This image, captured in Chile by Lilli Freda from Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, depicts a cloudless sky, a calm blue lake (Llanquihué), and a picture-perfect mountain with a snow-covered top. But the serenity of the landscape is only apparent: the triangular structure in the background is in fact the very active and explosive Osorno volcano. “Osorno is a 2652-m-high strat ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Orange anvils
The anvils in this picture are not heavy steel or iron blocks but rather soft clouds coloured orange by the setting sun. The term is used to describe the upper part of a cumulonimbus or thunderstorm cloud that tends to spread out in an anvil shape as warm air bumps up against the bottom of the stratosphere (the atmospheric layer between 15-50 kilometres height). Katja Weigel, a researcher at the I ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Life in the aftermath of hydrothermal vents
Pioneering new study explores the structure and function of microbial communities at expired hydrothermal vent sites Undiscovered lifeforms abound in Earth’s most seemingly inhospitable environments, as demonstrated by the recent discovery of bacteria living deep underneath the seafloor. An equally extreme environment can be found in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, where water is expelled from ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Waves hitting Cycladic rocks
When he is not researching in the space sciences, Ioannis Daglis, the director of the Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing at the National Observatory of Athens in Greece, is often out with his camera. This picture of sea waves slamming cliff rocks in the Aegean Sea is a beautiful example of his artistic work, and one that shows some science too. “I took this photo at Vitali Bay in ...[Read More]