This week, we are excited to introduce a new monthly blog column called GeoTalk, featuring short interviews with geoscientists about their research. To kick-start this regular Q&A series, we talked to Dr Guillermo Rein of Imperial College London about “the largest fires on Earth” and how they can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. First, could you introduce yourself and let us ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Jökulsárlón
This photo of an awe-inspiring icy landscape is without a doubt one of the best we have ever featured in our weekly Imaggeo on Mondays. The Icelandic glacial lagoon Jökulsárlón is gloomy and cold. Yet the brilliant blue of the ice and the turquoise of the water stand out beautifully in this image, giving it a je-ne-sais-quoi of magic. The photographer, János Kovács, a geologist at the University o ...[Read More]
Hunting Laki
Journalist Alexandra Witze was one of two winners of the EGU’s first Geosciences Communications Fellowship. We asked her to report back from a recent trip to Iceland, where she and her husband, science writer Jeff Kanipe, were gathering material on the 1783 eruption of the volcano Laki. They are working on a popular book about Laki for Profile Books. When you’re hot on the trail of a particular Ic ...[Read More]
Do you know EGU’s YouTube channel?
You may have seen some of the 2012 General Assembly videos we posted on the blog in the last few months – all of these clips were originally published on EGU’s YouTube channel, and we’re happy to announce that many more EGU videos (over 100 in total) are now available on the same page! We have organised the clips into playlists to make it easier for you to access videos from specific e ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Water or new iridescent fluid?
At ambient conditions, water is an odourless, tasteless, transparent liquid. It’s a vital fluid yet it has very simple properties. Unlike soap bubbles, for example, water is not iridescent – it does not appear to change colour when we view it from different angles. Unless, of course, there is something colourful in the background that the water reflects giving it an apparent iridescence. Thi ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Cordillera del Paine
Images such as the one above inspire scientists and nature lovers alike. This photograph, showing a Chilean landscape with elements representative of various Earth-science disciplines, is simply stunning. In a beautiful mix of shapes and colours, a quiet lake with floating icebergs appears tucked in between a roughed mountain in the background and a colourful double rainbow in the foreground. The ...[Read More]
EGU Twitter Journal Club: Article 2
Time for the second edition of the EGU’s Twitter Journal Club, our interactive online discussion about a timely scientific article. Full details can be found here. This time, our article focuses on one of the most extreme environments on Earth, the Atacama Desert in Chile, and the method by which rock-dwelling microorganisms obtain their water. The Twitter discussion will take place on Thur ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: For permafrost, (sediment) size does matter
In this month’s Geosciences Column, David Bressan – now a regular EGU contributor – highlights a recent result published in The Cryosphere with implications on the occurrence and preservation of alpine permafrost. The last 150 years saw an increase of 0.8°C in the Earth’s mean global temperature. In mountain ranges like the European Alps, however, this rising trend is even more pronoun ...[Read More]
Teachers at Sea: Farewell Marion!
In the last couple of weeks, GeoLog had the pleasure to host reports from Teachers at Sea. This educational programme, co-sponsored by the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and the French Polar Insitute (IPEV), gives school teachers the opportunity to take part in oceanographic cruises with scientists. This year, Sandrine Vivier and Ana Sánchez, teachers of Biology and Geology in Rodez (France) and ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Kerlingarfjöll
Iceland, with its stunning volcanic landscapes, is one of the world’s most geologically rich countries. Kerlingarfjöll, featured in this week’s image, is a prime example of that. This Icelandic mountain range, covering an area of 150 square kilometres, formed during a volcanic eruption in the Late Pleistocene – some 100 thousand years ago. “Kerlingarfjöll is very different to the environment aroun ...[Read More]