On the desolate Antarctic peninsula, a colony of penguins creates a hub of biodiversity. One may ask, how exactly do those aquatic birds help maintain and enrich the variety of different kinds of organisms from plants and animals, to a wide range of insects and micro-organisms that live on our planet? The answer is quite intriguing. Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China found that Adelie penguins enrich the icy continent’s sediment and soil with nutrients that come from…well, their bowel movements. The Adélie penguin, the most important advanced predator in Antarct ..read more

  EGU has hosted a Great Debate with world-renowned climate scientists and activists about the growing human impact on our natural and social environment for many years. There are many aspects to the debate, from voting bad politicians out, to communication duties of scientists, the interconnection of a need for social equity and decarbonization, and more. In this blog post, I want to focus on the term “comfort zone” and how much we as scientists have to become aware of and leave it – according to #EGU24’s discussion panel.   The setting: human impacts on a geological time scale Grea ..read more

For this year’s Photo Contest, EGU received a number of amazing images capturing a broad spectrum of the geosciences. Since the selection committee whittled the field down to 10 finalists, you have been voting for your favourites throughout EGU24’s week-long conference, both on-site in Vienna at the EGU booth, and online. After an enthusiastic response from voters, we are now ready -and very excited- to announce the winners! Congratulations to these superb photographers! Volcano-tectonic interaction by Nicolas Oestreicher The early morning sun highlights the topography at the Viti crater, s ..read more

When stars explode, supernova-style, the explosion sets off streams of high energy particles across the universe, mainly protons and alpha particles, that after millions of years reach us here on Earth. Secondary cosmic rays pass through our bodies and almost everything around us, and they penetrate a few meters into the ground where they interact with atoms in soil and rock. This produces new isotopes called cosmogenic nuclides, in tiny but measurable quantities. These tiny particles paved the way for a new discovery concerning the earliest known evidence of human presence in Europe. Research ..read more

In July 2021, the Benelux area, Germany, and France experienced heavy rainfall followed by mass flooding, causing widespread damage. Along the vast quantities of plastic swept along the riverbanks, Rahel Hauk, a researcher from Wageningen University, conducted fieldwork to assess the impact of the flood event on plastic deposition. Amidst the debris, Hauk and her colleagues noticed a large volume of specific plastic butter tubs. She noted them separately and over the following two years asked citizen scientists from the Schone Rivieren project who contribute to plastic deposition monitoring to ..read more

Did you know that some of the scientists of each General Assembly get invited to a press conference to face a group of curious journalists? I did not – but as press assistant for the #EGU24, I had the unique chance to attend the press conference “Unveiling Antarctica’s secrets: new research brings us one step closer to predicting the future of the icy continent”. Prominent scientists (Fig.1) from the British Antarctic Survey and the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration first took us on a stroll through their recent work and findings during their presentations, followed by opening the f ..read more

The EGU General Assembly provides ground for formal presentations and sessions conveying a body of knowledge. However, science is so much more. It is a social process driven by shared values, such as openness and integrity, and established customs, like peer review. As such, working in science is inherently a collaborative effort, and the EGU supports that by giving participants plenty of opportunities to connect and interact with the diverse community. But how to make the most of it? Firstly, don’t be afraid to engage with others – everyone is in the same boat here. However, should it still f ..read more

Picture this: bacteria that can slime their way around the soil, finding their prey, circling it, closing in on it and lysing it (or making their cell pop), just to feed on their prey. It sounds like a far stretch from a wolf to a bacteria, but even other soil predators, the comparably huge nematode worms ( up to 100 times bigger!), are afraid of these bacterial “wolves”. I went to the Soil System Science Poster session and had a chat with Marc Piecha presenting his work on this mysterious bunch of microorganisms. Soil Life 101 You might have heard before that the microbial life in soil is div ..read more

Tenerife, the largest active volcanic island in the Canarian archipelago, encompasses a diverse landscape shaped by volcanic activity. This picturesque island of the Mediterranean not only boasts stunning vistas but also harbours a dynamic volcanic system that requires diligent monitoring. In recent years, an international team of researchers from Instituto Volcanológico de Canarias (INVOLCAN), Instituto Tecnológico y de Energías Renovables (ITER), Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-University of Bonn, Birkbeck University and Queens University of Belfast monitors the volcanic activity on Tenerife b ..read more

Every year EGU tries to provide more ways for people to interact with us and in 2021 we were delighted when one of our Artists in Residence Kelly Stanford, working together with members of our EDI Committee created a free colouring book! It was so popular that we decided to make two more, one with simpler drawings based on common Earth, planetary and space related concepts, nominally targeted at younger children (suggested around 8 and under), though actually it can be used by people of any age, and one that is more complicated based on photos from EGU’s open access science image database: ima ..read more