As future-focused as we like to be at EGU, we sometimes pause to look back at the year gone by – just a brief glimpse to appreciate all the good work of 2022! As always, we had so many inspiring and thought-provoking blog posts published this year across the EGU’s official blog GeoLog and division blogs. …[Read More]
EGU Scientific Divisions
When nature isn’t “natural”: Reflections on World Wetlands Day
In 1821, peat cutters discovered a body similar to a mummy, pinned down by two wooden stakes deep in the mud. The body’s face still held red hair and a beard, their teeth were well preserved, and a hoop of willow was wrapped around their throat. But this wasn’t the dry, hot climate of Egypt …[Read More]
GeoTalk: meet Martin Archer, Space Physicist and Outreach expert!
Hi Martin. Thank you for joining me for this interview! To start, could you please tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research interests? I’m a space plasma physicist at Imperial College London, studying how the interaction between the solar wind and our magnetosphere leads to a huge amount of dynamics and waves …[Read More]
Tectonics on Ice…. learning about Jupiter’s Icy Moons and the JUICE mission.
In April this year a new mission is being launched by the European Space Agency, called JUICE, which stands for the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. This mission aims to make detailed observations of the giant gas planet Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of remote …[Read More]
A touch of space weather! An EGU funded outreach project for blind and visually impaired students
We can all probably agree that the Northern Lights are one of the world’s most spectacular natural displays. But how do we share this beauty with children who are blind? How do we explain the processes behind the aurora creation to the visually impaired when all the illustrations of Earth’s magnetosphere are in 2D? The …[Read More]
GeoTalk: meet Francesco Avanzi, researcher in meltwater security!
Hi Francesco. Thanks for agreeing to this interview! To break the ice, could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research? Hey Simon! I’m an Italian hydrologist and earned a PhD at Politecnico di Milano with a dissertation on how snowmelt contributes to seasonal runoff. I then did a postdoc at UC …[Read More]
Sustainable Energy Geoscientist reflects on UN’s COP27
This year, from 6 to 20 November, the United Nation’s COP27 took place in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. The conference hosted several high-level and side events, key negotiations and press conferences, attended by more than 100 Heads of State and Governments and over 35,000 participants who deliberated climate action strategies around the world. I had …[Read More]
GeoTalk: meet Morelia Urlaub, researcher of underwater landslides!
Hi Morelia. Thank you for joining us today! Could you tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research? Hi, I am Junior Professor for Marine Geomechanics at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and Kiel University in Germany. I graduated at the University of Bremen (Germany) and did my PhD in 2013 …[Read More]
The theory of continental drift and how it changed the geosciences forever
German scientist Alfred Wegener spent most of his life defending a shocking theory: that all the world’s continents were once part of the same land mass before they drifted away. For many years after he passed, his theory continued to be shunned, ridiculed, and labelled as pseudoscience. And then, several decades later, geologists began to …[Read More]
Why do we keep dismissing drought?
“If you see me, then weep” Like the foreboding inscription witnessed by Dante as he passed through the gates of Hell, the inscription chiselled into the so-called “hunger stone” marks the passing of a threshold into suffering. As the hunger stone emerges from the dwindling waters of the Elbe River, Czechia, it reveals a history …[Read More]