People started warning me about the mosquitoes back in April. It sounded grim. But when I arrived in Finnish Lapland in August, the mozzies had peaked earlier in the season when temperatures were unusually high, and were all dead. This was a fortunate escape: Miska Luoto of the University of Helsinki and his team of researchers, who I was following as part of an EGU Science Journalism Fellowship, ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Curl up under a peat blanket
Rannoch Moor is the largest area of unbroken (no houses, no roads) blanket bog in the United Kingdom. Blanket bogs – as their name suggests – blanket the ground in an extensive layer of peat. They form in regions where there is high rainfall and comparatively little evapotranspiration. These waterlogged conditions are found throughout much of the northern hemisphere, and allow blanket bogs to form ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Dating a bivalve
Just as the rings on a tree can be used to determine its age, the bands on a bivalve’s shell can tell us the how long it’s been around for. Warm, food-filled waters lead to greater growth in the summer and low plankton abundance (the principle food source for filter-feeding molluscs) leads to limited growth during the winter months – hence the banding. But pinning down the age of a bivalve m ...[Read More]
GeoTalk: Veerle Vanacker on land use, degredation and the potential of revegitation
Today in GeoTalk, we’re talking to Veerle Vanacker, and eminent geomorphologist and winner of the EGU Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award last year. She tells us about her breakthroughs in modelling land use change and erosional processes… First, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you are currently working on? I currently work as a lecturer in geomorphology at the ...[Read More]