European Geosciences Union
Division on Soil System Sciences
President: Claudio Zaccone (sss@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Bas van Wesemael
(bas.vanwesemael@uclouvain.be)
Soil is the interface between the crust and atmosphere, and is the basis of life on earth. The impact of Soil Science to the society has probably never been as high as it is currently. The importance of soils in the Earth System must make us, the soil scientists, more noticeable at the EGU.
The aim of the SSS is to coordinate the EGU scientific programme on Soil Science and related activities. The SSS contributes actively with EGU by promoting scientific interchange and dissemination of activity carried out by members.
CiteScore 2019 values are now available in Scopus. SOIL, our EGU Soil System Sciences (SSS) division open-access journal ranked 3/126 (98th percentile) in the category Soil Science !!!
The deadline to nominate the best deserving soil researchers for the Philippe Duchaufour Medal and the Division Outstanding Early Career Scientists Award for 2021 has been extended to 30 June 2020.
Detailed information on the selection process and how to propose a candidate is available on the Awards & Medals section of the EGU website. Nominations for all the medals and awards must be submitted via an online nomination form. Before submitting a nomination, please carefully check if the nomination and supporting documents satisfy the EGU requirements.
As every two years, our Division was looking for enthusiastic soil science community members to join our team as Subdivision Committee members. This year, several Subdivision chairs and committee members are ending their mandate, and new candidates will be proposed and approved during the SSS Division Meeting on May 5th.
The EGU has issued an open letter to funding agencies and evaluation committees with information on the assessment of presentations given at its scientific meetings.
The letter details the three presentation types given at EGU General Assembly and states that the selection of the type of presentation is not based on any evaluation of the scientific value of the contribution. This letter emphasises that there is no distinction regarding the standing, quality or prestige of oral, poster, or PICO presentations.
Lily Pereg, Deputy President and Programme Group Chair of the EGU Soil System Sciences (SSS) Division and Executive Editor of the SOIL journal, died tragically and unexpectedly earlier this month during a trip to Argentina.
Pereg was a microbiologist with 25 years of research experience and an associate professor at the School of Science and Technology, University of New England in Armidale, Australia. An EGU member since 2013, Pereg was elected to serve as president of the EGU SSS Division in Autumn 2017, a role she was due to take on in April this year.
Amazing soil pictures? Are you a photoartist? Share your work at Imaggeo, the open-access image repository of EGU.
Lorena M. Zavala (Univ. of Sevilla) holds a soil
aggregate composed of organic matter from a
peatland from the Wicklow Mountains (Ireland)
The 2020 Philippe Duchaufour Medal is awarded to Georg Guggenberger for outstanding research in the field of soil science, with special emphasis on conceptual work on the soil organic carbon evolution and interaction of organic matter with mineral structures.
The 2020 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Sebastian Dötterl for his contributions to the understanding of biogeochemical processes along geoclimatic gradients and the role of soil development and soil disturbance as controls on carbon dynamics.
Happy New Year! It’s January, and time for us to continue our monthly series of blog posts dedicated to highlighting the great work carried out by technicians, laboratory assistants, and research support staff in soil science. This month, we sat down (virtually, of course) with Jonathan Gottlieb (J.J.), the Head of the conservation of waterlogged, organic, archaeological materials and the pottery restoration lab at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Israel. J.J. received his B.A. from …
Last month, we launched the first in a monthly series of blog posts dedicated to highlighting the indispensable work carried out by our technicians, laboratory assistants, and research support teams. Soil Science is indebted to these key individuals and their essential, tireless efforts to keep laboratories afloat, maintain our facilities, carry out fieldwork, and make research happen. We kicked off this monthly celebration by having a fireside chat with Ruma Umari, a Paraecologist at NGBRC, Papua New Guinea, and you …
Soils do a lot! From supporting food production and filtering water, to storing carbon, cycling nutrients, and hosting organisms, soils are fundamental for our day-to-day lives. But take a look around you. If you’re like me – sitting in an office at the moment – your feet rest upon a carpeted floor, you’re surrounded by four walls, and the only view out of the window is that of a ribbon of tarmac that meanders past concrete driveways and stone houses. …
Inspired by the recent #Black in Geoscience blog post on the EGU Geodynamics Division blog, we decided to highlight Black soil scientists in a separate blog post! As we already mentioned on Twitter, our Soil System Sciences Division Outreach team is busy thinking about what we can do about the lack of diversity, esp. for Black soil scientists in our scientific community. Specifically, how can we increase the representation of Black people in soil science (Fig. 2), and foster stronger …
Why is research in Antarctica so important? In this issue of The Loupe, EGU asks experts why they think it really matters. We also highlight blogs from each of the month’s featured EGU divisions: Climate: Past, Present & Future, Cryospheric Sciences, and Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences.
This issue also discusses the extensive fee waiver programme for vEGU21. The abstracts submission deadline is 13 January 2021 at 13:00 CET!
Last, but not least: for those scientists who tend to shop late, there’s the Top 5 (last-minute) gifts for geoscientists. From the ultimate sample collection kit to cake (no, really!), EGU has you covered with our last-minute guide. And the #1 gift? You’ll need to read the blog!