One of our key services (and the way that many people know our organisation) is through our annual General Assembly – a meeting of around 20,000 researchers that is held in Vienna, Austria, and online in each spring. This meeting is a critical event for our community, a place for scientists to get new ideas and come together to discuss their work, plans and struggles, in a world that is increasingly hostile to scientists and to safe and secure workplaces.
This year’s conference, EGU26, marks the 20th anniversary of the EGU General Assembly in Vienna, a huge milestone for both the EGU community and its partners; the Austria Center Vienna (our venue), and the Vienna Convention Bureau. To commemorate this jubilee, we propose a collaborative art mural in Vienna, giving context to the local audience on the thousands of geoscientists who gather in their neighbourhood each year! The mural aims to:
- Provide a lasting impression for Viennese people of all ages, highlighting the longstanding relationship between their city and EGU.
- Celebrate the anniversary by further fostering collaboration between the EGU community and Viennese artists.
- Showcase key advances in (geo)sciences from the last 20 years, while bringing in a local connection with geoscientific discoveries from Vienna-based scientists of the past.
- Feature the new EGU26 logo with the text “Celebrating 20 years of geoscience in Vienna!” as context for the artistic design. The optional QR code would direct the audience to an EGU blog post for further information and a detailed breakdown of the scientific components found within the mural.
Working with former Artist in Residence Jane Zimmerman and Noel Baker, EGU commissioned a muralist Wolfgang Hold to make the mural a reality! Work started this morning, at Wargramer Str. 61, Vienna (you can watch along on the live-stream here), and should be finished by Thursday 7 May.
Inspiration for the mural is based on important geoscience events and discoveries in the last 20 years, and key geoscience events that have happened in Vienna! Learn more using our key image.
1. Discovery of soft tissue on T-Rex fossil, indicating they were feathered, including a discovery of a feathered dinosaur tail preserved in amber
2 and 5. EU creates the Copernicus initative, which makes remote sensing data free and openly available, including from its satellites, the Sentinels.
3. Martian research made leaps and bounds – from the discovery of water to possible signs of life
4. First image of a black hole
7. Climate impact on life became quantifiable and development of climate stripes by Ed Hawkins.
8. For the first time, geologists have drilled into the mantle
9. Okjökull in Iceland is declared the first glacier to be killed by climate change
10. Discovery of Neodymium – a new element – used now to make high power magnets by Carl Auer von Welsbach in 1885 in Vienna.
11. Discovery and naming of Gondwana continent and Tethys Ocean by Edward Seuss in 1893 in Vienna after discovering that the Alps were originally at the bottom of an ocean.
12. Ghost fish found living at the deepest part of the ocean, 2,500 meters underwater
13. Snowglobe first invented in Vienna in the 1870s by Erwin Perzy.
14. Discovery of oldest rock fragment on Earth – a zircon that is 4.4 billion years old
15. Biggest eruption of 21st century: Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption.
16. The weight of a kilogram was redefined
17. EGU26 is still going on – check out the full programme online now!
