The Greenland ice sheet is undergoing rapid change, and nowhere more so than at its margins, where large outlet glaciers reach sea level. Because these glaciers are fed by very large reservoirs of ice, they don’t just flow to the coast, but can extend many kilometres out into the ocean. Here, the ice – being lighter than water – will float, but remain connected to the ice on the mainland. This phe ...[Read More]
The thick packs of ice that pepper high peak of the world’s mountains and stretch far across the poles make an unusual time capsule. As it forms, air bubbles are trapped in the ice, allowing scientists to peer into the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere long ago. Today’s Geosciences Column is brought to you by PhD researcher Ruth Amey, who writes about recently published resea ...[Read More]
When 17th century Japanese princess Shinanomiya Tsuneko took note of an afternoon storm in her diary one humid Kyoto summer, she could not have imagined her observations would one day help resolve a longstanding scientific conundrum. Statistical analysis of her journals has revealed a link between lightning strikes and the solar wind – proving that your teenage diary could contain good scien ...[Read More]
From the top of a small gully in the French Alps, a 472 kg block is launched into the chasm. Every detail of it’s trajectory down the slope is scrutinised by two cameras and a network of seismometers. They zealously record every bounce, scrape and tumble – precious data in the quest to better understand landslides. What makes landslides tick? In 2016, fatalities caused by landslides tipped 2 ...[Read More]
