As Earth’s environment changes, it leaves behind clues used by scientists to paint portraits of the past: scorched timber, water-weathered shores, hardened lava flows. Chile’s Conguillío National Park is teeming with these kind of geologic artifacts; some are only a few years old while others have existed for more than 30 million years. The photographer Anita Di Chiara, a researcher at Lancaster U ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Snow folded by advancing lava
The photograph shows the interaction of the first snow and an active lava flow during the 2014 / 2015 Holuhraun eruption in Iceland. The first snow fell onto a ground covered by fine black ash on 26 September 2014. While the meter thick lava flow advanced a few meters per day, it neither melted the snow nor flowed on top of it. Instead, it pushed a layer of centimetre-thick snow and millimetre-thi ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: The best of imaggeo in 2017
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]
MinCup: Elevating humble minerals to new heights
Throughout October and November, the world of (Earth science) Twitter was taken by storm: Day after day, Eddie Dempsey (a lecturer at the University of Hull, and @Tectonictweets for those of you more familair with his Twitter handle) pitted minerals against each other, in a knock out style popular contest. The aim? To see which mineral would eventually be crowned the best of 2017. Who knew fiery ( ...[Read More]