What lies between 3000m and 4800m above sea level in the mountains of the Andes? A very special place dominated by an exceptional ecosystem: The Páramo. Picture lush grasslands with a unique population of flora and fauna, some of which is found nowhere else on Earth. Páramos stretch from Ecuador to Venezuela, across the Northern Andes and also occur at high elevation in Costa Rica. The climate her ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Adapting to acidification, scientists add another piece to the puzzle
In the latest Geosciences Column Sara Mynott sheds light on recent research into how ocean acidification is affecting the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem. The findings, published in Biogeosciences, reveal large differences between the abilities of different animals to adapt and highlight the urgent need to understand the way a greater suite of species are responding… Large Marine Ecosyst ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Trapped air
Can you imagine walking into the depths of an icy, white, long and cavernous channel within a thick glacier? That is exactly what Kay Helfricht did in 2012 to obtain this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays photograph. Tellbreen Glacier is a small glacier (3.5Km long) in the vicinity of the Longyearbyen valley in the Svalbard region of Norway. Despite its limited size, it is an important glacier. One of the ...[Read More]
The known unknowns – the outstanding 49 questions in Earth sciences (Part I)
Science is about asking questions, as much as it is about finding answers. Most of the time spent by scientists doing research is used to constrain and clarify what exactly is unknown – what does not yet form part of the consensus among the scientific community. Researchers all over the globe are working tirelessly to answer the unresolved questions about the inner workings of our planet, but inev ...[Read More]