Étretat is a coastal region in northern France, well known for its stunning geological landscape. Particularly the headland you see here. Headland erosion is perhaps one of the best known processes in coastal erosion, where a crack in the headland is opened and enlarged by hydraulic abrasion. Continued wave action causes the widened crack or cave to break through the headland and form an arch. As ...[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Perfecting Palaeogeographic Reconstructions
We model the changes in the geographic location of continents via paleogeographic reconstructions. However, the current methodology for generating these reconstructions is not without problems! Publication of palaeogeographic reconstructions is scarce, probably resulting from the difficulties associated with generating them. Conventional reconstructions are presented as static maps which have poor ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Wonderings and weathering
After studying ‘Applied Environmental Sciences’ I decided to go with a friend for six months to New Zealand for the southern hemisphere winter. Leaving as soon as my diploma thesis (on epiphytic lichens) was written, we set off into the distance to work and travel. We chose New Zealand as our dream destination because these two islands have so many different landscapes to offer – and this is how I ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Rainbow in stone
Nothing better characterises the wild US West than endless landscapes of red hoodoos, spires of rock protruding from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. Found mainly in desert and dry, hot areas, hoodoos are distinctive from similarly-shaped formations, such as spires or pinnacles, because their profiles vary in thickness throughout their length. Their distinctive colour bands are the ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Ellesmere Island
Located within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Ellesmere Island is the world’s tenth largest island and features Canada’s most northerly point but little else apart from vast landscapes of pristine natural habitat. It is separated from Greenland only by the Nares Strait, a major pathway for sea ice flushing out of the High Arctic. Belonging to the Canadian territory of Nunavut, Ellesmere’s perman ...[Read More]
How interviews of famous geologists can help you learn more about geosciences
Today’s guest post comes from Daniel Minisini, a geologist with a passion for filming and philosophy who created a resource for the geosciences community called minigeology.com. In this post, he tells us a bit more about the website, and the inspiration behind the interviews he conducts and posts online. Hi! I am Daniel, a sedimentologist and stratigrapher trained as a marine geologist by my ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: A mineral under the microscope
Epidote, an abundant rock-forming mineral found in metamorphic rocks, nearly always appears in green, although it may vary in shade and tone. Under a microscope of polarized light, however, it exhibits strong pleochroism, that is, it shows different colors when observed at different angles. The thin section (a laboratory preparation of a mineral or rock sample for use with a polarizing microscope) ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Praia das Rodas, Spain
Often listed as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Praia das Rodas is located on the Isla do Faro, part of the three-island Cíes archipelago within the Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park. The beach faces eastwards, towards Vigo and the Galician coast of northwestern Spain, its accumulation of sand forming a land-bridge between two islands during low tide. All three islands are ...[Read More]
Our next door neighbours
The EGU Executive Office is housed in one of the buildings of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany. The building also hosts the Palaeontological Museum Munich, the public part of the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology, which is dedicated to the history of life and the Earth, and displays fossils from all eras ...[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Huts in Arcachon Bay
Yann Vitasse, now a researcher at the Institute of Botany, University of Basel in Switzerland, got a wonderful present in 2009 for completing his PhD: a flight on an ultralight aircraft above the southwest coast of France. It was then he took this stunning photo of the Arcachon Bay, a water area near Bordeaux that is fed by the Atlantic Ocean and by a number of fresh waterways.“Here you see the fa ...[Read More]