Biogeosciences

GeoPolicy: the EU’s Bioeconomy Strategy – what is it and how is it linked with geoscience?

Chloe Hill October 26, 2018

Europe's bioeconomy. Source: europa.eu/!HR84cV

What is the bioeconomy? Global threats such as climate change, ocean acidification, land degradation and an ever-expanding population means that it’s essential for us to reduce our environmental impact while still meetings our demand for food, resources and energy. The bioeconomy covers all sectors and systems that rely on biological resources and their functions including renewable biological re ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: The ancient guard of Altai

Olivia Trani September 10, 2018

The ancient guard of Altai Credit: Natalia Rudaya (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

In the heart of Eurasia, an ancient stone statue overlooks the expanse of the Kurai Valley and the Altai Mountains in Russia. This relic was crafted more than a thousand years ago, sometime during the 6th or 7th century. A Turkish clan that inhabited the region, known as the First Turkic Khaganat, would often erect stones as monuments of funeral rituals. Natalia Rudaya, who took this photograph, i ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Bristlecone pines, some of Earth’s oldest living life forms

Raphael Knevels September 3, 2018

A thousands of years Old Beauty. Credit: Raphael Knevels (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

About 5,000 years ago, the ancient city Troy was founded, Stonehenge was under construction, and in the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range, groves of bristlecone pine seedlings began to take root. Many of these pines are still alive today, making them the world’s oldest known living non-clonal life forms. Raphael Knevels, a PhD student from the Friedrich-Schiller-University’s Department of Geogra ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Namibia’s mysterious fairy circles

Olivia Trani July 9, 2018

The mysterious fairy circles. Credit: Hezi Yizhaq (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

The grassy Namibian desert is pock-marked with millions of circular patches of bare earth just like these shown in the picture between linear dunes. Viewed from a balloon, they make the ground look like a moonscape. Commonly known as fairy circles, the patches range from two to 12 metres across and appear in a 2000 kilometre strip that stretches from Angola to South Africa. For many decades, the f ...[Read More]