Spring waters are rich in minerals, carrying with them dissolved components of the rocks they have travelled through. The water that discharges at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park is highly alkaline (contains a lot of dissolved CO2) and rich in calcium, but as the water cools, the calcium precipitates to form the white limestone terraces you see here. This limestone is known as tra ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: A clash of hard and soft landscapes
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by the photographer himself, who describes the striking scenery of the Conwy estuary in Wales… After a workshop with salt-marsh specialists in Conwy (Wales, UK), I stayed a couple of days to explore the surroundings. Living and working in The Netherlands, for me intertidal areas are typically wide, flat expanses of land, where the horizon is far awa ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Curaçao’s coral coastline
Easterly trade winds can carry warm moist air to the island of Curaçao, having picked up moisture while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Lying just south of the hurricane belt, Curaçao can still suffer the effects of these storms. For the most part, though, the coast has experienced little damage, leading to great preservation of the fossil reefs that fringe its coast. The northern coast of Curaçao, w ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Monitoring the melt
Automatic weather stations (AWS) play a prominent role in making meteorological measurements in remote areas. These measurements can feed into climate models; providing better projections for rainfall, temperature and more. This peculiarly perched piece of equipment is just such a weather station: Out in the Swiss Alps, this AWS is making measurements of temperature, precipitation, wind speed, rel ...[Read More]