‘Vienna, here we come!’ was the motto not only of the group from the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences in Berlin photographed above, who met at Berlin Central Station for their joint train journey. In Vienna, they will attend the annual General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union EGU, the largest geoscience conference in Europe. It will take place from 27 April to 3 May at the Austria Center Vienna. Over 19,000 scientists from all over the world, including many at the early stages of their careers, will exchange ideas on their latest research in all geoscience disciplines.

More than 180 researchers from the GFZ will be taking part. The thematic scope of their contributions is broad: from new findings on earthquake early warning systems, including those based on telecommunications cables, and more precise localisation of landslides, to fundamental research on the dynamics of continental plates, the GRACE-FO and GRACE-C satellite missions and their current and future role in climate and water data generation, new products for the real-time use of global navigation satellite systems, new insights into the behaviour of ice algae on Greenland's glaciers, AI-based approaches to space weather prediction, the use of cosmic neutrons to determine soil moisture in wetlands, and tools for geoscientific metadata from GFZ Data Services.

The researchers will give lectures, display scientific posters, and participate in panel discussions. Some will present their research at press conferences or public events to a wider audience:

Stefania Ursica will present her work on ‘The intelligence of nature: hybrid, bio-inspired method enables more accurate seismic localisation of geomorphological events - How mathematically coded animal behaviour helps with data analysis’ at a press conference on 30 April at 10 a.m.

And Prof. Dr. Michael Kühn will give a hybrid lecture for general public on 29 April 2025 at 6 p.m. His topic: ‘Inspired by nature – safety for the long term: carbon dioxide and highly radioactive waste in deep geological repositories,’ organised by the EGU in cooperation with the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Online participation is possible.