GeoLog

EGU Scientific Divisions

The prize that failed forward: How a 100,000-franc quest for aliens funded a century of astronomy

December 17, 2025
The prize that failed forward: How a 100,000-franc quest for aliens funded a century of astronomy

Today, 17 December, marks 125 years since the formal announcement of one of the most eccentric, ambitious, and ultimately consequential prizes in the history of science: the Prix Pierre Guzman. Announced by the French Académie des Sciences in December 1900, the award promised 100,000 francs, which is the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars today, to the first person who could successful ...[Read More]

Rethinking Europe’s historical climate leadership in a ‘Time of Transition’

and December 10, 2025
Rethinking Europe’s historical climate leadership in a ‘Time of Transition’

The Think2030 Dialogue Denmark was held in crucial times, since once the uncontested frontrunner in global climate governance, Europe now faces the dual challenge of renewing its leadership and maintaining competitiveness amid a shifting geopolitical and technological landscape, alongside a constantly changing multilateral world order. At a time when global competition over clean technologies, res ...[Read More]

Why we need to put plants back in the soil carbon picture

December 5, 2025
Why we need to put plants back in the soil carbon picture

Happy International Soil Day (5 December)! Today, we’re celebrating the incredible capacity of soil organic carbon (SOC) to fight climate change. But hold the celebratory cake! A paper in the journal SOIL by Raza et al. (2025) has exposed an unexpected scientific blind spot, and it’s a bit surprising! The paper, titled “Missing the input: the underrepresentation of plant physiology in ...[Read More]

The living skin of our planet: Why a world soil health index is our next great global scorecard

November 28, 2025
The living skin of our planet: Why a world soil health index is our next great global scorecard

Next time you’re outdoors, in a park or anywhere where there is no pavement, look down at the patch of earth beneath your feet. To many people, it’s just mud, dirt, or maybe soil, something passive that things grow in. But to a soil scientist, that handful of soil represents a dynamic ecosystem that supports an incredible 95% of all the food we eat, filters every drop of our drinking water, ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: Anjana Khatwa, author of ‘The Whispers of Rock’

November 26, 2025
GeoTalk: Anjana Khatwa, author of ‘The Whispers of Rock’

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]

Making earthquakes understandable: How “Near Me” search behavior can guide better risk communication

November 14, 2025
Making earthquakes understandable: How “Near Me” search behavior can guide better risk communication

When a tremor shakes the ground, the first thing many people do isn’t check a scientific database: they reach for their phone. Within seconds, searches like “earthquake near me” surge across Google. This simple phrase captures something profound: a universal need not to understand seismic mechanics, but to know “Am I safe?” Over the past few years, this “near me” framing has quietly reshaped how t ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Thanushika Gunatilake, researcher of earthquake impacts on geothermal energy

October 28, 2025
GeoTalk: meet Thanushika Gunatilake, researcher of earthquake impacts on geothermal energy

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]

The spectral shadow of Samalas: When climate models conjure the Earth’s forgotten fury

October 24, 2025
The spectral shadow of Samalas: When climate models conjure the Earth’s forgotten fury

This Halloween, we turn our gaze from fictional haunts to the chilling, rigorous world of paleoclimatology. The paper by Hartmann et al. (2025), published on Climate of the Past, focuses on the implementation of external forcings in a regional climate model around the 1257 CE Samalas volcanic eruption. This paper can be quite the unsettling investigation, since it treats the Earth itself as a time ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: Meet glacial hauntologist, Elizabeth Case (you read that right, a glacial hauntologist!)

October 10, 2025
Elizabeth Case

Welcome to GeoTalk, Elizabeth! Could you introduce yourself and your background? I’m a genderfluid glaciologist living between previously glaciated, currently glaciated, and flood-prone landscapes. I am a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. I did my bachelor’s in physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, and my Ph.D. in glacial geophysics at Co ...[Read More]

Slavery in the geologic record – Environmental and geomorphological legacies

September 22, 2025
Slavery in the geologic record – Environmental and geomorphological legacies

From 1525, when the first human trafficking ship departed Africa, to September 22, 1862, when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, more than 300 years passed. This was enough time for the exploitation of humans and the earth to leave a permanent mark, one so profound it is now visible in the geological record. Not only did the age of chattel slavery during the Modern era shape the land and th ...[Read More]