On This Day #2

If we look back on this day in history, it marks the birth anniversary of Wilhelm Eduard Weber. He was a German physicist born on 24th October 1804 who together with Carl Friedrich Gauss studied terrestrial magnetism and invented the first electromagnetic telegraph.

A portrait of Wilhelm Eduard Weber. Source: Wikipedia

He developed a number of magnetic maps with his colleagues. Thanks to this, there are now magnetic observatories all over the globe that measure the magnetic field on the surface. These observations are used by scientists to make models of the Earth's magnetic field originating from different sources. They are also important in estimating magnetic indices that provide an indication of the solar disturbances.

The first usage of the letter c was done in Kohlrausch and Weber (1856) to denote a number very close to the speed of light. In his honour, Weber (Wb) is the unit of magnetic flux in the SI units (International System of Units).

IUGG Outreach Project

The International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) has a Grants Program that gives the applicant ample funds to work towards expanding the reach of the association and encourage Early Career Researchers (ECRs). The IUGG comprises of 8 different associations, IAGA being one of them. The applicants submit their application via the Secretary General (SG) of their association.

This year one of the grants has been awarded to IAGA! The proposal was submitted by Katia Pinheiro via our SG Monika Korte. Katia is part of the IAGA social media team and directs videos about researchers. She recently was part of two other outreach projects. She submitted a movie about the geomagnetic field in the UNESCO Earth's Film Festival. Her movie 'Magnetic Mosaic' has been selected as the Top 3 in the category 'Women in Geoscience'. You can know more about it from our previous blog here. The other project is still in progress about short movies for school kids.

 

The selected IUGG project will include a documentary and short movies connecting a variety of subjects under the 8 associations. The documentary will be about the structure and science of IUGG while the short movies will contain interviews of ECRs. We are still looking for ECRs from the different IUGG associations and would welcome any recommendations or suggestions for the same. The priority will be given to women and researchers from developing countries. 

We hope to reach a wide audience through this initiative. The aim is to spread scientific knowledge to the general public. We hope it would also strengthen the networking between the different IUGG associations, especially for the upcoming researchers. The project would be interdisciplinary since the associations cover a wide range of topics like geosciences, atmospheric and hydrological sciences among many others.

The videos will be broadcasted in the next IUGG General Assembly in Berlin in July 2023 and will be made available on IAGA's social media channels. Don't forget to follow us there!

EMIW 2022

The 25th Electromagnetic Induction Workshop (EMIW) took place in Çeşme, Turkey.

Initially, the “Electromagnetic Induction in the Earth and Planetary Bodies” community was a IAGA working group and part of IAGA Division-I. Some years ago it was upgraded to Division-VI. The most visible outcome of the Division’s activity is closely linked to the International EM Induction Workshops (EMIW). These conferences focus on all theoretical and practical aspects of investigating the spatial distribution of electrical properties within the Earth's and planetary interiors and particularly electrical conductivity, and their relationship with physical parameters considered in seismology, rheology, petrology, hydrology, volcanology, etc.. The techniques used in this domain are applied to investigate geological structures and processes ranging from meter to mantle scale. The workshops focuses also on training Early career researchers (ECRs).

The Division VI chair, Dr. Ute Weckmann, and the Chair of the Local Organising Committee, Dr. Ahmet T. Başokur, inaugurating the EMIW 2022 workshop in Turkey.

The EMIWs are organized once in two years. The history of these workshops reaches back to 1972 when the 1st EMIW took place in Edinburgh, Scotland. Now the 25th EMIW was held on 11-17 September 2022 in Çeşme, Turkey. Çeşme is a town in the west of Izmir on the Aegean Sea. Exceptionally, the last conference was four years ago (Helsingør, Denmark, in 2018). Due to Covid-19, the 25th EMIW had been postponed from 2020 to 2022. Thanks to the Local Organizing Committee (LOC, Chair: Ahmet Başokur) it was a big success. Approximately 150 people from all over the world attended. Besides the traditional invited review talks, ca. 55 oral contributions and 140 posters were presented. After the Covid pandemic, attending the workshop made everyone feel motivated and inspired. Some ECRs for the first time got a chance to interact and discuss with scientists from all over the world.

On 14th September there was an excursion tour. We visited the UNESCO World Heritage Site "The Ancient City of Ephesus", the Archaeological Museum, and the Basilica of Saint John. It was really good to learn about the architecture and lifestyle of the ancient people seen in the carvings and sculptures. The LOC has done a great job organizing such a wonderful workshop.

 

The participants of the workshop during the excursion to the UNESCO World Heritage Site "The Ancient City of Ephesus".

The EMIW community looks forward to the next workshop in Beppu, Japan, in 2024. The LinkedIn page of Division- VI can be found here.