Congratulations to Philipp Stadler, Yiming Wang and Eva van Gorsel, winners of this year’s Imaggeo photo competition!

Winning image: Frost by Philipp Stadler

Second place: Icebear Rising by Yiming Wang

Third place: Regrowth after fires by Eva van Gorsel.

Imageo photos are distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence and are available in Imaggeo, the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository. All geoscientists (and others) can submit their images to this repository and since it is open access, these photos can be used by scientists for their presentations or publications as well as by the press. 

The selection committee received close to 200 photos for this year’s EGU Photo Competition, covering fields across the geosciences. The stunning finalist photos are below and they are being exhibited in Hall X (basement, Blue Level) of the Austria Center Vienna, where you will also find voting terminals.

Do you have a favourite? Vote for it! The results will be announced on Friday 12 April during the lunch break.

Gypsum Dunes by Robert Wills

Mendenhall Glacier by Daniele Penna

Mirror, mirror by Anna Nadolna

Greenland Ice Sheet by Andrew Sole

Smooth Ice by Kay Helfricht

Colourful hydrovolcanism by Stephanie Flude

Regrowth after fires by Eva van Gorsel

Icebear Rising by Yiming Wang

Frost by Philipp Stadler

Climate change is in our hands by Stephanie Flude

Black Sand Vortex by Yiming Wang

 These images are distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence and are available in Imaggeo, the EGU’s online open access geosciences image repository. All geoscientists (and others) can submit their images to this repository and since it is open access, these photos can be used by scientists for their presentations or publications as well as by the press. 

Buried beneath the soils of Burma lies a mystery that has been almost 70 years in the making: were a shipment of Spitfire aircraft concealed beneath a British airbase at the end of the Second World War? Dr Adam Booth, a geophysicist at Imperial College London and regular GeoLog contributor, is part of an archaeological team who are trying to unearth the truth in this tale. He’s posting to GeoLog from the field: this Part 3 of the series arrived late due to unreliable internet connection in Burma, but we hope it was worth the wait! Read Adam’s other posts on the Spitfire search here.

13 January 2013

Good afternoon from Yangon! I know it’s been a while, but the geophysics team hit the ground running, surveying almost from day one ahead of this week’s digging. I’m now just grabbing half an hour to begin updating this blog ahead of a reception at the British Ambassador’s residence…! We obviously have made some friends in high places in Myanmar!

Despite a wealth of new geophysical data, acquired by Roger Clark and Andy Merritt of University of Leeds, and myself of Imperial College, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you with baited breath about whether there are Spitfires buried at Mingaladon! Our business partners are finalising details of our excavation but we’re hoping to break ground very soon. So, I can update you on the geophysical side of the project and how it is to work in Myanmar – but if you’re checking this blog for confirmation of buried Spitfires, you might just have to wait for another few days…!

A typical day of geophysical survey starts around 8am, when we get a taxi from our hotel to Mingaladon Airport, where we are met by our security supervisors and our industry colleagues. The airport is about seven miles away from the hotel, and the journey through Yangon’s chaotic traffic takes around 45 minutes. I say ‘chaotic’, although I’m not entirely sure that’s the correct word: there’s something ordered to the way the Burmese drive, but a bus performing a sharp U-turn across a busy dual carriageway is not something I think I’ll get used to! However, there’s a lot to take in during that 45-minute spell and it’s one of the only times that I enjoy sitting in a traffic jam: mingling amongst the very friendly Burmese is fun, and seeing the sunlight glint from the roofs of golden roofs of pagodas is really special. On several nights, we’ve returned to the hotel via crowded and colourful market streets, and I truly love people-watching.

Clockwise from top-left: Some friendly commuters driving through Yangon; A road-side watermelon seller; A pagoda by night; A giant chinthe, carved from a single piece of stone, stands guard at a pagoda.

