age and more!) have been …[Read More]
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology
Building a lava dome: one block at a time
Lava domes form when lava is extruded from a volcanic vent, but is too viscous to flow far away. Think of thick treacle that does not flow as easily as runny honey, and so when it is extruded, it forms a “lava pile” around the vent. Lava domes commonly form within the crater of a …[Read More]
Natural Hazards
“Twenty or more Leagues Under the Sea”: A journey to understand submarine canyons
As NhET, we have the pleasure to have Mauro Agate as our guest and interviewee today. We discuss about submarine canyons and related geo-hazards. Further details will be available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967064513002488 for a scientific-oriented audience; or https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWErQNoZYpJhhkxPa82x5g for a broader audience. Dr. Mauro Agate is a marine geologist and a stratigrapher working at Earth …[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Image of the week – How hard can it be to melt a pile of ice?!
Snow, sub-zero temperatures for several days, and then back to long grey days of near-constant rain. A normal winter week in Gothenburg, south-west Sweden. Yet as I walk home in the evening, I can’t help but notice that piles of ice have survived. Using the equations that I normally need to investigate the demise of …[Read More]
Geomorphology
Do glaciers really do all the work? Perhaps not.
Kerry Leith from the Engineering Geology Department at the ETH Zürich set up a post on their latest publication and the backstory behind it. As they announced on their own website (www.stressdriven.com) review comments ranged from “mediocre or poor” to “[…] provocative, potentially revolutionary (if correct) analysis”. It surely contains interesting thoughts. – written by …[Read More]
Tectonics and Structural Geology
Paris: From quarry to catacombs
Paris, 2000 ya. Claude is sweating all over. It’s mid-July and the sun is burning on his skin. With his hammer and shovel he is digging up grey and white stones. The faults and fractures in the rock help him to get the rocks out easily. But still, it’s hot and humid and his shift …[Read More]