Geosciences Column

Researchers share insights from first-of-its-kind ice loss study of Antarctic Ice Sheet

Gillian D'Souza September 22, 2023

Credit: Livio Ruggiero (from imaggeo.egu.eu)

Hi Ronja and Emily, thank you for agreeing to doing this interview. Could you tell us briefly about your background and how you came to research your field? Emily: I have an environmental science/physical geography background and I have been working with an ice sheet model during and after my PhD to understand how glaciers and ice streams in Greenland and Antarctica may respond to climatic changes ...[Read More]

A chunk of ice the size of Amsterdam: how the calving of Greenland’s glaciers has changed since the 2010 Petermann Glacier event

Alka Tripathy-Lang August 4, 2023

In this image taken on August 16, 2010, the ice island continues its migration down the fjord. NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and the United States Geological Survey, via NASA Earth Observatory

Thirteen years ago, a roughly 251 km2 chunk of ice (or 97 miles2) broke off Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. This Amsterdam-sized piece of ice was the largest to calve in the Arctic since 1962. The massive iceberg traversed the Nares Strait, which lies between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland, and into the northern part of Baffin Bay—the northwestern-most arm of the Atlantic Ocean, before eve ...[Read More]

100 years since we learned dinosaurs laid eggs, what do we know now?

Megan Sever July 21, 2023

Illustration of an oviraptorid sitting on her clutch of eggs. Credit: Zhao Chuang, PNSO

In July 1923, 100 years ago this month, scientists and explorers made an extraordinary discovery that forever changed our view of dinosaurs. An expedition to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia unearthed fossilized dinosaur eggs, in a nest, confirming that dinosaurs laid eggs like the reptiles that scientists at the time thought dinosaurs were. The find was announced in newspapers at the time, to much fan ...[Read More]

Two centuries later, the world is yet to fully understand Nikola Tesla

Gillian D'Souza July 10, 2023

Nikola Tesla. Image credit: Everett Collection Inc., Alamy

Most people associate Tesla with the multi-billion American automotive and clean energy company, and by that extension, with Elon Musk. But with today (July 10th) being Nikola Tesla Day, it gives us a rare opportunity to discover the man behind the name – the Serbian American scientist who contributed to scientific progress and advances in technology that we still heavily rely on today. Tesla is c ...[Read More]