Christmas is coming to town and in the Northern Hemisphere many of us are still dreaming of a white Christmas, “just like the ones we used to know”. But how likely is it that our dreams will come true? What is the definition of a White Christmas ? Usually Christmas can be defined as a …[Read More]
Deep inside Saturn’s moon Dione lies a global ocean of liquid water, according to scientists of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. Such discovery places Dione as the third Saturn’s moon, beside Enceladus and Titan, to have a subsurface ocean. Previous models of planet interior, based on gravity and shape data of Cassini, predicted no ocean …[Read More]
On the Brunt Ice Shelf, Antarctica, a never-observed-before migration has just begun. As the pale summer sun allows the slow ballet of the supply vessels to restart, men and machines alike must make the most of the short clement season. It is time. At last, the Halley VI research station is on the move! Halley, …[Read More]
Ice cores are important tools for investigating past climate as they are effectively a continuous record of snowfall, which preserves historical information about climate conditions and atmospheric gas composition. In this new “For Dummies” post, we discuss the history and importance of ice-core science, and look at the way we can use ice core chemistry …[Read More]
If glaciers could speak, you might imagine them saying – “HELP!” The planet continues to warm and this means glaciers continue to shrink. Our new image of the week shows a glacier that appears to be making this point in a rather dramatic and gruesome way – it appears to be bleeding! If you went to …[Read More]
Much like trees, clam shells have growth rings. The chemistry of these rings can be used as a proxy for ocean chemistry. Recently, an international team of scientists used the growth rings found in shells of Arctica islandica to produce an annual absolutely dated marine δ18O record for the last millennium which was published in …[Read More]
Have you ever thought of using gelatin in the lab to simulate the brittle-elastic properties of the Earth’s crust? Stefano Urbani, PhD student at the university Roma Tre (Italy), uses it for his analogue experiments, in which he studies the controlling factors on dike propagation in the Earth’s crust. Although we share this topic with …[Read More]
The polar regions are covered by a thin sheet of sea ice – frozen water that forms out of the same ocean water it floats on. Often, portrayals of Earth’s sea ice cover show it as a great, white, sheet. Looking more closely, however reveals the sea ice cover to be a varied and jumbled …[Read More]
This week we present the many volunteers behind the activities of the Tectonics and Structural Geology (TS) division. We can also be found on http://www.egu.eu/ts, Facebook and twitter. We are always happy to hear new ideas and feedback! Just drop a message on ts@egu.eu and don’t forget to stop by the division meeting during the General Assembly …[Read More]
Over the summer, I got excited… the Weddell Polynya was seemingly re-opening! ”The what?” asked my new colleagues. So today, after brief mentions in past posts, it is time to explain what a polynya is. Put it simply, a polynya, from the Russian word for “ice hole”, is a hole in the sea-ice cover. That …[Read More]