In the Sierra de Aconquija, a mountain range in the southern Central Andes of Argentina, strong storms often come and go at a moment’s notice, but they can have a long-lasting impact on the Earth’s surface. The thunderstorm cell featured in this photo formed in less than half an hour, giving all those nearby only a few minutes to take cover. Mitch D’Arcy, a geomorphologist and postdoctoral researc ...[Read More]
The image gives us a glimpse into the Slănic Salt Mine in central Romania, about 100 kilometres north of the capital city Bucharest. The region was actively mined for almost 30 years, from 1943 to 1970. The Slănic Salt Mine is the largest salt mine in Europe, and the facility consists of 14 large chambers, each more than 50 metres high. The cavities of the mine, more than 200 metres deep, carve in ...[Read More]
Often there are moments in our lives when we are reminded of the strength and magnitude of our environment, whether that’s trekking through a mountain range or gazing at the horizon from the ocean shore. Yet arguably there are few things that can make you feel as small as a particularly powerful summer storm. “The atmosphere is undoubtedly one of the most dynamic components in the Earth System. No ...[Read More]
This week’s featured image depicts a quiet and still oceanic landscape in Antarctica, but polar scientists are studying how energetic and variable the ocean currents in this part of the world can be. In this picture, the marine research vessel RRS James Clark Ross is making its way through the Lemaire Channel, a small passage off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, south of the southernmost tip ...[Read More]
On the south-western coast of the Isle of Skye, Scotland, lies Loch Coruisk, supposedly home of a water horse. At the southern end of this freshwater Loch, the Scavaig River discharges into a sea Loch, Loch na Cuilce. Loch Coruisk snuggles close to the center of the Cuillin Hills complex, younger than both the northern and southern formations of the Isle. At present, the neighbouring hills are dom ...[Read More]
Close your eyes and try to imagine first thing which comes to your mind, when somebody says “Tundra”. What would you imagine? Being a master student, I imagined cold, flat and a dead field. In fact, Tundra turn out to be completely different, at least in September 2010, when I and my colleagues were lucky to visit it. As it is well known from textbooks no big trees grows in Tundra, how ...[Read More]
Featured in this blog post is a collection of images that gives a picture-perfect example of life imitating art. The photos in the left column are three consecutive still frames of a breaking wave that scientists generated in a lab environment at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. The pictures in the centre and right columns show the same wave images, but now superimposed with the famous 19th ...[Read More]
This picture was taken in the Arctic in May 2018. It shows the unmanned marine vehicle Proteus in front of the tidewater glacier Conwaybreen in the Kongsfjorden in Spitsbergen in the Svalbard Archipelago. The front of tidewater glaciers is an almost vertical wall of ice standing over the sea where direct measurements are very critical due to the possibility of sudden fall of enormous blocks of ice ...[Read More]
This side view of Half Dome at Yosemite National Park (California, USA) was taken from Washburn Point, a less frequented overlook a few hundred meters away from the popular Glacier Point outlook. The sun just on the right side behind the camera, which gave the orange tint to the back side of Half Dome. At the same time a full moon was mere minutes from bursting in the background, which resulted in ...[Read More]
This picture was taken at Bandon beach, Oregon. Bandon is well-known for its memorable seascape of stacks of all shapes and sizes. These rock formations are known to geologists as ‘knockers’ and carry nicknames like ‘the Wizards hat’. They date from the Jurassic period – about 200 to 145 million years ago – and are what remains from the great mélange during tectonic subduction processe ...[Read More]