Philippe Leloup brings us this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays, with tales from a mountain trail that show a geologist can never resist a good rock! This image is that of a polished slab of a rock composed of interlayered marbles and amphibolites. The sample was once part of a small dry-stone wall bordering an outdoor kitchen along a trail along the Ailao Mountain Range in China (or Ailao Shan in Chines ...[Read More]
GeoTalk: The mantle and models and measurements, oh my! Talking geophysics with Juan Carlos Afonso
This week in GeoTalk, we’re talking to Juan Carlos Afonso, a geophysicist from Macquarie University, Sydney. He explains how a holistic approach is crucial to understanding tectonic processes and how a little “LitMod philosophy” can go a long way to achieving this… First, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you are currently working on? My name is Juan Carlos Afonso and I’ ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Rockscape
A geologist out in the field is often the one doing the mapping, but sometimes you might just find a map while you’re out there. Martin Reiser shares how he stumbled one such stunning feature… The picture shows colourful marly layers in a Triassic limestone of northwest Albania (Lezhe region). The marly layers have developed intense reddish and greenish colours due to exposure to reduction and oxi ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Winter waterfalls reveal their secrets
Cyril Mayaud is kicking of this week’s Imaggeo on Mondays with an insight into what waterfalls in winter can tell us about their local hydrology… The picture below shows the lower Peričnik waterfall during winter season. This cascade system is composed of two successive waterfalls that stretch some 16 metres (upper fall) and 52 metres (lower fall) high and is one of the most beautiful natur ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Exploring the East African Rift
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays is brought to you by Alexis Merlaud, an atmospheric scientist from the Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy. While the wonders of the African atmosphere feature in his photography, the East African Rift has a much bigger tale to tell. Drawing from all aspects of geoscience Alexis shares its story… This picture shows Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, at sunrise. ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Iceland’s highlands
This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays provides a little insight into what you might find beneath your feet as you explore the Icelandic highlands… You can stumble upon wild blueberries, better known to botanists as vaccinium uliginosum, in cool temperate regions of the Arctic, as well as other mountainous areas including the Pyrenees, Alps, and Rockies. They thrive in wet acidic soils – the sort y ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Shifting the O in H2O
Wherever you are in the world’s oceans, you can identify particular bodies of water (provided you have the right equipment) by how salty they are. You can get a feel for how productive that part of the ocean is by measuring a few chemical components in the water column. And, year on year, you will see a recurring pattern in how things like temperature, salinity and oxygen content vary with depth. ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Friends in the field
Out in the field you encounter all sorts of wildlife and while mosquitos are the most frequent (and most unwelcome), they generally don’t interfere with your equipment or your data. The same can’t be said for all animals though, and many scientists have to strap their equipment out of reach, barricade it with barbed fences or place it in a relatively indestructible black box. It’s a particular pro ...[Read More]
Scientists are humans
The title of this article may come as a bit of a shock, but it’s true. Scientists aren’t born scientists; they start off just like any other person and one day decide that the natural world is fascinating enough to them that they want to make a career out of figuring out its secrets. But, sometimes it is hard as an ‘outsider’ to see into science, especially academia. Sometimes it can seem like sci ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Scope for science and art
Great geoscience photographs aren’t always shots of beautiful landscapes. Sometimes there are stunning things to see at a much smaller scale. This week’s Imaggeo on Mondays showcases one such curiosity and highlights how research images can reveal a lot about the natural world when exhibited as a form of art. Thin sections are a fantastic way of finding out more about rocks, soils and tissue struc ...[Read More]