In this month’s Geosciences column, Ingrid Anell introduces Norway’s Longyearbyen carbon capture and storage project and presents its first results. The world’s northernmost community, Longyearbyen, located at latitude 78 degrees north, is making progress towards becoming the world’s first CO2 neutral community. Geologists at UNIS, the University Centre in Svalbard, have determined that just ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Predicting glacial lake outburst floods
In this month’s Geosciences Column, Amanda Gläser-Bligh writes about SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellites and how they can be used to map glacier lakes and mitigate related flood hazards. Glaciers are a natural storage system and provide a perennial source of fresh water to the surrounding low-lying areas, which can be used for drinking water, irrigation, or even hydroelectricity. But when gl ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: A teaching game for water managers
In this month’s Geosciences Column, Wayne Deeker tells us about a new game – first presented in EGU’s Hydrology and Earth System Sciences – that aims to teach how to best share water resources. With shrinking glaciers, depleted groundwater stores, and rising populations, water resources have never been under such pressure, and worse is yet to come. The resulting conflicts can get ugly and bring hi ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Don’t blame bacteria – nitrous oxide production in the ocean
In this month’s Geosciences Column, Celso Gomes highlights a recent result published in EGU’s Biogeosciences on the role of a particular single-celled microorganism in the production of nitrous oxide in the ocean. About 30% of atmospheric nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas, is a product of the ocean. Therefore, by studying the mechanisms behind the oceanic production of this gas, sc ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: For permafrost, (sediment) size does matter
In this month’s Geosciences Column, David Bressan – now a regular EGU contributor – highlights a recent result published in The Cryosphere with implications on the occurrence and preservation of alpine permafrost. The last 150 years saw an increase of 0.8°C in the Earth’s mean global temperature. In mountain ranges like the European Alps, however, this rising trend is even more pronoun ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: What drives changes in flood risk?
After a couple of months of absence, GeoLog is once again hosting the Geosciences column. This month we have no less than two posts highlighting recent research in the Earth sciences. In the second of this month’s columns, Eline Vanuytrecht writes about recent research on flood risk published in the EGU journal Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences. If you’d like to contribute to G ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: The evolution of the air
After a couple of months of absence, GeoLog is once again hosting the Geosciences column. This month we have no less than two posts highlighting recent research in the Earth sciences. In the first of this month’s columns, Amanda Gläser-Bligh writes about recent research on the regulation of the air published in the EGU journal Solid Earth. If you’d like to contribute to GeoLog, please ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Promise and challenges of space elevators for tourism
From Star Trek to Arthur C. Clarke, machines that carry humans into space inside a cable-driven chamber – space elevators – have remained in the realm of science fiction. However, recently a Japanese construction company revealed it has aspirations to actually build such a device, claiming it could be operational as early as 2050. Despite assurances from its backers, the project remains scientific ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Life in the aftermath of hydrothermal vents
Pioneering new study explores the structure and function of microbial communities at expired hydrothermal vent sites Undiscovered lifeforms abound in Earth’s most seemingly inhospitable environments, as demonstrated by the recent discovery of bacteria living deep underneath the seafloor. An equally extreme environment can be found in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, where water is expelled from ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column special: Planetary science, part 2
This month we have a special edition of our Geosciences column with two pieces on planetary science written by external contributors. Whereas the first piece, published yesterday, focused on Martian water, this second article examines the internal structure of the Moon. If you’d like to contribute to GeoLog, please contact EGU’s Media and Commmunications Officer, Bárbara T. Ferreira at ...[Read More]