Heidelberg geographers draw up full inventory of barely researched aufeis (icing) fields. Seasonally occurring fields of aufeis (icing) constitute an important resource for the water supply of the local population in the Upper Indus Basin. However, little research has been done on them so far. Geographers at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University have now examined the spreading of aufeis and, for the first time, created a full inventory of these aufeis fields. The more than 3,700 accumulations of…
Hidden structures reveal 13 million years of seafloor spreading. It is 2,250 kilometers long, but only 355 kilometers wide at its widest point – on a world map, the Red Sea hardly resembles an ocean. But this is deceptive. A new, albeit still narrow, ocean basin is actually forming between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Exactly how young it is and whether it can really be compared with other young oceans in Earth’s history has been a matter of dispute…
At the Seismological Society of America’s 2021 Annual Meeting, researchers shared how they are using fiber optic cable to detect the small earthquakes that occur in ice in Antarctica. The results could be used to better understand the movement and deformation of the ice under changing climate conditions, as well as improve future monitoring of carbon capture and storage projects, said Anna Stork, a geophysicist at Silixa Ltd. Stork discussed how she and her colleagues are refining their methods of…
Artificial Intelligence tools enable researchers to ‘shake hands’ with ancient scribes. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered some seventy years ago, are famous for containing the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and many hitherto unknown ancient Jewish texts. But the individual people behind the scrolls have eluded scientists, because the scribes are anonymous. Now, by combining the sciences and the humanities, University of Groningen researchers have cracked the code, which enables them to discover the scribes behind the…
Geology experts of TU Freiberg analyze the quality of Swedish ores. Research work on the Per Geijer iron ore deposits of Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara Aktiebolag (LKAB) near Kiruna is ongoing at TU Freiberg until August 2021. The results already show a very promising raw material potential for the associated supply of the iron and steel industry. Iron ore is the basis for the production of iron and steel – the world’s most important materials for the construction of buildings, machines, tools, cars,…
Rhode Island considers naming the local coral as a state emblem. As the Rhode Island legislature considers designating the Northern Star Coral an official state emblem, researchers are finding that studying this local creature’s recovery from a laboratory-induced stressor could help better understand how to protect endangered tropical corals. A new study published today in mSystems, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology, investigates antibiotic-induced disturbance of the coral (Astrangia poculata) and shows that antibiotic exposure significantly altered the…
Research could help scientists better estimate Earth’s carbon budget. A team led by University of Minnesota researchers has discovered that deep-sea bacteria dissolve carbon-containing rocks, releasing excess carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. The findings will allow scientists to better estimate the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, a main driver of global warming. The study is published in The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal that is part of the Nature family of…
Expedition investigates matter fluxes and food webs in the world’s largest river plume. As the world’s largest river, the Amazon contributes about one-fifth of the global freshwater input to the ocean, and its river plume, which extends thousands of kilometres into the tropical North Atlantic, influences diverse ecosystems there. To better understand the fate of this gigantic river plume from its mouth to open ocean expanses and its influence on plankton food webs, the research vessel METEOR is embarking on…
For the first time, researchers have been able to obtain data from underneath Thwaites Glacier, also known as the “Doomsday Glacier”. They find that the supply of warm water to the glacier is larger than previously thought, triggering concerns of faster melting and accelerating ice flow. With the help of the uncrewed submarine Ran that made its way under Thwaites glacier front, the researchers have made a number of new discoveries. Professor Karen Heywood of the University of East Anglia…
The year-to-year change in the amount of carbon taken up by Earth’s land ecosystems is primarily driven by variations in soil moisture which is affecting air humidity. This has been found by an international team of scientists including Markus Reichstein and Martin Jung from Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. Surprisingly, variations in soil moisture affect land carbon uptake mostly indirectly, through mechanisms coupling land ecosystems and atmospheric properties. Earth’s land ecosystems absorb a large portion of carbon…
A new type of rock created during large and exceptionally hot volcanic eruptions has been discovered beneath the Pacific Ocean. An international team of researchers including the University of Leeds unearthed the previously unknown form of basalt after drilling through the Pacific ocean floor. The discovery suggests that ocean floor eruptions sourced in the Earth’s mantle were even hotter and more voluminous than previously thought. Report co-author is Dr Ivan Savov, of Leeds’ Institute of Geophysics and Tectonics, in the…
The surface of the moon is well mapped, but the same is not true for its subsurface. In preparation for future lunar missions, the European Space Agency (ESA) was looking for innovative ideas on how caves and lava tubes on the moon could be discovered, studied and measured. Scientists and students from Jacobs University Bremen are involved in one of the two concepts that have been accepted. Millions of craters cover the lunar surface. But photos also show steep faced…
New method illuminates shape of Alaskan quake A University of Tsukuba research team find that the irregular behavior of the conjugate fault system responsible for the 2018 Gulf of Alaska earthquake was linked to pre-existing features of the ocean floor. An earthquake is generally viewed to be caused by a rupture along a fault that is transmitted outward from its point of origin in a uniform, predictable pattern. Of course, given the complexity of the environments where these ruptures typically…
Researchers analyse data from the last millennium In the future, droughts could be even more severe than those that struck parts of Germany in 2018. An analysis of climate data from the last millennium shows that several factors have to coincide to produce a megadrought: not only rising temperatures, but also the amount of solar radiation, as well as certain meteorological and ocean-circulation conditions in the North Atlantic, like those expected to arise in the future. A group of researchers…
The study results are based on investigations of repeated mass movements and are expected to benefit planning, maintenance, and development of transportation infrastructure in affected areas. Mass movements such as landslides and hill-slope debris flows cause billions of euros in economic damage around the world every year. Between 20 and 80 million euros are spent annually from the disaster fund to repair disaster damage in Austria, 15 to 50 percent of which is attributable to mud flows and landslides. Now,…
Nature study finds transform faults play active role in shaping ocean floors. Forces acting inside the Earth have been constantly reshaping the continents and ocean basins over millions of years. What Alfred Wegener published as an idea in 1915 has finally been accepted since the 1960s, providing a unifying view about our planet. The fact that the theory of plate tectonics took so long to gain acceptance had two simple reasons. First, the geological formations that are most important for…
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