In 2004, when we did our previous survey, I was here during the monsoon season, when there was rain like I’ve never experienced since: the field area was a swamp and, whilst it was humid, it wasn’t too hot. Now, in January, it’s both hot and humid – the dry ground makes for better survey conditions, but the downside is that the humidity really saps your strength. Our first task has been to map the micro-scale terrain across the site. Whilst the area appears flat to the average onlooker, our archaeological colleagues can interpret where features may potentially be buried from small-scale topographic lump-and-bumps. Andy Merritt takes charge of this using a Trimble differential GPS system. Whilst I might complain about the heat and humidity, I really have no right to as Andy notched up a walk of over 17 km around the site yesterday!

However, it’s not like Roger and I are simply sat around watching Andy walking around…! While he maps terrain, we use the EM-34 (our electromagnetic kit) to extend the coverage of the 2004 survey grid. From these data, we are able to map the infrastructure of the 1945 base, thereby allowing the conflict archaeologists to ensure that we’re digging in a place that is indeed consistent with the eyewitness accounts. However, a direct comparison of the 2013 and 2004 EM acquisitions has proven difficult, since the ground is now so much drier than it was before and there is subsequently a different electrical conductivity regime.

Left: Andy Merritt about to start the long work, conducting differential GPS measurements. Centre: Roger Clark brings in the EM-34 equipment after a long day’s surveying. Right: The bane of this trip…! An electrode from the electrical resistivity survey.

Our third piece of kit, the ERT (electrical resistivity tomography) has also been deployed both over and away from the 2004 EM anomalies. I have to say, from a purely practical viewpoint, this is my least favourite of the three pieces of equipment… its cables are prone to tangling, and my hands are blistered from repeatedly hammering 48 electrodes into hard-baked ground…! Nonetheless, from a geophysical viewpoint, it has shown a strong suggestion of structure close to the 2004 dig site, confirming that it is indeed worth a second look. I’m really looking forward to meeting whatever causes these anomalies face-to-face!

I should also say, thanks to everyone who commented on the previous blog posts. It’s really great to see the interest that the project has generated. I’m therefore sorry that I can’t currently give you the news that you’ve been waiting for – however, the digging is due to start very soon! It’s still exciting times, and I’m looking forward to hearing the engine of our JCB-provided excavators warming up. More to follow, but now I must spruce up for the embassy reception!

By Adam Booth, Imperial College London

Buried beneath the soils of Burma lies a mystery that has been almost 70 years in the making: were a shipment of Spitfire aircraft concealed beneath a British airbase at the end of the Second World War? Dr Adam Booth, a geophysicist at Imperial College London and regular GeoLog contributor, is part of an archaeological team who are trying to unearth the truth in this tale. He’ll be posting to GeoLog from the field. This is Part 2 of the series; read his other posts here.

5 January 2013

All is set for the journey to Burma, and the geophysical crew leaves tomorrow. My flat in London currently looks like a geophysical store room, with four sets of equipment squeezed into it – along with Dr Roger Clark and Leeds PhD student Andy Merritt! We’re pretty excited to be moving one step closer to discovering the truth behind the buried Spitfires story. It’s a 16-hour journey from Heathrow to Yangon’s Mingaladon Airport – hardly an inconvenience for such a great survey opportunity!

From Britain to Burma…! Burma is highlighted in red, and the white star shows the location of Yangon. (Credit: Google Maps)

I thought I’d introduce the geophysics we’ve done to date, and explain why it supports the story of a burial taking place at Mingaladon Airport. I’m an ‘exploration geophysicist’, meaning that I use geophysical principles to locate and characterise some subsurface target (a well-known application is using seismic methods to detect hydrocarbon reserves). In archaeology, geophysics represents a cost-effective means of assessing the archaeological content of a given site prior to digging, and thereafter allows expensive excavations to be targeted at priority locations.

