Asmae Ourkiya

70 years of tech: Does it serve science or separate us from it? My take as an EGU media professional

Asmae Ourkiya September 4, 2026

When I joined the European Geosciences Union in 2024 as a media professional, my primary mandate felt straightforward: democratising scientific understanding and building durable, trustworthy bridges that connect scientists, researchers, journalists, and public communicators. Now, in my third year at EGU, I find myself looking out over our scientific community with a mixture of reverence and uneas ...[Read More]

GeoRoundup: the highlights of EGU Journals published during August!

Asmae Ourkiya August 31, 2026

Each month we feature specific Divisions of EGU and during the monthly GeoRoundup we put the journals that publish science from those Divisions at the top of the Highlights section. For August, we are featuring the Natural Hazards (NH), Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology (GMPV), and Geodesy (G). They are represented by the journals Solid Earth (SE), Geoscientific Model Developme ...[Read More]

Geolog series: Communicating uncertainty in science -Student perspectives from the University of Tübingen

Asmae Ourkiya and Solmaz Mohadjer August 28, 2026

Welcome to a new series on GeoLog dedicated to one of the most critical yet frequently misunderstood aspects of research: Communicating uncertainty in science. Over the coming months, we will feature six guest posts written by students from a summer course at the University of Tübingen. Bringing together 13 students across diverse disciplines, the course challenged them to reframe uncertainty as a ...[Read More]

From under Lake Nyos: The geology, physics, and engineering of limnic eruptions

Asmae Ourkiya August 21, 2026

On the evening of August 21, 1986, an unusual stillness blanketed the green highlands of northwestern Cameroon. The local villagers in Nyos, Cha, and Subum were preparing for bed, totally unaware that the crater lake nearby had reached its breaking point. Without warning, a wave of gas burst from the lake and spilled over the volcanic crater rim and cascaded into the valleys. Unseen, heavy, and co ...[Read More]

A geoscience reality check on World Biofuels Day

Asmae Ourkiya August 10, 2026

On a humid morning in Augsburg, Germany, on August 10, 1893, a ten-foot iron cylinder roared to life for the first time. The engine belonged to Sir Rudolf Diesel, and running through its veins was not the petroleum distillate we associate with his name today, but in fact, peanut oil! Diesel’s early experiment proved something revolutionary for the late Industrial Revolution: the engines driving hu ...[Read More]

Thirty years after Biescas: Rethinking alluvial fan flooding and infrastructure failure

Asmae Ourkiya August 7, 2026

Thirty years ago, in August 1996, a catastrophic flash flood swept through the Las Nieves campsite on the alluvial fan of the Barranco de Aras near Biescas in the Central Pyrenees of Aragón, Spain. The tragedy claimed 87 lives and injured over 180 people. This makes it one of the most severe weather-related disasters in modern European history. In the decades following the disaster, geoscientists ...[Read More]

GeoRoundup: the highlights of EGU Journals published during July!

Asmae Ourkiya July 31, 2026

Each month we feature specific Divisions of EGU and during the monthly GeoRoundup we put the journals that publish science from those Divisions at the top of the Highlights section. For July, we are featuring the Planetary and Solar System Sciences (PS), Seismology (SM), and Tectonics and Structural Geology (TS). They are represented by the journals Solid Earth (SE), Geoscientific Model Developmen ...[Read More]

Reflecting on fifty years of Mars through Viking 1’s lens

Asmae Ourkiya July 30, 2026

On July 20, 1976, a machine of steel and titanium dropped through a thin atmosphere and touched the dirt of Chryse Planitia. Scientists at NASA held their breath, since five years earlier, the Soviet Union’s Mars 3 probe had died less than two minutes after touchdown. To mitigate this nightmare, engineers programmed Viking 1 to scan its own footpad first. If the lander sank into oblivion, hu ...[Read More]

Why do Earth’s hidden stress fields matter for our future? Let’s explore the latest insights from the World Stress Map database

Asmae Ourkiya July 17, 2026

Beneath the serene landscapes we inhabit, the Earth’s crust is a battleground of constant, immense, and invisible tectonic forces. While humanity typically only notices this deep-seated stress when it violently releases in the form of an earthquake and volcanoes, these forces have always been shaping the structural bedrock of our planet. Understanding this hidden architecture is one of the most vi ...[Read More]

GeoRoundup: the highlights of EGU Journals published during June!

Asmae Ourkiya June 30, 2026

Each month we feature specific Divisions of EGU and during the monthly GeoRoundup we put the journals that publish science from those Divisions at the top of the Highlights section. For June, we are featuring the Ocean Science Division (OS). It is represented by the journal Ocean Science. Ocean Science Estuarine mixing – 22 June 2026 This review presents major aspects of estuarine mix ...[Read More]