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]
Famous geological sites: Delicate Arch, Utah
Delicate Arch is probably the most spectacular natural arch in Arches National Park, Utah. Delicate Arch is made of the Middle Jurassic Entrada Sandstone, which was deposited in various environmental settings, particularly beaches, tidal mudflats and deserts. Arches National Park attracts more than 1.5 million visitors per year.
The world about pollen
Palynomorphs under the microscope: Pityosporites (pine, left) and Inaperturopollenites hiatus (taxadiaceae or cypress, right). Scale bar = 25 micrometres.
Pollen – for many people rather an irritant across spring, summer and autumn when trees and flowers are in bloom. Individual pollen grains are between a few µm (micrometre, which is one thousandth of an mm) and >130 µm in diameter. This size range is impossible to see with the naked eye unless the pollen grains are clumped together, or when pollen is dispersed as powder into the air on a dry su ...[Read More]
Blame it on the Weatherman
I like rain. Being British, this is a useful trait. It’s also what led me to do a PhD in Hydrometeorology. Since then, I have researched in hydrology, hydraulics, geomorphology, and more recently I have dabbled in sedimentology. Yet, the common theme through all of my research has been rain. I think it’s often underappreciated by those of us more interested in dry stuff like sediment and rocks, bu ...[Read More]