This photo won 2nd Prize at the 2012 General Assembly photo competition and, according to the photographer, Melissa S. Bukovsky, epitomises the idea that an expensive camera is not a necessity for taking great photos. “You just need to know how to use what you have. I travel with a point and shoot that fits in my back pocket,” she explains. Currently a Project Scientist at the National ...[Read More]
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology
Publications by the EGU
Since 2001, the EGU and Open Access publishing house Copernicus Publications has published a growing number of successful geoscientific journals. These include 14 peer-reviewed Open Access journals, of which 11 have a Thomson Reuters Impact Factor, placing them in the top echelon of their respective discipline. EGU also publishes a host of other materials available in paper and online. As a signat ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: A rock and a hard place
Rocks within the Earth are constantly being subjected to forces that bend, twist, and fracture them, causing them to change shape and size. This process is known as deformation. Polyphase deformation occurs over time when rocks are affected, or stressed, by more than one phase of deformation. Geomorphologist Amirhossein Mojtahedzadeh captured this stunning scene whilst on field work. “This p ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: A mineral under the microscope
Epidote, an abundant rock-forming mineral found in metamorphic rocks, nearly always appears in green, although it may vary in shade and tone. Under a microscope of polarized light, however, it exhibits strong pleochroism, that is, it shows different colors when observed at different angles. The thin section (a laboratory preparation of a mineral or rock sample for use with a polarizing microscope) ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Green river
Thermokarsts occur when solid permafrost melts and soil gives way forming pitted, irregular lands surfaces. They are common in the Arctic, as well as the Himalayas and Swiss Alps. To study them, scientists trace the water using fluorescence dyes, temporarily creating water flows of exotic colours, like the bright green one in this Imaggeo photo. This photo was taken by Simon Gascoin, a researcher ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Quito and Cotopaxi
The sky is painted purple in this stunning evening photo taken near Quito, Ecuador. The country’s second most populous city is illuminated by artificial light, and Cotopaxi, an active volcano forming part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, looks out in the background. Located about 28 km south of Quito, Cotopaxi is the second highest summit in Ecuador (5,897 m) and features one of the few equatori ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Open pit in Mirny, Siberia
This former open-pit diamond mine is currently the second largest excavated hole in the world. After diamond was discovered in there in 1955, the area became the first and largest diamond mine in the Soviet Union, producing up to 2,000 kg of diamond per year during the 1960s. Its surface operations continued until 2001 and the mine was permanently shut in 2011. This photo was taken on 22 July 2008 ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Serene landscape, active volcano
This image, captured in Chile by Lilli Freda from Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, depicts a cloudless sky, a calm blue lake (Llanquihué), and a picture-perfect mountain with a snow-covered top. But the serenity of the landscape is only apparent: the triangular structure in the background is in fact the very active and explosive Osorno volcano. “Osorno is a 2652-m-high strat ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: El Tatio geyser field
Excursions following scientific conferences often give researchers a chance to observe geosciences phenomena in remote areas. That was the case for Simon Gascoin, from the Centre d’Etudes Spatiales de la Biosphère in Toulouse, France who got to photograph geysers in a Chilean desert after the EGU Alexander von Humboldt conference in Santiago de Chile in late 2008. “The picture shows the El T ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Volcanic twilight
Mount Etna, located in the east coast of Sicily in Italy, is one of the most active volcanos in the world and is home to spectacular eruptions. This photo, taken by Robin Campion from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, shows bright-red lava and a smoking scoria cone on the upper east flank of the volcano during an eruption in 2006.“Fast-flowing lava flow was erupted from an eastwards tr ...[Read More]