news from the lab 2017

In order to gain insight into how lakes breathe, EPFL scientists have studied oxygen depletion in the depths of Lake Geneva - the first time such research has been carried out. By collecting key data, they were able to enhance their understanding of the lake's ecosystem and how it is likely to evolve over time.

A team of EPFL and European researchers has discovered a flaw in the way past ocean temperatures have been estimated up to now. Their findings could mean that the current period of climate change is unparalleled over the last 100 million years. According to the methodology widely used by the scientific community, the temperature of the ocean depths and that of the surface of the polar ocean 100 million years ago were around 15 degrees higher than current readings.

Of all the electricity produced in Switzerland, 56% comes from hydropower. The life span of hydroelectric plants, which are massive and expensive to build and maintain, is measured in decades, yet the rivers and streams they depend on and the surrounding environment are ever-changing.

ETH researchers show that magma chambers under supervolcanoes are more like soggy sponges than reservoirs of molten rock.

For the first time, ETH scientists have successfully recreated the formation of continental crust in the Archean using a computer simulation. The model helps us to better understand processes that took place three to four billion years ago. The present-day formation of continental crust can be investigated in the framework of plate tectonics; however, it is unclear how continental crust could have formed in the Archean, a period three to four billion years ago, when there was no plate tectonics.

Even small changes in global temperature can trigger a migration of the tropical rain belt. This can also lead to climate change, as described by a team of researchers from ETH Zurich and other universities. The tropical rain belt, also known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), is in a state of constant migration.

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) The striking North Face of the Bernese Alps is the result of a steep rise of rocks from the depths following a collision of two tectonic plates.

When a meteoroid travels in space, solar radiation leaves distinctive imprints on its outer layer. Together with colleagues, ETH researcher Antoine Roth has developed novel analytical techniques to detect these imprints, allowing the team to reconstruct meteorites' space journeys. The inconspicuous, small stone that was analysed with high-tech equipment is named Jiddat al Harasis 466.

Asteroids don't hit our planet at regular intervals, as was previously thought. Earth scientists have reached this conclusion after analysing impact craters formed in the last 500 million years, concentrating on precisely dated events. Do mass extinctions, like the fall of the dinosaurs, and the formation of large impact craters on Earth occur together at regular intervals? 'This question has been under discussion for more than thirty years now,' says Matthias Meier from ETH Zurich's Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology.

Scientists at EPFL and SLF describe with precision how snow and sand surfaces erode when exposed to wind. Their description can contribute to better predictions of dust emissions from deserts and snow transport in Antarctica, and can be adapted to other planets. Wind and water transport a multitude of particles with them, leading to erosion or deposits, like dust emissions from the Saharan desert that can reach Europe and snow transport that can..

An EPFL researcher has taken a methodology designed to improve underground urban planning around the world one step further.

Timothy Prior and Florian Roth of the 'risk and resilience' team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) will be appearing as experts on today's SRF theme day on blackouts.