Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been on the research and political agenda for some time now, but there has been a surge in media coverage recently in the European Union (EU). This is in part due to the announcement of the results of the CCS funding commercialisation competition run by the Department of Energy …[Read More]
Regular Features
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 …[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 …[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Tag – you’re it! Chasing atmospheric tracers
I’ve been ruminating over the idea for this post for some time now; since last October in fact, when the EGU Twitter Journal Club discussed a paper about tagging (You can find the Storify for the discussion here). Not tagging as in the playground favourite, but the idea of keeping track of certain molecules in …[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 …[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 …[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 …[Read More]
Sussing out sea level rise
Ocean thermal expansion, that is, the increase in water volume due to temperature alone, is relatively well understood – as is the retreat of both mountain glaciers and ice caps. While most models simulate these effectively, there is little understanding of how both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will respond to climate change. This …[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 …[Read More]
Using social networks to respond to earthquakes
Effective responses to natural disasters require the rapid acquisition of information about where has been affected, how many people are in the affected areas and what the magnitude of the damage is. This information is critical in both disaster and emergency rescue management. Indeed, the first three days after the onset of a disaster has …[Read More]