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Asmae Ourkiya

Asmae Ourkiya (They/Them) is the Media and Engagement Manager at EGU. They manage press releases, coordinate press participation and the press centre at the EGU General Assembly, and write and manage the EGU blogs. Asmae holds a Ph.D. in queer intersectional ecofeminism from MIC, University of Limerick in Ireland. Their research revolves around climate justice, and promotes inclusion and equality in climate governance.

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

August 7, 2026
Thirty years after Biescas: Rethinking alluvial fan flooding and infrastructure failure
Aftermath of the 1999 Carbadella flooding. Source: NHESS journal.

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!

July 31, 2026
GeoRoundup: the highlights of EGU Journals published during July!

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

July 30, 2026
Reflecting on fifty years of Mars through Viking 1’s lens
Collecting Samples on Mars by Maria Grulich. Source: Imaggeo

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

July 17, 2026
Why do Earth’s hidden stress fields matter for our future? Let’s explore the latest insights from the World Stress Map database
World Stress Map 2025. Source: Patterns of contemporary horizontal stress orientation in the Earth's crust derived from the World Stress Map Database 2025

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]