These are the outwash plains for the Icelandic volcano, Katla: An outwash plain (or sandur) is a broad, shallowly sloping region ahead of a glacial front. They are made up of material that has been deposited by glacial meltwater, released either by geothermal heating or a subglacial eruption. The extensive volcanism and abundance of ice-capped volcanoes in southern Iceland means that the outwash p ...[Read More]
Natural Hazards
Using social networks to respond to earthquakes
Effective responses to natural disasters require the rapid acquisition of information about where has been affected, how many people are in the affected areas and what the magnitude of the damage is. This information is critical in both disaster and emergency rescue management. Indeed, the first three days after the onset of a disaster has been dubbed the “72-hour golden rescue period”, after whic ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Hazard perception – how great is the risk of a rockfall?
In this month’s Geoscience’s column, Sara Mynott discusses the geological hazards associated with climate warming and how recent research sheds new light on our understanding of rockfall frequency. Rockfalls are the free-falling movement of bedrock material from a rock face, a phenomenon also encompassed by the terms ‘landslide’, ‘rockslide’ and ‘rock avalanche’. They range from small debris falls ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Spotting signs of sea-quakes
A French and Algerian study team seeks markers of underwater earthquakes off the Algerian coast. The team also matched the site’s paleoseismic history to land-based historical reports. Wayne Deeker reports. The Mediterranean Sea represents the boundary between the African and Eurasian plates. Yet the fault segment off the Algerian coast is one of the most active in the western Mediterranean. It is ...[Read More]
Roundup of EGU Twitter discussion on L’Aquila
On Friday, the EGU hosted a prolific Twitter discussion on the “Consequences of the L’Aquila verdict on the dialogue between science and society” where dozens of participants shared and discussed their thoughts on the verdict, the scientific uncertainty surrounding earthquakes, and the outcomes of the decision for scientific research, communication, and education. You can now read the ...[Read More]
Twitter Discussion: Consequences of the L’Aquila verdict on the dialogue between science and society
This Friday 26 October 2012 at 14:00 CEST we will host an online discussion about the consequences of the recent L’Aquila earthquake trial. Contribute by following the EGU’s Twitter account (@EuroGeosciences) and posting using the hashtag #eguAquila on your tweets. Please email the EGU’s Science Communications Fellow Edvard Glücksman if you have any further questions. Background On Monday, an Ital ...[Read More]
Hunting Laki
Journalist Alexandra Witze was one of two winners of the EGU’s first Geosciences Communications Fellowship. We asked her to report back from a recent trip to Iceland, where she and her husband, science writer Jeff Kanipe, were gathering material on the 1783 eruption of the volcano Laki. They are working on a popular book about Laki for Profile Books. When you’re hot on the trail of a particular Ic ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: What drives changes in flood risk?
After a couple of months of absence, GeoLog is once again hosting the Geosciences column. This month we have no less than two posts highlighting recent research in the Earth sciences. In the second of this month’s columns, Eline Vanuytrecht writes about recent research on flood risk published in the EGU journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. If you’d like to contribute to G ...[Read More]
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]
Following today’s earthquake in Sumatra online
This blogpost is a round-up of potentially useful weblinks to information about the earthquake off the west coast of northern Sumatra of 11 April 2012. The links provided here are external and do not reflect the opinions of the European Geosciences Union. Regarding the earthquake, the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) Earthquake Harzard Program homepage features seismic activity maps and a summ ...[Read More]