Climate

Imaggeo on Mondays: The Gower Peninsula, a coast marked by time

Olivia Trani August 6, 2018

Death of the Helvetica. Credit: Mike Smith (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

The Gower Peninsula in South Wales, United Kingdom, is a spectacular site to view a sunset. However, to geologists, the shore is also a prime spot to find artifacts from Earth’s ancient and recent past. “The limestone coastline is dotted with caves that are rich in Quaternary flora and fauna,” said Mike Smith a visiting researcher at Plymouth University (UK) and photographer of this featured image ...[Read More]

July GeoRoundUp: the best of the Earth sciences from around the web

Olivia Trani August 1, 2018

The Mars Express spacecraft probing the southern hemisphere of Mars. Credit: ESA/INAF/Davide Coero Borga.

Drawing inspiration from popular stories on our social media channels, as well as unique and quirky research news, this monthly column aims to bring you the best of the Earth and planetary sciences from around the web. Major stories Signs of water 55 million kilometres away Last week scientists announced that they have found signs of existing water on Mars, offering new hope to the possibility o ...[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Digging out a glacier’s story

Monika Mendelova July 30, 2018

Digging out the story of a glacier. Credit: Monika Mendelova (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

This photograph shows landforms on Coraholmen Island in Ekmanfjorden, one of the fjords found in the Norwegian archipelago, Svalbard. These geomorphic features were formed by Sefströmbreen, a tidewater glacier, when it surged in the 1880s. Although all glaciers flow, some glaciers undergo cyclic changes in their flow. This is called surging, and glaciers that surge are called surging glaciers. Dur ...[Read More]

Geosciences Column: The best spots to hunt for ancient ice cores

Olivia Trani July 13, 2018

The shore of Livingston Island from the South Shetland Islands in Antarctica. Photo: Antarctic public transport. Credit: Carsten W. Mueller (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Where in the world can you find some of Earth’s oldest ice? That is the question a team of French and US scientists aimed to answer. They recently identified spots in East Antarctica that likely have the right conditions to harbor ice that formed 1.5 million years ago. Scientists hope that obtaining and analysing an undisturbed sample of ice this old will give them clues about Earth’s ancient clim ...[Read More]