Perhaps a bold claim, but at over 4,000 km away from Australia and 4,200 km from South Africa, Heard Island is unquestionably hard to reach. The faraway and little know place is part of a group of volcanic islands known as HIMI (comprised of the Heard Island and McDonald Islands), located in the southwest Indian Ocean. Shrouded in persistent bad weather and surrounded by the vast ocean, Heard Isla ...[Read More]
If you’ve not heard about our Communicate Your Science Video Competition before it gives early career scientists the chance to produce a video up-to-three-minutes long to share their research with the general public. The winning entry receives a free registration to the General Assembly the following year. In this GeoTalk interview, Laura Roberts talks to Beatriz Gaite an early career scientist wh ...[Read More]
Did you know that the shape of coastlines is determined by the angle at which waves crash against the shoreline. It has long been thought that fluctuations in the wave incidence angle are rapidly felt by coastlines, which change the shapes of their shores quickly in response to shifting wave patterns. Or do they? Researchers at the British Geological Survey, Duke University (USA) and Woods Hole Oc ...[Read More]
With rocks dating as far back as the Precambrian, mountain building events, violent volcanic eruptions and being covered, on and off, by shallow seas, Death Valley’s geological history is long and complex. Back in the Cenozoic (65 to 30 million years ago), following a turbulent period which saw the eruption of volcanoes (which in time would form the Sierra Nevada of California) and regional uplift ...[Read More]
While the majority of us were midway through our Christmas Day celebrations, a powerful 7.6 M earthquake struck off the western coast of the Chile. Natural hazards are not bound by time, location or festivities; an earthquake can happen at any time in any place, regardless of the significance of the day. As a result, in this earthquake prone region, raising awareness of the risk posed by natural h ...[Read More]
Imaggeo, our open access image repository, is packed with beautiful images showcasing the best of the Earth, space and planetary sciences. Throughout the year we use the photographs submitted to the repository to illustrate our social media and blog posts. For the past few years we’ve celebrated the end of the year by rounding-up some of the best Imaggeo images. But it’s no easy task to pick which ...[Read More]
The past 12 months has seen an impressive 360 posts published across the EGU’s official blog, GeoLog, as well as the network and division blogs. From a lighthearted Aprils Fools’ Day post featuring an extreme chromatic phenomenon (otherwise known as FIB); through to how climate change is affecting mountain plant’s sex ratios; features on natural hazard events throughout the year and children’s dis ...[Read More]
Geotalk is a regular feature highlighting early career researchers and their work. In this interview we speak to Bert Wouters, a polar scientist at the University of Utrecht, and winner of one of the 2016 Arne Richter Awards for Outstanding Young Scientists. At a time when the polar regions are facing increasing challenges resulting from climate change, understanding how they might respond to them ...[Read More]
On May 18th 1980 Mount St Helens (an active stratovolcano of the Cascades located in the North West US), erupted explosively following a magnitude 5.1 earthquake. The quake triggered a devastating landslide which swept away the volcano’s northern flank – in what is the largest debris avalanche recorded on Earth to date. Removal of a section of the edifice depressurised the volcano’s magmatic ...[Read More]
The Dead Sea is one of the saltiest lakes on Earth, located at the lowest point of the globe. For centuries it has been known for the restorative powers of its muds and waters. Their hypersalinity means it is possible to easily float on the lake’s surface. Bordering Israel, the West Bank and Jordan, it is a unique environment in an otherwise arid region. Changing climate, which is seeing tempera ...[Read More]