For the survey at Mingaladon Airport, the target is, obviously, a buried Spitfire plane (although, more correctly, there are understood to be a few-dozen of them!). The story goes that each Spitfire is ‘deconstructed’ inside a wooden delivery crate, which itself is the size of a modern shipping container. The image below shows a crated Spitfire being unpacked: the photo is taken in Malta, but crates similar to this are what is thought to be present at Mingaladon. Eye-witnesses report that the crates were hauled side-by-side into a channel that crossed the base, and then covered over. The suggestion is that the bases of the crates may be up to 10m beneath the modern ground surface!

British airmen unpacking a Spitfire from a delivery crate, in Malta, in 1942. (Photograph used here under the terms of the Imperial War Museum Non Commercial Licence.)

To a conflict historian, a buried Spitfire may represent a rich source of archaeological evidence, while a veteran may see it as a blast from the past; the exploration geophysicist sees it as something rather more mundane – a heap of metallic components buried at some depth in the ground! However, locating a target is all about exploiting contrasts in the properties of that target, compared to the soil in which it is hosted. Most of the metal in a Spitfire is aluminium, although its engine and cannons are made of steel. A good way to locate a buried Spitfire could be to consider the electrical conductivity of the subsurface. Soils are typically electrically resistive, whereas metals are obviously conductive: areas of elevated conductivity could correspond to the burial site. As steel is magnetic, the Spitfires could also be detected with magnetometry: buried steel will disturb the Earth’s natural magnetic field, so potential burials could be located from a map of magnetic field strength. The most comprehensive interpretations of the subsurface are obtained where recordings from different survey techniques are combined. As such, my 2004 survey comprised data acquisitions to measure both electrical conductivity and magnetic properties.

The image below is a subset of the electromagnetic (EM) dataset, acquired using Geonics EM34-3 equipment, which provides a measure of electrical conductivity. You’re looking at data in map-view: the survey grid is 180x100m in area, and the colours correspond to electrical conductivity – the highest conductivities are coloured in red. For reference, Mingaladon Airport’s runway heads along the bottom edge of the grid (see the lower map). Very obviously, there are two anomalous, high conductivity, areas at the site. It should be noted that the EM34 would lack the resolution to image individual components of a Spitfire, at least at 10m depth, and it instead shows the bulk conductivity trend. What strikes me about these anomalies, however, is their ‘straightness’. I employ two rules of thumb when interpreting data: nature doesn’t do right angles, and nor does it make straight lines. As such, these areas are immediately ‘suspicious’ of some sort of human activity.

EM data acquired in 2004 at Mingaladon Airport, showing electrical conductivity.

Location of the EM grid at the Mingaladon Airport site. (Background image credit: Google Earth)

However, it would be inappropriate to interpret ‘Spitfires!’ from these data. While the electrical conductivities are sufficiently high to be indicative of metal, a war leaves behind a great deal of metallic debris and we could simply be looking at a bulldozed dump-site. However, what is compelling about these data is that the location of the left-hand anomaly exactly matches the burial site identified by certain eye-witness veterans. A trial excavation in 2004, over this anomaly, revealed wooden planking at a depth of around 5m – an isolated plank, or the top of a delivery crate…? Unfortunately, our group’s arrangement with the government did not extend far enough to check. So near but so far, the hole was backfilled – Mingaladon would hold onto its secrets for another few years…

…Until now! Starting in a few days at Mingaladon, the first task of the geophysics crew will be to confirm and update the previous EM survey. Thereafter, our archaeologists need an estimate of target depth in order to design the excavation. The depth of an anomaly cannot be constrained reliably from EM data, and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is better-suited to this task. Andy Merritt uses ERT in his PhD research, and he’ll be acquiring ERT lines through the centre of the EM anomalies. The expectation is that we’ll be able to make a nearest-metre estimate of the target depth.

The next update will be posted from Burma itself, when I’ll hopefully have some hot-off-the-press geophysical images for you, and some information from the archaeologists about how they’re planning to excavate and recover whatever we find. Stay tuned to GeoLog!

