GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays: A rock and a hard place

‘My way’ by Amirhossein Mojtahedzadeh, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons license

Rocks within the Earth are constantly being subjected to forces that bend, twist, and fracture them, causing them to change shape and size. This process is known as deformation. Polyphase deformation occurs over time when rocks are affected, or stressed, by more than one phase of deformation.

Geomorphologist Amirhossein Mojtahedzadeh captured this stunning scene whilst on field work. “This photo was taken near Qom in central Iran. These formations are contained by sedimentary rocks, which underwent polyphase deformation and metamorphism – clearly visible in areas at this location,” he says.

Iran covers an area of 1 648 000 square kilometres. The central plateau, located between the bounding mountain ranges, is a major feature of the country’s diverse morphology.

Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union. Every geoscientist who is an amateur photographer (but also other people) can submit their images to this repository. Being open access, it can be used by scientists for their presentations or publications as well as by the press. If you submit your images to imaggeo, you retain full rights of use, since they are licenced and distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Bárbara Ferreira was the Media and Communications Manager of the European Geosciences Union from 2011 to 2019. Bárbara has also worked as a science writer specialising in astrophysics and space sciences, producing articles for the European Space Agency and others on a freelance basis. She has a PhD in astrophysics from the University of Cambridge.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

*