GeoLog

Imaggeo on Mondays

Imaggeo on Mondays: Turkey’s cotton castle

This week, Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by Josep Ubalde, who transports us to a wonderful site in western Turkey: a city of hot springs and ancient ruins dubbed cotton castle, after the voluminous white rocks that spread from the spring’s centre… Pamukkale is lies in Turkey’s inner Aegean region, within an active fault …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Fuelling the clouds with fire

Wildfires frequently break out in the Californian summer. The grass is dry, the ground parched and a small spark can start a raging fire, but burning can begin even when water is about. Gabriele Stiller sets the scene for a blaze beside Mono Lake, exploring the events that got it going and what it may …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Plate it up – a recipe for sea ice errors

Last week, a team of cryospheric scientists published a paper in The Cryosphere that showed how tiny plates of ice can lead to spurious estimates of sea ice thickness. This week, we’re featuring their findings, as well as some spectacular sea ice images in the latest in our Imaggeo on Mondays series… Viewing the poles from above is …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Long-lived lakes have a lot to tell

The world’s oldest, deepest freshwater lake lies in southeast Siberia: Lake Baikal. Stretching some 600 kilometres across the Russian landscape, Baikal marks what the very early stages of a new ocean – an ancient rift that cleaved the centre of Asia apart throughout the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Today, there are still signs of tectonic activity …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Quartz lawns and crystal flowers

Petrologists spend a large part of their time peering down microscopes at wafer thin slices of rock to work out what they’re made of and how they were formed. What lies on the other side of the lens can be an incredibly beautiful pattern, a kaleidoscope of colour, or stark bands of black and white, …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Layers of leg-like sandstone

John Clemens, a researcher from Stellenbosch University and one of the winners in the EGU Photo Contest 2014, opens our eyes to erosional processes in the Grand Canyon in this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays… The photo below was taken late in the afternoon while doing some geological tourism at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA. The …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: A marvellous moving image

Every year, in association with our annual General Assembly, we run a photo contest to feature and celebrate fantastic geoscience images. Last year we introduced a moving image component to the competition, giving photographers the chance to submit short clips of great geoscience footage. Here’s this year’s highly commended entry by Matthias Buschmann… Svalbard’s stunning …[Read More]

Imaggeo on Mondays: Volcanic rope

On Hawaii, lava fields fall into two camps – pahoehoe and a’a. This week’s Imageo on Mondays puts the two into perspective… Pahoehoe fields are created when the lava is well insulated at the surface. The cooled rock on top prevents a lot of heat escaping and lets the lava flow beneath a tough skin …[Read More]