GeoLog

Geosciences Column

Geosciences Column: Pollen tells a 7300 year old story of Malta’s climate and vegetation

July 1, 2016
Geosciences Column: Pollen tells a 7300 year old story of Malta’s climate and vegetation
Birch pollen by Per Harald of NTNU, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology. Distributed via Flickr .

Figuring out what the climate was like, and how it changed, throughout Earth’s history is like trying to complete a 1000 piece puzzle. Except that scientists usually don’t have all the nuggets and building a comprehensive picture relies on a multidisciplinary approach in order to fill in the blanks. This is particularly true during the Holocene, which spans the last 11,700 years of the Earth’ ...[Read More]

GeoSciences Column: Hazagora – will you survive the next disaster?

May 6, 2016
GeoSciences Column: Hazagora – will you survive the next disaster?
Hazagora: will you survive a natural disaster? Taken from Mossoux, S., et al. (2016).

There is no better thing, on a cold and stormy winter’s evening, than to gather your friends for a night of games / board games. Fire blazing (if you have one), tasty snacks laid out and drinks poured, you are all set to indulge in a night of scheming (if you are playing battle ship), deceit (Cluedo), or even all out comedy (think Pictionary or Charades). The main purpose of the games you are like ...[Read More]

GeoSciences Column: Mapping floods with social media

March 11, 2016
GeoSciences Column: Mapping floods with social media
Flood at Trans-en-Provence (Var - France) . Credit: Dimitri Defrance (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Picture this: you are on your commute home, smartphone or tablet in hand, surfing the internet. You might quickly catch up on the latest news, check in with your friend’s on Facebook, or take to Twitter to share a morsel of information with your followers. This scenario is common in the modern era of technology. No doubt we are all guilty of indulging in a serious session of internet navigation ev ...[Read More]

Geosciences Column: An international effort to understand the hazard risk posed by Nepal’s 2015 Gorkha earthquake

February 12, 2016
Geosciences Column: An international effort to understand the hazard risk posed by Nepal’s 2015 Gorkha earthquake
The upper part of the Pokhara Valley and view towards the Annapurna Massif. Debris flows and floods triggered by three major medieval earthquakes delivered the vast, flat-lying and steeply dissected deposits of the Pokhara Formation. The photo was taken by Amelie Stolle. Distributed via NASA Goddard on Flickr.

Nine months ago the ground in Nepal shook, and it shook hard: on April 25th 2015 the M7.8 Gorkha earthquake struck and was followed by some 250 aftershocks, five of which were greater than M 6.0. The devastation left behind in the aftermath of such an event, and how to coordinate disaster-relief efforts in a vast, mountainous region, is difficult to imagine. Yet, this December at the 2015 AGU Fall ...[Read More]