This former open-pit diamond mine is currently the second largest excavated hole in the world. After diamond was discovered in there in 1955, the area became the first and largest diamond mine in the Soviet Union, producing up to 2,000 kg of diamond per year during the 1960s. Its surface operations continued until 2001 and …[Read More]
Latest posts
Science bloggers: join the 2012 General Assembly blogroll!
Will you be blogging at the 2012 EGU General Assembly? Sign up here and we’ll add you to our official blogroll. Like last year, a list (“blogroll”) of General Assembly related blogs will be compiled and made available. The content of each blog on this list is the responsibility of the authors and is not sanctioned by …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Seeing double
On 6 September 2009, monsoon clouds had built up throughout the day over the Donggi Cona lake in central China. Janneke IJmker, now a researcher at Deltares in the Netherlands, was doing fieldwork there as part of her PhD at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. By dinner time, the sun shone on raindrops from the …[Read More]
Photo competition at the EGU 2012 General Assembly
If you are pre-registered for the 2012 General Assembly (Vienna, April 22-27), we invite you to submit photos to our annual photo competition. Winners receive a free registration to next year’s General Assembly! The third edition of the EGU photo competition is now open. Until 10 March, every pre-registered participant of the General Assembly can submit up to …[Read More]
Happy Carnival from the EGU Executive Office in Munich!
With everyone at the office busy with General Assembly preparations and other activities, a typical Bavarian breakfast on Carnival day is a most welcome break. Germany loves Carnival and Munich, while lagging behind Cologne, Düsseldorf, and Mainz in Fasching parties, is no exception. At the office, we decided to celebrate the date with a Weißwurst Frühstück, accompanied by… Bavarian beer, of course! Good thing …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Serene landscape, active volcano
This image, captured in Chile by Lilli Freda from Italy’s Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, depicts a cloudless sky, a calm blue lake (Llanquihué), and a picture-perfect mountain with a snow-covered top. But the serenity of the landscape is only apparent: the triangular structure in the background is in fact the very active and …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Orange anvils
The anvils in this picture are not heavy steel or iron blocks but rather soft clouds coloured orange by the setting sun. The term is used to describe the upper part of a cumulonimbus or thunderstorm cloud that tends to spread out in an anvil shape as warm air bumps up against the bottom of …[Read More]
Geosciences Column: Life in the aftermath of hydrothermal vents
Pioneering new study explores the structure and function of microbial communities at expired hydrothermal vent sites Undiscovered lifeforms abound in Earth’s most seemingly inhospitable environments, as demonstrated by the recent discovery of bacteria living deep underneath the seafloor. An equally extreme environment can be found in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, where water is expelled …[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 …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Waves hitting Cycladic rocks
When he is not researching in the space sciences, Ioannis Daglis, the director of the Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing at the National Observatory of Athens in Greece, is often out with his camera. This picture of sea waves slamming cliff rocks in the Aegean Sea is a beautiful example of his artistic work, …[Read More]