GeoLog | 2018

Imaggeo on Mondays: Chilean relics of Earth’s past

Anita Di Chiara March 12, 2018

Sunset, LLaima volcano and eruptions' relicts . Credit: Anita Di Chiara (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

As Earth’s environment changes, it leaves behind clues used by scientists to paint portraits of the past: scorched timber, water-weathered shores, hardened lava flows. Chile’s Conguillío National Park is teeming with these kind of geologic artifacts; some are only a few years old while others have existed for more than 30 million years. The photographer Anita Di Chiara, a researcher at Lancaster U ...[Read More]

Geosciences Column: The science behind snow farming

Olivia Trani March 9, 2018

A layer of sawdust and wood chips hides a massive pile of snow in South Tyrol. The thick cover protects the snow from the summer heat. Winter sport destinations have been 'farming' snow as a way to guarantee white winters. Credit: Grünewald et al.

For roughly the last decade, some ski resorts and other winter sport facilities have been using a pretty unusual method to ensure white slopes in winter. It’s called snow farming. The practice involves collecting natural or artificially made snow towards the end of winter, then storing the frozen mass in bulk over the summer under a thick layer of sawdust, woodchips, mulch, or other insulating mat ...[Read More]

Making a poster or PICO presentation: top tips from the Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award judges

Olivia Trani March 7, 2018

PICO presentations at the 2017 General Assembly. (Credit: EGU)

Every year at the General Assembly hundreds of students present their research at the conference with a lot of time and effort going into preparing these presentations. With the aim to further improve the overall quality of poster presentations and more importantly, to encourage early career scientists to present their work in the form of a poster, the OSP Awards (as they were formerly known), wer ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Nummulites, the living lentils

Manuel de Paz Álvarez March 5, 2018

The Nummulite-Whisperer Snail. Credit: Manuel de Paz Álvarez (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

This photograph depicts a close-up of Eocene limestones from the Sardinero Formation in Cantabria (Northern Spain). The limestone is rich with foraminifera shells, most of them from the Nummulitidae family. These organisms once lived in a very shallow sea that separated Europe from Iberia in the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic era. Later the sea basin’s closure led to the formation of the Pyrene ...[Read More]