natural hazards

Imaggeo on Mondays: Recreating monster waves in art and science

Olivia Trani July 8, 2019

Recreating a monster wave. Credit: Mark McAllister (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Featured in this blog post is a collection of images that gives a picture-perfect example of life imitating art. The photos in the left column are three consecutive still frames of a breaking wave that scientists generated in a lab environment at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. The pictures in the centre and right columns show the same wave images, but now superimposed with the famous 19th ...[Read More]

GeoPolicy: Preventing mercury leakage from a WWII submarine

Chloe Hill July 5, 2019

U-864 Submarine Wreckage. Credit: NGI - Norges Geotekniske Institutt (distributed via Youtube).

I recently had the opportunity to interview Matthias Kaiser, a professor at Bergen University and, at the time of the interview, Director of the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities. He is part of an expert team that has given scientific advice to Norwegian policymakers, highlighting the issues that should be considered when dealing with the U-864 submarine wreckage and its carg ...[Read More]

A better framework for disasters

Robert Emberson November 13, 2018

The 2018 Carr Fire that burned 229,651 acres in California. It's currently listed as the seventh-largest wildfire recorded in the state's modern history. (Photo: Bureau of Land Management California via Bureau of Land Management California)

The end of the Northern hemisphere summer tends to be a good time to regroup from natural hazards, as the frequency and intensity of storms, as well as the incidence of wildfires, tends to trail off. At the time of writing, however, Hurricane Willa had just crashed into Mexico, while Typhoon Yutu has just hit the Northern Mariana Islands so hard that any equipment designed to record wind-speed had ...[Read More]

August GeoRoundUp: the best of the Earth sciences from around the web

Olivia Trani September 6, 2018

Shutters of the Cheruthoni dam open in response to heavy rainfall in Kerala, India. (Credit: Kiranroice, via Wikimedia Commons)

Drawing inspiration from popular stories on our social media channels, major geoscience headlines, as well as unique and quirky research, this monthly column aims to bring you the latest Earth and planetary science news from around the web. Major story The south Indian state of Kerala has suffered unusually heavy monsoon rainfall this month, triggering the worst flooding the state has seen in more ...[Read More]