Satellite images are not just wonderful for science, they also capture public interest during periods of intense and news grabbing weather. Earlier this month North America was gripped by a prolonged Arctic Chill, plunging the continent into freezing temperatures and smashing temperature records in the process. Consecutive satellite images tracked the southward progress of the freezing continent t ...[Read More]
Science snap (#14): San Andreas Fault
As one of ~20,000 geologists flocking to AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, I’ve headed out a few days early to take in a few West Coast sights. For many, the Foggy City will always be synonymous with earthquakes. San Francisco is located right on the San Andreas Fault, which is part of a larger fracture zone marking the boundary between the North American and Pacific tectonic plates. In 190 ...[Read More]
Science snap (#12): Purple bacteria
KT Cooper is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A carbonate geochemist by training, she has just returned from a three-month secondment to Houston, Texas, USA working with Exxon Mobil. The world of microbiology is weird, wonderful and also quite multi-colourful. Purple bacteria, a particular hue of microbe which holds a special place in my heart, have just ...[Read More]
Science Snap (10): The impact of eruptions
Mel Auker brings us our Science Snap this week… Many people are aware of the May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State, USA. Common photographs of the huge VEI 5 eruption show the large, billowing eruptive column rising into the stratosphere. Less iconic are images of the destruction left behind, demonstrating the after-effects of the eruption. The US president at the time, J ...[Read More]
Science snap (7): Thrusting under our noses
As Earth Science researchers, we are extremely fortunate that fieldwork often necessitates trips to exotic and far-flung places. But sometimes we are guilty of ignoring the riches right on our doorstep. In Bristol (UK), perhaps our greatest geological asset is the Avon Gorge. At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, torrents of icy meltwater scoured out a 2.5km long gouge through a series of Devoni ...[Read More]
Science Snap (9): Sentinel-1
This isn’t strictly a photograph but an artist’s impression of a new satellite launching soon that will hopefully change the pace and advancement of a satellite remote sensing technique I use in my PhD, InSAR. Sentinel-1 will be the first of five European Space Agency (ESA) satellites to be launched as part of Europe’s Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) ‘Coper ...[Read More]
Science Snap (6): SEM images of a high-pressure experiment
Sorcha McMahon is a third year PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. Sorcha is investigating how strange igneous rocks called carbonatites may have formed, using both natural samples and high-pressure experiments. These back-scattered electron (BSE) images are a typical view of one of the high-pressure experiments that I run on the piston-cylinder apparatus, her ...[Read More]
Science Snap (5): Volcan de Colima’s lava dome
This photograph, taken from a helicopter, is of the lava dome at Volcan de Colima volcano, Mexico in November 2009. Volcan de Colima has been active throughout history with over 40 eruptions since the sixteenth century. The last explosive Plinian eruption was in 1913 blasting out the summit crater. Nowadays, eruptions tend to be effusive with eruptions of lava flows and the gradual build up of the ...[Read More]
Science Snaps (4): vivid volcanoes
This week we couldn’t just stick to one “Science Snap” so we went for four – one from each of the contributors! We’ve all chosen a volcano dear to our hearts being ones we’ve either visited or studied. James: The giant Uturuncu volcano in southern Bolivia has been slowly uplifting for over 45 years. High-precision GPS and micro-gravimetry in the foreground are b ...[Read More]
Science Snap (3): Earth’s biggest volcano?
James Hickey is a PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. A geophysicist and volcanologist by trade, his PhD project is focussed on attempting to place constraints on volcanic unrest using integrated geodetic modelling. The newly discovered submarine Tamu Massif (pictured below), approximately 1500 km east of Japan, has been proposed as the wo ...[Read More]