In this month’s GeoEd column, Sam Illingworth tells us about the growing use of Citizen Science within research as a means of acquiring data. Whilst the practice is novel and offers exciting opportunities as to volumes of data collected Sam highlights the importance of appropriately crediting the work of the willing volunteers. Citizen Science is a phrase that is currently de rigour in scientific ...[Read More]
Undoubtedly, the Alps are one of the best studied mountain ranges in the world. Appreciating their immense beauty and geological wealth can be difficult from the ground, given their vast scale and the inaccessibility of some of their more challenging peaks. Kurt Stüwe, along with alpine photographer Ruedi Homberger, set about changing this by undertaking the ambitious task of photographing the len ...[Read More]
Whilst on a family holiday in Norway, Gerrit de Rooij took this incredible photograph of an ice arch. Understandably geoscience is not his top priority whilst taking photographs on holiday, however Gerrit points out that “pretty much every picture of a landscape has hydrology in there somewhere”, as he goes on to describe below. This picture was taken near Balestrand, a village along the Sognefjor ...[Read More]
The air we breathe is full of tiny particles that can have a big impact on our climate. Industrial activities have greatly increased the number of these particles, cooling the climate and potentially offsetting some of the warming due to greenhouse gases. In this post Kirsty Pringle introduces new research that suggests that it might not be possible to quantify the effect of industrial emissions o ...[Read More]
The geological record preserved at John Day Fossil beds, in Oregon, USA, is very special. Rarely can you study a continuous succession through changing climates quite like you can at this National Park in the USA. It is a treasure trove of some 60,000 plant and animal fossil specimens that were preserved over a period of 40 million years during the Cenozoic era (which began 66 million years ago). ...[Read More]
In this edition of Geotalk, the regular feature were we highlight the work and achievements of early career researchers, we are talking to Beate Humberset, the winner of the Outstanding Student Poster (OSP) Award for the Solar- Terrestrial Sciences Division (ST) in 2013. In addition, Beate is the Young Scientist Representative for the ST Division so we will also touch upon her responsibilities in ...[Read More]
The eerie landscape depicted in our Imaggeo on Mondays image, is brought to you by Donatella Spano (University of Sassari, Italy). This picture was taken at Mammoth Hot Springs, one of the largest hot spring areas at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States on August 10, 2010. Mammoth Hot Springs is divided into two sections, the Lower Terrace and the Upper Terrace Loops. The photo below ...[Read More]
Thinking of the Arctic conjures up images of vast expanses of white icy landscapes punctuated by towering icebergs and a few dark rocky masses; certainly not a green landscape with a series of water pools amongst rolling hills. The image below is perhaps more reminiscent of the temperate Scottish or Welsh countryside; but don’t be fooled, out Imaggeo on Monday’s image was captured by Reinhard Pien ...[Read More]
“Access to knowledge is a basic human right.” Yet sadly as scientists we are often forced to operate in a framework in which this is not always the case. This week sees the celebration of the eighth Open Access Week, and whilst there have undoubtedly been many achievements by the Open Access (OA) movement since 2009, there is still a long way to go before mankind’s basic human right to knowledge i ...[Read More]
Kate Dobson was a volunteer at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory (HVO) in 2001/02 and revisited the stunning Big Island in 2006. During her holidays Kate ventured out to the coastal section of the Pu’uO’o lava flow field and captured this spectacular image of a fresh lava breakout. The Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō vent is in the East Rift Zone of Kīlauea Volcano and began erupting on January 3, 1983, and has continued ...[Read More]