I am a petrographer at the University of Padova, Italy, studying the metamorphic rocks that form the deep Earth’s crust beneath our feet, and what happens when they get so hot to start to melt. I’ve spent (enjoyed I should say) more than 30 years looking at rocks with an optical microscope. This simple, cheap …[Read More]
This was taken during a study, undertaken by me and my colleagues, on the sea ice of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. We designed the project to document how supercooled water carrying suspended ice crystals flows along its pathway towards the open ocean. Ultimately, this work aims to assess the Ross Ice Shelf’s contribution of local melt …[Read More]
At sunset, the light travels a longer path in the atmosphere to reach our eyes than when the sun is high in the sky. At this time of the day, the light is more subject to scattering, as it interacts with more air (molecules and particles) before reaching our eyes, which explains why the sun …[Read More]
The picture was taken during the 2015 research cruise HE441 in the southern German Bight, North Sea. It features the research vessel Heincke, on a remarkably calm and warm spring day, forming a seemingly steady wake. The roughly 55 metre long FS Heincke, owned by the German federal government and operated by the Alfred Wegener …[Read More]
Pictured here is the Giant’s Causeway – a region of basalt columns, created 50-60 million years ago during the Paleogene. The typical polygonal form of the bedrocks, a product of active volcanic processes from the past, is well underlined by the sunset’s light; that’s why I took the photo in the late evening. The separate …[Read More]
In the Southern Ocean and North Pacific lives a peculiar type of elephant seal. This group acts like any other marine mammal; they dive deep into the ocean, chow down on fish, and sunbathe on the beach. However, they do all this with scientific instruments attached to their heads. While the seals carry out their …[Read More]
Imaggeo, our open access image repository, is packed with beautiful images showcasing the best of the Earth, space and planetary sciences. Throughout the year we use the photographs submitted to the repository to illustrate our social media and blog posts. For the past few years we’ve celebrated the end of the year by rounding-up some …[Read More]
The EGU wishes all our readers happy holidays and very warm wishes for the new year. And for a chance to be featured on GeoLog throughout the new year, don’t forget to submit your field and lab based photographs and other visuals to Imaggeo: our open access image repository. All geoscientists (and others) can submit their photos …[Read More]
These ethereal, twisted ice sculptures litter the frozen shoreline of Tempelfjorden, Svalbard, giving the landscape an otherworldly feel and creating a contrast with the towering ice cliff of the glacier and the mountains behind. They are natural flotsam, the scoured remnants of icebergs calved from the Tunabreen glacier, washed up on the shoreline. These icebergs …[Read More]
This photo depicts the famous ash cloud of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which disrupted air traffic in Europe and over the North Atlantic Ocean for several days in spring 2010. The picture was taken during the initial phase of the eruption south of the town of Kirjubæjarklaustur, at the end of a long field work …[Read More]
