AGU 2014: Urban Areas as Seen from Space

The 2014 fall meeting of the American Geological Union (AGU) is more than halfway over. Throughout the week we’ve been enjoying a series of cartoons drawn live at the meeting by Miles Traer, a multimedia producer at Stanford’s School of Earth Sciences, inspired by various sessions.

Sensory Earth

Science begins with observation. Millions of years of evolution have given us incredible senses to analyze our planet.  We look, listen, touch, smell, and, in certain non-poisonous situations, taste the world around us and use that data to inform our perceptions of the world. To better understand our planet, geoscientists turn to strange and wonderful methods to improve our sensory perception.  These approaches are creative, often crazy-sounding, and at times seemingly the stuff of imagination. I present four short stories about how Earth scientists see water buried hundreds of feet underground from hundreds of miles above, listen to screaming volcanoes, visualize mathematics in breathtaking beauty, and gaze upon our planet from 750 million miles away.  So perk up your senses and open your imagination… it’s time to explore.