By Adam Booth, Imperial College London

Buried beneath the soils of Burma lies a mystery that has been almost 70 years in the making: were a shipment of Spitfire aircraft concealed beneath a British airbase at the end of the Second World War? Dr Adam Booth, a geophysicist at Imperial College London and regular GeoLog contributor, is part of an archaeological team who are trying to unearth the truth in this tale. He’ll be posting to GeoLog from the field. This is Part 1 of the series; read his other posts here.

19 December 2012

Hi, and thanks very much for your interest in this project! Over the next month or so, I’ll be sending back a series of field blogs from our archaeological survey in Burma. It’s quite a unique story and I hope you’ll enjoy the insight into archaeological geophysics! We’re heading out to Burma in January 2013 so, in this first EGU blog post, I’ll introduce the survey team – and do my best to explain quite a strange archaeological tale!

I’m Dr Adam Booth, a near-surface geophysicist at Imperial College London. I use a variety of geophysical methods to image subsurface features in environments ranging from Arctic glaciers to the Arabian desert. My involvement in this project started in 2004, when I met Mr David Cundall while between projects at the University of Leeds.

Me! Dr Adam Booth, during some archaeological fieldwork in Egypt.

David Cundall is as unique an individual as his story itself! A farmer from Scunthorpe, UK, he is also a keen aviation enthusiast. Sixteen years ago, he met a former American airman who mentioned that a number of Spitfire aircraft – an iconic British fighter plane – were buried at an airbase in Burma, at the end of the Second World War. Never assembled, never even removed from their delivery crates, they were simply buried when the British abandoned the base in 1945 – or so the veteran’s story went. Incredibly, David managed to track down eye-witnesses who claimed to have performed the burial. On trips to Burma with David, they independently identified the same spot at the airbase where the alleged burial took place. However, the abandoned base wasn’t exactly abandoned anymore: it had become Mingaladon Airport, the main passenger airport outside the Burmese city of Rangoon.

To persuade the Burmese government to investigate at such a sensitive site, David realised he’d need harder evidence than some eye-witness accounts. Geophysics was one such means of doing this – it wouldn’t confirm the burial of aircraft but it could at least reveal if there was anything ‘suspicious’ in the subsurface. David therefore approached geophysicists at the University of Leeds, specifically seeking out Dr Roger Clark (who was to become my PhD supervisor, and colleague thereafter).

Left – David Cundall, and a Spitfire aircraft at London’s Imperial War Museum. Right – Dr Roger Clark (both photos: Simon Turnbull, University of Leeds).

Roger advised David on performing his own geophysical surveys, but it soon became apparent that some specialist geophysical knowledge would be required on-site. With his full teaching schedule and me with time to kill, Roger suggested that David approach me about performing the survey.

I remember David’s phone call, when he asked me to travel to Burma with him. Somewhat surprised at the suggestion, I thought he’d said Birmingham, and I only realised I was wrong when he started talking about flights…! Six months later, I was stood in a swamp at the side of the airport’s runway, dodging a monsoon and the odd snake, using geophysics to measure the electrical conductivity of the subsurface – essentially, ‘metal detecting’ on an industrial scale. I’ll go into more detail in a future post, but the results were very encouraging! Directly where the eye-witnesses had located the burial, the geophysical data showed highly-elevated electrical conductivities, strongly suggestive of buried metal in the ground.

But is buried metal the same as buried Spitfires? Maybe not, but the evidence was certainly sufficient to convince the Burmese to permit an excavation. Earlier this year, with the financial backing of software company Wargaming, David signed a recovery contract with the newly democratised Burmese government.

The current phase of the project is led by three experienced specialists in the field of conflict archaeology – namely, Martin Brown, Andy Brockman, and Rod Scott. Theirs is one of the fastest growing branches of archaeological science. Using archaeological techniques, conflict archaeologists interpret the material traces of communities preparing for or involved in conflict. Their experience at this site is vital: Mingaladon was heavily bombed during the war, hence excavating there requires care and expertise. Unexploded ordnance is a risk, and we must also be sensitive to the possibility of human remains. Furthermore, whatever is uncovered may be very fragile and recovering it will be a delicate operation.

