This photo of an awe-inspiring icy landscape is without a doubt one of the best we have ever featured in our weekly Imaggeo on Mondays. The Icelandic glacial lagoon Jökulsárlón is gloomy and cold. Yet the brilliant blue of the ice and the turquoise of the water stand out beautifully in this image, giving it a je-ne-sais-quoi of magic. The photographer, János Kovács, a geologist at the University o ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Water or new iridescent fluid?
At ambient conditions, water is an odourless, tasteless, transparent liquid. It’s a vital fluid yet it has very simple properties. Unlike soap bubbles, for example, water is not iridescent – it does not appear to change colour when we view it from different angles. Unless, of course, there is something colourful in the background that the water reflects giving it an apparent iridescence. Thi ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Cordillera del Paine
Images such as the one above inspire scientists and nature lovers alike. This photograph, showing a Chilean landscape with elements representative of various Earth-science disciplines, is simply stunning. In a beautiful mix of shapes and colours, a quiet lake with floating icebergs appears tucked in between a roughed mountain in the background and a colourful double rainbow in the foreground. The ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: For permafrost, (sediment) size does matter
In this month’s Geosciences Column, David Bressan – now a regular EGU contributor – highlights a recent result published in The Cryosphere with implications on the occurrence and preservation of alpine permafrost. The last 150 years saw an increase of 0.8°C in the Earth’s mean global temperature. In mountain ranges like the European Alps, however, this rising trend is even more pronoun ...[Read More]