This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is no ordinary image; it’s a snapshot of surface ocean speeds and the extent of ice cover in the North Atlantic. It was produced using a high resolution model of ocean eddies – high resolution here means that details are simplified into grids 3 km across, or one 20th of …[Read More]
Regular Features
Geosciences Column: Stitching the seafloor together
You’re standing on a mountain peak, with a fabulous field site before you. Wanting to capture the moment, you take out your iPhone, snap a dozen pictures and your mobile stitches them together beautifully – a nice record to show your colleagues back in the office. Unfortunately, not all field sites are so easy to …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Capturing the aurora
The northern lights, or aurora borealis, are created as charged particles interact with the Earth’s atmosphere. These electrons are part of the solar wind and as they pass through the Earth’s magnetic shield (the magnetosphere); the charged particles collide with those in our atmosphere, emitting light. In the southern hemisphere this phenomenon is known as …[Read More]
GeoTalk: Catharina Landström on the safe storage of nuclear waste
Following Science in Public 2013 I had the pleasure of talking to Catharina Landström about the social and technical challenges to the geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste… Could you introduce yourself and let us know what propelled you into a project looking at the issues surrounding geological disposal of radioactive waste? Specialising in Science …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Lime Pancakes
These are the Pancake Rocks of Punakaiki, on the west coast of New Zealand. They are made of limestone that was deposited as calcifying organisms fell to their fate on the sea floor about 30 million years ago. Since then, the limestone has been uplifted, exposed, and eroded by the wind and the sea. Each …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: The perfect partnership
Pogonophores are deep sea worms that thrive in dark, deep sea conditions thanks to the presence of symbiotic bacteria. The bacteria are chemoautotrophic, that is, they fix carbon through oxidation processes, rather than using light to fix it, as is the case for photosynthesis. By utilising oxygen in the water, the bacteria can oxidise compounds …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Curl up under a peat blanket
Rannoch Moor is the largest area of unbroken (no houses, no roads) blanket bog in the United Kingdom. Blanket bogs – as their name suggests – blanket the ground in an extensive layer of peat. They form in regions where there is high rainfall and comparatively little evapotranspiration. These waterlogged conditions are found throughout much …[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Dating a bivalve
Just as the rings on a tree can be used to determine its age, the bands on a bivalve’s shell can tell us the how long it’s been around for. Warm, food-filled waters lead to greater growth in the summer and low plankton abundance (the principle food source for filter-feeding molluscs) leads to limited growth …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Mammoth structures, springs and snowmelt
Spring waters are rich in minerals, carrying with them dissolved components of the rocks they have travelled through. The water that discharges at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park is highly alkaline (contains a lot of dissolved CO2) and rich in calcium, but as the water cools, the calcium precipitates to form the white …[Read More]
GeoTalk: Veerle Vanacker on land use, degredation and the potential of revegitation
Today in GeoTalk, we’re talking to Veerle Vanacker, and eminent geomorphologist and winner of the EGU Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award last year. She tells us about her breakthroughs in modelling land use change and erosional processes… First, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you are currently working on? I …[Read More]