Fossil site in Lower Austria provides deep insights into Austria’s earth history. Over 6000 unique fossils of the alpine Triassic period have been investigated by NHM Vienna-Palaeontologist Alexander Lukeneder and Palaeontologist Petra Lukeneder from the University of Vienna have investigated. The spectacular remnants are witnesses of one of most severe ecological disasters in the Earth History, the Carnian Crisis. This phase was characterized by a climate change 233 Million years ago, which lead to a gigantic global mass extinction in…
Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered that extensive chains of volcanoes have been responsible for both emitting and then removing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) over geological time. This stabilised temperatures at Earth’s surface. The researchers, working with colleagues at the University of Sydney, Australian National University (ANU), University of Ottawa and University of Leeds, explored the combined impact of processes in the solid Earth, oceans and atmosphere over the past 400 million years. Their findings are published in…
The same phenomenon that causes aurorae — the magical curtains of green light often visible from the polar regions of the Earth — causes mesospheric ozone layer depletion. This depletion could have significance for global climate change and therefore, understanding this phenomenon is important. Now, a group of scientists led by Prof. Yoshizumi Miyoshi from Nagoya University, Japan, has observed, analyzed, and provided greater insight into this phenomenon. The findings are published in Nature’s Scientific Reports. In the Earth’s magnetosphere…
New research from Florida State University and Rice University is providing a better estimate of the amount of carbon in the Earth’s outer core, and the work suggests the core could be the planet’s largest reservoir of that element. The research, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, estimates that 0.3 to 2.0 percent of the Earth’s outer core is carbon. Though the percentage of carbon there is low, it’s still an enormous amount because the outer core is…
Researchers map the geothermal heat flow in West Antarctica; a new potential weak spot in the ice sheet’s stability is identified. Ice losses from Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica are currently responsible for roughly four percent of the global sea-level rise. This figure could increase, since virtually no another ice stream in the Antarctic is changing as dramatically as the massive Thwaites Glacier. Until recently, experts attributed these changes to climate change and the fact that the glacier rests on…
Significant earthquakes, from gentle shaking to devastating tremors, are hazards caused by a sudden release of stress that has built up in geological faults. More subtle events called slow slips are attracting increasing attention as nonshaky versions of the dramatic seismic fractures of the largest earthquakes. A database of information on previous slow slips to develop a model of the mechanisms of these geological events has now been compiled by KAUST and University of Geneva researchers, in collaboration with colleagues…
In a study led by the University of Bonn, geologists compared the spatial and temporal distribution of methane concentrations in the air of northern Siberia with geological maps. The result: the methane concentrations in the air after last year’s heat wave indicate that increased gas emissions came from limestone formations. Which effects did the heat wave of summer 2020 have in Siberia? In a study led by the University of Bonn, geologists compared the spatial and temporal distribution of methane…
The rise and fall of sea levels influence the likelihood of volcanic eruptions on the Greek island of Santorini, new research led by Oxford Brookes University has discovered. Analysing the timings of eruptions over hundreds of thousands of years, the researchers found that a 40 metre fall in sea level is a crucial point beyond which eruptions are more likely to occur. The findings could have implications for millions of people living on volcanic islands around the world. Santorini –…
Surrounding land reacts to fluctuations in the water level. The Dead Sea is shrinking. There are many reasons for this: climate change is a contributing factor, as is human overuse of water as a resource. The sinking water level has a number of dangerous consequences. For example, fresh groundwater flowing downstream causes salts to dissolve in the soil, resulting in sinkholes. But it also leads to large-scale subsidence of the surrounding land surface. Researchers from an interdisciplinary team of several…
Seismic waves passing through the ground near Longyearbyen in the Adventdalen valley, Svalbard, Norway have been slowing down steadily over the past three years, most likely due to permafrost warming in the Arctic valley. The trend, reported in a new study published in Seismological Research Letters, demonstrates how seismic monitoring can be used to track permafrost stability under global climate change. The study is part of a focus section in an upcoming issue of the journal on Arctic and Antarctic…
Supervolcano fed from Earth’s mantle caused crustal plates to rotate. The plates of the Earth’s crust perform complicated movements that can be attributed to quite simple mechanisms. That is the short version of the explanation of a rift that began to tear the world apart over a length of several thousand kilometers 105 million years ago. The scientific explanation appears today in the journal Nature Geoscience. According to the paper, a super volcano split the Earth’s crust over a length…
Conditions in the tropical ocean affect weather patterns worldwide. The most well-known examples are El Niño or La Niña events, but scientists believe other key elements of the tropical climate remain undiscovered. In a study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists from the University of Washington and NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory use remotely-piloted sailboats to gather data on cold air pools, or pockets of cooler air that form below tropical storm clouds. “Atmospheric cold pools are cold air…
From above, the Antarctic Ice Sheet might look like a calm, perpetual ice blanket that has covered Antarctica for millions of years. But the ice sheet can be thousands of meters deep at its thickest, and it hides hundreds of meltwater lakes where its base meets the continent’s bedrock. Deep below the surface, some of these lakes fill and drain continuously through a system of waterways that eventually drain into the ocean. Now, with the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument…
First global assessment of the extent of snow and ice cover on Earth’s surface–a critical factor cooling the planet through reflected sunlight–and its response to warming temperatures. The global cryosphere–all of the areas with frozen water on Earth–shrank by about 87,000 square kilometers (about 33,000 square miles), a area about the size of Lake Superior, per year on average, between 1979 and 2016 as a result of climate change, according to a new study. This research is the first to…
TROPOS lidar on Cabo Verde in operation for the ESA wind satellite Aeolus. To support the ESA wind satellite Aeolus, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) has now installed a lidar in Mindelo, the second largest city in Cabo Verde. The light radar uses laser light to study the atmosphere in the tropical Atlantic and is part of a large international measurement campaign: The “Aeolus Tropical Atlantic Campaign” will take place in summer and autumn 2021 and, in addition…
Subsurface carbon sequestration–storing carbon in rocks deep underground–offers a partial solution for removing carbon from the atmosphere. Used alongside emissions reductions, geologic carbon sequestration could help mitigate anthropogenic climate change. But like other underground operations, it comes with risks–including earthquakes. New study published in Geology Geophysicists are still working to understand what can trigger human-induced earthquakes, which have been documented since the 1960s. A new study, published in Geology on Thursday, explores why part of a heavily produced oilfield in…
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