This is Damavand Volcano, Iran. Its history is one of short bursts of eruptive activity followed by long periods of quiescence and while there are active fumaroles near Damavand’s summit, the volcano has been dormant for the past 1000 years. The cloud that encircles its peak is known as a cap cloud, so-called because these peculiar clouds form around high peaks, adding a flat white cap to mountain ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: How curbing HFC emissions could reduce warming
Carbon dioxide is without a doubt the most famous of warming culprits. But would reducing emissions of this greenhouse gas be enough to mitigate climate change within this century? A recent paper published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics focuses on a less known substance that, if phased out, could avoid as much as 0.5 °C of warming by 2100. Hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) have an interesting history ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Just a drop in the ocean – river nutrients and Arctic plankton
The oceans are a big contributor to the global carbon cycle, with phytoplankton taking up carbon through photosynthesis and incorporating it into their shells. When these organisms die their shells sink and make a calcareous contribution to seafloor sediments. Of course, with the formation of limestone, this carbon is locked out of the atmosphere for long periods of geological time. Until recently ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Getting a handle on Greenland’s glaciers
The picture below shows several small glaciers surrounding the Greenland ice sheet, in Tassilaq, near Kulusuk, East Greenland. The dark lines are glacial moraines, responsible for the transport of rock material from mountains towards sea. The photographer, Romain Schläppy, highlights that “an important scientific topic consists to place the recent and ongoing Greenland warming in the broader conte ...[Read More]
GeoTalk: Suzanne Hangx on Carbon Capture & Storage
Today in GeoTalk, we’re talking to Suzanne Hangx, who explains the great potential of carbon capture and storage and the challenges emerging technologies, like CCS, face. First, could you introduce yourself and let us know what drew you to geomechanics? Let’s start with the introduction: I’m Suzanne Hangx and I currently work as a researcher on geomechanics for subsurface storage containment techn ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Mendenhall Glacier
Much of the Mendenhall River Basin is glaciated; indeed, the river flows out from under a glacier in the northern part of the valley and into a lake. This glacier, rather aptly, is known as Mendenhall Glacier, a 19 km long lake-calving monster in Alaska, USA. Meltwater from this glacier makes up the primary source of water for Mendenhall River, although several creeks also contribute to the flow, ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Beautiful Badlands
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by Gert Verstraeten, who takes us through the formation of some of the striking landscapes in the Mediterranean – the badlands. For more than 7 years I have been performing research on reconstructing historic erosion rates in the Taurus Mountains in Southwest Turkey. Badlands are heavily eroded landscapes, where soft, clay-rich rocks and soils have ...[Read More]
GeoTalk: Simon Mudd
Today in GeoTalk, we’re talking to Simon Mudd, an exceptional and forward-thinking geomorphologist. First, could you introduce yourself and let us know a bit about what you are currently working on? I am lecturer in Landscape Dynamics at the University of Edinburgh, where I have been since 2007. Before that I was a post-doc at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville Tennessee. I received my PhD from V ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Aerosols over Hurricane Irene
This image – rather than our usual Imaggeo photo – is a simulation representation of Hurricane Irene, as it moved up the coast of the United States. The red-yellow areas in the image represent regions with high aerosol concentration that have been swept upwards in convective clouds and the blue areas are clean regions. The aerosols enter Irene along rain bands, before being wrapped into the centre ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Tracing Toba
Large volcanic eruptions have a significant impact on the Earth’s climate as aerosols (including sulphur dioxide and water vapour), together with ash are released into the atmosphere and increase the amount of sunlight reflected back into space (the albedo). This increase in reflectance (or decrease in energy absorption) can cause widespread climatic cooling, known as a ‘volcanic winter’. However, ...[Read More]