Have you ever stumbled upon a satellite picture showing observations of the Arctic or Antarctic? You often see a circle where there is no data around the exact location of the geographic pole – as you can see in our Image of the Week. A few days ago, I wanted to explain this to one of my friends and turned to my favourite search engine for help. My search turned up a tremendous amount of sto ...[Read More]
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Seismology
Where and why does the chain break? Women in geoscience and letters of recommendation for postdoctoral fellowships
While women in geosciences are awarded 40% doctoral degrees, they hold less than 10% of full professorial positions. In looking for the cause of this disparity, the postdoctoral years have been identified as a crucial step, before and during which many women leave the Academia. A recent study by Dutt et al., published this month in Nature Geoscience, investigated biases in recommendation letters f ...[Read More]
Geomorphology
ESURF – Special Issue on 4-D reconstruction of earth surface processes
Special Issue in “Earth Surface Dynamics” (interactive, open-access and public peer reviewed journal): 4-D reconstruction of earth surface processes: multi-temporal and multi-spatial high resolution topography. The special issue aims to demonstrate the advantages of High Resolution Topography (HiRT) to measure and understand earth surface processes at multiple temporal scales and varyi ...[Read More]
Planetary and Solar System Sciences
From Neptune to Planet Nine: finding planets with pen and paper
In 1781, William Herschel discovers a faint uncatalogued point in his telescope. He first thinks he has discovered a comet, but the orbit of the new object seems more of a planetary nature. This will be confirmed by subsequent observations: the planet Uranus has been discovered! Many years later, in the early nineteenth century, questions remain: the calculated orbit of Uranus does not match the o ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Imaggeo on Mondays: recording the Earth’s magnetic field one grain at a time
The Earth’s magnetic field extends from the core of the planet, right out to space. It is an invisible, butterfly-like, shield which protects us against the harmful particles ejected by solar flares. In addition, it guards us from atmospheric erosion and water loss caused by solar wind. But how do scientists study the Earth’s magnetic field when it can’t be see? Much of what is known results from ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Geosciences column: Making aurora photos taken by ISS astronauts useful for research
It’s a clear night, much like any other, except that billions of kilometers away the Sun has gone into overdrive and (hours earlier) hurled a mass of charged particles, including protons, electrons and atoms towards the Earth. As the electrons slam into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the night sky explodes into a spectacular display of dancing lights: aurora. Aurora remain shrouded in myste ...[Read More]
Tectonics and Structural Geology
Solid Earth journal: the possibilities of open access publishing
The third blog for TS is an invited guest blog by Fabrizio Storti, the chief executive editor of the EGU journal Solid Earth. Solid Earth publishes open access manuscripts on the composition, structure, and dynamics of the Earth from the surface to the deep interior. It is the journal for our community and we encourage everyone to see if they can contribute a manuscript and/or participate in the o ...[Read More]
GeoSphere
Pilgrimage to Pompeii
One of the highlights of my honeymoon in Italy was our trip to Pompeii. Both my wife and I are big classics nerds so for us a visit to Pompeii had something of a pilgrimage aspect to it. For me, as a geologist, it was doubly impactful to see the effect of Vesuvius on the town. For the record, we got in a huge discussion about what actually constitutes a pilgrimage. As a bit of background, Mount Ve ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Celebrating Earth Science Week!
For those not so familiar with the Earth sciences, geosciences and all its subdisciplines might be shrouded in mystery: boring, unfathomable, out of reach and with little relevance to everyday life. Nothing could be further from the truth! Earth Science Week, an international annual celebration founded by the American Geosciences Institute in 1998, aims to change the public’s perception of the ge ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Educators: Apply now to take part in the 2017 GIFT workshop!
The General Assembly is not only for researchers but for teachers and educators with an interest in the geosciences also. Every year the Geosciences Information For Teachers (GIFT) is organised by the EGU Committee on Education to bring first class science closer to primary and high school teachers. The topic of the 2017 edition of GIFT is ‘The Mediterranean’. This year’s workshop is co-organised ...[Read More]