I grew up watching my dad come home covered in soot. For most of his life, he worked as a firefighter in a natural reserve in Galicia, in northern Spain, a region of green mountains and steep terrain, almost Lord of the Rings in its landscape, but also a place where fire moves quickly and is notoriously difficult to control. Firefighting crews there are used to the fact that, to even begin work, t ...[Read More]
This month for GeoTalk we were lucky enough to speak with Anjana Khatwa, the author of a new geoscience book ‘The Whispers of Rock’. Dr Anjana Khatwa is an award-winning Earth Scientist, science communicator, writer, presenter and advocate for diversity in natural heritage spaces. For over twenty years, Anjana has worked as a learning and engagement professional in the natural heritage ...[Read More]
Hello Thanushika – welcome to GeoTalk! Before we delve deeper, could you introduce yourself to our readers? Thank you for having me! I’m Thanushika Gunatilake, an Assistant Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. My research connects natural and human-induced processes in the Earth’s crust; from earthquake nucleation in the central Apennines, subduction dynamics, and volcanic activity, to geoth ...[Read More]
Just like me, you may have, at some point in your life, come across Malthusian rhetoric: There are too many mouths to feed and not enough resources for a growing population. But what if the problem isn’t people, but an appetite for profit-driven extraction? In this blog, I peel back the myth of overpopulation and show how pinning ecological collapse on mere population numbers diverts attention fro ...[Read More]
Fourty years ago, the movie Back to the Future (1985) revved its DeLorean into some hearts, zipping watchers back to 1955 with a grin and a flux capacitor–fueled paradox. Today we’re not just celebrating that original joyride’s 40th anniversary; we’re strapping in for the wild flight of Part II (1989), the movie that dared to ask, “what if Marty McFly really could hoverboard through 2015?” W ...[Read More]
On April 28, 2025, the Iberian Peninsula experienced an unprecedented power outage that plunged Spain and Portugal into darkness for hours. This large-scale blackout disrupted daily life for millions and exposed the vulnerabilities inherent in contemporary energy infrastructures. It also highlighted the critical importance of cross-border energy cooperation in mitigating such crises. In a striking ...[Read More]
Annegret, welcome to GeoTalk! You’re a researcher who focuses on abiotic-biotic environmental interactions. Can you tell us how the implications of your research extend to sustainable management practices? The United Nations, European Union, and national governments require us to restore landscapes to a ‘natural’ state. However, European landscapes have been shaped by human activity for thousands ...[Read More]
AI is here, and when I say here, I mean e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. For all you know, this blog may have been written by an algorithm (it wasn’t — I’m not a robot, promise. Or am I?). In what feels like the blink of an eye, AI has gone from a curiosity to a fully-fledged co-pilot in science (and out of science). It’s generating satellite imagery, helping compute paleo-climate predictions, or writing your ...[Read More]
Viktor, welcome to GeoTalk! Can you tell us a bit about your current research focus? My current research is on the defossilization of our energy system with a strong focus on the roles of forests and soils in this context. I was originally trained in forestry and my research is still tightly connected with this topic, but it has widened to also include aspects of carbon sequestration, sustainable ...[Read More]
I have had the opportunity last year to contribute to a novel, ground breaking research conducted by the Union of Justice, a European, independent, people of colour (POC) led organisation dedicated to racial justice and climate justice. The full report is live now and I am writing this blog post about it because I strongly believe that it is a must-read for anybody who would even wonder why racism ...[Read More]