Nothing captures beauty of Arizona’s landscape better than the Grand Canyon and its steeply-sided cliffs that have been carved by the Colorado River. This photo by Lukas Hoertnagl shows this stunning landscape as seen from Lipan Point in the Grand Canyon National Park. The early geological history of America is preserved in the strata that make up the Grand Canyon’s famed banded landscape, which i ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Grand Prismatic Spring
Yellowstone National Park, USA, is well known for its outstanding natural beauty. This is the Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park. It is the third largest hotspring in the world and the largest found in the United States, with a maximum diameter of about 90 m. It discharges roughly 2.5 cubic metres of mineral-rich water per minute, which flows down the rock ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Alas, allases are abound!
The Lena River flows throughout Russia from its source in the Baikal Mountains out into the Arctic Ocean, where the delta’s landscape is dominated by ice-rich Yedoma and thermokarst lakes. Thermokarst lakes have been identified as a source of carbon release to the atmosphere and Yedoma-like lake sediments are known to release more methane than any other sediment due to their incredibly high carbon ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Stirring up a sandstorm
These are the outwash plains for the Icelandic volcano, Katla: An outwash plain (or sandur) is a broad, shallowly sloping region ahead of a glacial front. They are made up of material that has been deposited by glacial meltwater, released either by geothermal heating or a subglacial eruption. The extensive volcanism and abundance of ice-capped volcanoes in southern Iceland means that the outwash p ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Metamorphosis
This fold is part of the metamorphic core of the Pyrenees. The shear zone is almost vertical, producing a small parasitic fold (a smaller fold within a larger one), which looks almost as if it continues into the sky. The metamorphic sediments are about 500 million years old and have been deformed several times, most recently during the alpine orogeny. The alpine orogeny was period of extensive mou ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: A fractured relationship – when lava meets ice
The Kuril Island Chain is formed by four active volcanoes: Golovnin, Mendeleev, Tyatya and Smirnov. Stolbchaty Cape, where the Okhotsk Sea meets the coast of Kunashir Island, is not far from Mendeleev Volcano – responsible for the many hot springs in the area. These are fed by seawater and heated as the water comes into contact with magma and hot rocks within the mantle. The picture shows an outcr ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: An orogenic experience
Picture yourself in the Himalaya mountain belt: millions of years of continental uplift have produced a vast kingdom of towering monoliths, and they continue to grow as the Indian plate pushes further north into the heart of Asia. These dramatic, breath-taking and downright enormous geological structures can be simplified into the following tectonic units: the Leugogranites, the Transhimalaya, the ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Wonderings and weathering
After studying ‘Applied Environmental Sciences’ I decided to go with a friend for six months to New Zealand for the southern hemisphere winter. Leaving as soon as my diploma thesis (on epiphytic lichens) was written, we set off into the distance to work and travel. We chose New Zealand as our dream destination because these two islands have so many different landscapes to offer – and this is how I ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Scorching the soil
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by the photographer himself, Antonio Jordán (Univerity of Sevilla, Spain), who describes the impact of forest fires on soil properties. This photo was taken while planning some field experiments: in the image, several water drops are resting on a surface soil layer without infiltrating. This process is known as water repellency. Water repellency is ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Kalalau Valley
At over 5 million years old, the island of Kauai is the oldest island in the Hawaiian Achipelago. Hawaii, Maui and Oahu are all younger and lie further to the southeast. This island chronology is no coincidence – the Archipelago formed as a result of intra-plate volcanic activity. Intra-plate volcanism occurs where an upwelling magma plume or ‘hot spot’ lies beneath a continental plate. In this ca ...[Read More]