As Earth’s environment changes, it leaves behind clues used by scientists to paint portraits of the past: scorched timber, water-weathered shores, hardened lava flows. Chile’s Conguillío National Park is teeming with these kind of geologic artifacts; some are only a few years old while others have existed for more than 30 million years. The photographer Anita Di Chiara, a researcher at Lancaster U ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Nummulites, the living lentils
This photograph depicts a close-up of Eocene limestones from the Sardinero Formation in Cantabria (Northern Spain). The limestone is rich with foraminifera shells, most of them from the Nummulitidae family. These organisms once lived in a very shallow sea that separated Europe from Iberia in the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic era. Later the sea basin’s closure led to the formation of the Pyrene ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Winter threatens to freeze over fieldwork
This photo was taken during a fieldwork campaign following the mainshock of the deadly seismic sequence that struck central Italy starting from 24 August 2016. The magnitude 6.2 earthquake severely damaged nearby towns, claimed more than 290 lives and injured nearly 400 people in its wake. As a geologist from the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, I was in charge of measuring the ma ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: The birth of a new ocean
This is a photograph of Zin (or Tzin) Valley, taken from Midreshet Ben Gurion at Sede Boker, Negev Desert in Israel. The Zin Valley takes its name from the River Zin, which is now a dry river except for a few days of the year when heavy rainfall can form dangerous flash floods. The River Zin originates from the Makhtesh Ramon (Crater Ramon), the biggest erosion crater in the world. It is located a ...[Read More]