This is Damavand Volcano, Iran. Its history is one of short bursts of eruptive activity followed by long periods of quiescence and while there are active fumaroles near Damavand’s summit, the volcano has been dormant for the past 1000 years. The cloud that encircles its peak is known as a cap cloud, so-called because these peculiar clouds form around high peaks, adding a flat white cap to mountain ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Getting a handle on Greenland’s glaciers
The picture below shows several small glaciers surrounding the Greenland ice sheet, in Tassilaq, near Kulusuk, East Greenland. The dark lines are glacial moraines, responsible for the transport of rock material from mountains towards sea. The photographer, Romain Schläppy, highlights that “an important scientific topic consists to place the recent and ongoing Greenland warming in the broader conte ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Mendenhall Glacier
Much of the Mendenhall River Basin is glaciated; indeed, the river flows out from under a glacier in the northern part of the valley and into a lake. This glacier, rather aptly, is known as Mendenhall Glacier, a 19 km long lake-calving monster in Alaska, USA. Meltwater from this glacier makes up the primary source of water for Mendenhall River, although several creeks also contribute to the flow, ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Beautiful Badlands
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by Gert Verstraeten, who takes us through the formation of some of the striking landscapes in the Mediterranean – the badlands. For more than 7 years I have been performing research on reconstructing historic erosion rates in the Taurus Mountains in Southwest Turkey. Badlands are heavily eroded landscapes, where soft, clay-rich rocks and soils have ...[Read More]