Author: Beatriz Martínez-Rius (Sorbonne Université, Paris) I bet that all of us have tried to imagine how the Mediterranean looked like 5 million years ago. We’ve tried to draw it, model it, animate it, and depict it through scientific representations of all sorts. When we talk about partial desiccation, reflooding, isolated basins… we are exercising... Continue Reading →
Why Geologists Become Astronauts
Author: Simon Rowendaal (Universitat Hamburg, Germany) A personal reason for me to go into geology was my dream to become an astronaut. I was therefore very excited when in May 2019 the U.S. announced its plan to return to the Moon by 2024. When man will set foot on the lunar surface again, among them... Continue Reading →
Falling seas or Rising lands? The discovery of glacio-isostatic adjustment
Author: Hanneke Heida (ICTJA - CSIC, Barcelona) One of the most challenging aspects of earth sciences is the linking of processes occurring on vastly different scales, from the local to the global, the microscopic to the solar system, the second to millions of years. Sometimes fascinating clues to a large and seemingly ungraspable phenomenon can... Continue Reading →
SALTGIANT Short Course 3 – Numerical and analogue modelling in the Earth Sciences
Author: Ronja Ebner (Utrecht University, Netherlands) This short course will give all ESRs an insight into the philosophy, methods, and applications of numerical and analogue modelling in the Earth Sciences. Two months after having spent 10 days in the sunny South at the Mediterranean Sea to learn about seismological signals, we meet again a colder... Continue Reading →
Noah’s flood: did something similar happened in the Mediterranean 5.33 Million years ago?
Author: Francesca Bulian (Universidad de Salamanca, Spain) When mankind started populating Planet Earth, it was immediately encountered with extraordinary events that it could not fully explain or understand on its own such as great storms, lightning and thunder, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods…. However, like we continue doing today, it is in our nature to seek... Continue Reading →
Too many cooks spoil the broth, but what about science?
Ronja Ebner (ESR 7)– Utrecht University (Netherlands). “There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” [1] When one starts to... Continue Reading →
About Dr. Ilaria Capua, the loss of scientific credibility and the amplifying effect of the press
Author: Gaia Travan (CNRS Lille, France) Ilaria Capua, virologist This is the story of Ilaria Capua. However, is also the story of Giulio Selvaggi (1) and many other scientists that had to defend their actions in court and were exposed to the media pillory, in a reality increasingly inclined to judge the bona fide of... Continue Reading →
SALTGIANT 2nd Workshop in Trieste
Author: Simon Blondel - OGS Trieste This June 2019, the SALTGIANT ETN met on its second workshop in Trieste, Italy. The meeting was co-organised by Angelo Camerlenghi from the Instituto Nazionale Di Oceanografia E Di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), Simon Blondel the local SALTGIANT PhD student, and Anna Del Ben from the Department of Mathematics and... Continue Reading →
Deeper than anyone else: Interview to Yasuhiro Yamada, director of exploration of the drilling vessel Chikyu
Author: Beatriz Martínez-Rius (Sorbonne Université, Paris) Source: http://www.jamstec.go.jp Imagine a hole where you can fit 25 Eiffel Towers, one above the other. And now, imagine this hole under 2.500 meters of seawater. This is the drilling capacity of the Chikyu, the most advanced drilling vessel in the world. By dropping a pipe up to 10... Continue Reading →
Exploring the salty Sicily: The Messinian Salinity Crisis from a fieldwork perspective
Authors: Athina Tzevahirtzian (University of Palermo) & Beatriz Martínez-Rius (Sorbonne Université) The Mediterranean seabed hides precious secrets that geologists are struggling to understand for years now. Their major obstacle? Technological and technical difficulties that convert the seafloor in an unreachable place… Unless you are in Sicily, where you can literally touch the rocks without getting... Continue Reading →