Our three conflict archaeologists. Left – Martin Brown. Centre – Andy Brockman (photo: Simon Turnbull, University of Leeds). Right – Rod Scott.

According to Andy, the burial of never-assembled Spitfires is “unprecedented” – can we even be sure that the eye-witnesses knew what was in the crates they were burying? Combined with an absence of records from the normally comprehensive military archives, it’s safe to say that the archaeologists are rather sceptical about the possibility of Spitfires at the site! However, they agree that the geophysical data suggest something is there, and it will be a fascinating archaeological find whatever it is!

If there are Spitfire aircraft there, David Cundall is convinced that we’ll see 30 original World War Two planes fly again. However, there’s only one way to find out – the dig starts on January 5th, and Roger and I will be performing new surveys to guide it. Watch this space for updates!

By Adam Booth, Imperial College London

The three 2012 General Assembly photo competition winners are:

1st Prize (214 votes): Melt Stream, Greenland by Ian Joughin, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

2nd Prize (142 votes): Burst by Melissa Bukovsky, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

3rd Prize (135 votes): Icy Landscape by Lucien von Gunten, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

The selection committee received close to 300 photos for this year’s EGU Photo Competition, in most areas covered by Union’s activities. The stunning finalist photos are below. Do you have a favourite? Vote for it! The photos are exhibited in Hall X (basement, Blue Level) of the Austria Center Vienna, where you will also find voting terminals. The results will be announced on Friday 27 April during the lunch break.

Water or new iridescent fluid? by Alessandro Arato, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Burst, by Melissa Bukovsky, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Nacreous clouds in Husavik, by Sigurjon Jonsson, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Icy landscape by Lucien von Gunten, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Russell Fjord (detail) by Jean-Daniel Champagnac, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

The beauty of ice by Romain Schläppy, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Nevada landscape near Las Vegas by Norbert Krupp, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Melt stream, Greenland by Ian Joughin, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Flat in the mountains by Olivier Galland, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Rock Fall. Image by Fausto Guzetti, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

The photograph shows a rock fall occurred near Valtopina, Umbria, Central Italy, at an unknown date.

Rockfalls are a mass movement hazard. They mostly occur on steep rock faces, with the blocks that fall detaching along an existing weakness. The scale of a rock fall can range from a few blocks of rock to rock avalanches. Rock falls can be triggered by earthquakes, freeze-thaw or no apparent cause.

Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union. Every geoscientist who is an amateur photographer (but also other people) can submit their images to this repository. Being open access, it can be used by scientists for their presentations or publications as well as by the press. If you submit your images to imaggeo, you retain full rights of use, since they are licenced and distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Strombolian activity on Mount Yasur, Vanuatu. Image by Derya Gürer, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union. Every geoscientist who is an amateur photographer (but also other people) can submit their images to this repository. Being open access, it can be used by scientists for their presentations or publications as well as by the press. If you submit your images to imaggeo, you retain full rights of use, since they are licenced and distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.

Lava from the East Rift Zone entering the sea near Kalapana (Hawaii Big Island). Image by Martin Mergili, distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons License.

The image shows a flow of basaltic lava out of a lava tunnel into the sea. The location of the scene is the shoreline of Hawaii Big Island near the village of Kalapana. Flow direction of the lava is from the bottom to the top of the image, vaporization of sea water leads to a steam plume of considerable size. Originating from the East Rift Zone, many of the lava flows in that area occur beneath a layer of partially solidified lava. The image was taken on August 13, 2010 during a touristic helicopter flight on a holiday trip.

Imaggeo is the online open access geosciences image repository of the European Geosciences Union. Every geoscientist who is an amateur photographer (but also other people) can submit their images to this repository. Being open access, it can be used by scientists for their presentations or publications as well as by the press. If you submit your images to imaggeo, you retain full rights of use, since they are licenced and distributed by EGU under a Creative Commons licence.