The European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 is less than a week away. Here are some information you might find useful. REGISTRATION: Pick up your name badge from Hall Z (from the forecourt of the congress centre Austria Centre Vienna – ACV) by simply providing your Copernicus Office User ID at the Name Badge Pickup counters. Remember …[Read More]
Division blogs
A small tribute to the pioneers of plate tectonics
The Geological Society has prepared an interactive website that pays a small tribute to the pioneers of plate tectonics: Alfred Lothar Wegener Harry Hammond Hess Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews John Tuzo-Wilson Dan McKenzie The website also features a Teacher Zone with good teaching material, a Glossary for nicely explained geological terms, and a Test Your Knowledge section …[Read More]
125 years since the first recorded seismogram
17th April marks the 125 anniversary of the first ever recorded seismogram from a distant earthquake. The widely recognised first teleseismic seismogram was recorded on April 17, 1889, in Potsdam, Germany by E. von Rebeur-Pacshwitz (Nature, 1889). The earthquake was in Japan and had a magnitude of about 5.8. Ironically the instrument was originally installed for astronomical …[Read More]
Soil colors – what more could you want?
Nuno Simões University of Algarve, Portugal E-mail: nuno_simoes58@hotmail.com We can easily see that soil color varies from one site to another, with depth, with topographic position and composition. Even color may be light brown in one side of the road and dark brown in the other. Whether for scientific purposes, or just curious, you study the colorimetric …[Read More]
Will drinking tea get us thinking about soils? Yes, but only if you help us spread the word!
Taru Lehtinen PhD candidate at the Faculty of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Iceland tmk2@hi.is The Tea Bag Index Project wants to create a global map on decomposition with the help of citizen scientists. We use teabags to collect vital information on the global carbon cycle. With our protocol (see our web page and …[Read More]
Molding seismic surface waves
Following each major earthquake that occurs close to nearby cities many people wonder what scientist and engineers can do to minimise the seismic hazard on society. Whilst scientist try to understand the mechanism of each fault system on the globe, engineers try to find solutions for buildings to be more safe. One interesting experiment I …[Read More]
Soils at Imaggeo: gully erosion in Swaziland
John Quinton, UK This post was also published simultaneously in G-Soil.
Monday paper: Soil carbon stocks and their variability across the forests, shrublands and grasslands of peninsular Spain
Doblas-Miranda, E., Rovira, P., Brotons, L., Martínez-Vilalta, J., Retana, J., Pla, M., and Vayreda, J. 2013. Soil carbon stocks and their variability across the forests, shrublands and grasslands of peninsular Spain. Biogeosciences, 10, 8353-8361. DOI: 10.5194/bg-10-8353-2013. Abstract Accurate estimates of C stocks and fluxes of soil organic carbon (SOC) are needed to assess the impact of …[Read More]
Soils at Imaggeo: flying over the Saharan Cauldron
Carolina Cavazos-Guerra, Germany The Saharan desert has one of the most extreme climates on Earth. The dust loading and thermodynamics over this region are unique, and have major impacts on the climate of North Africa, Europe and the Atlantic. Fennec is a large-scale programme designed to tackle one of the world’s key climate regions by delivering …[Read More]
Boring Soil Science strikes back
Many scientists are currently debating whether soil science is an academic field in which scientists are engaged in talking to each other, ignoring the rest of society. Of course, traditionally, the dissemination of soil science has been a difficult field. Among other problems, some scientists have reviewed the use of complicated jargon. Soil Science academics …[Read More]