Most of the mangrove forests on the coasts of Oman disappeared about 6,000 years ago. Until now, the reason for this was not entirely clear. A current study of the University of Bonn now sheds light on this: It indicates that the collapse of coastal ecosystems was caused by climatic changes. In contrast, falling sea level or overuse by humans are not likely to be the reasons. The speed of the mangrove extinction was dramatic: Many of the stocks were…
New Columbia Engineering study–first to investigate the long-term effect of soil moisture-atmosphere feedbacks in drylands–finds that soil moisture exerts a negative feedback on surface water availability in drylands, offsetting some of the expected decline. Scientists have thought that global warming will increase the availability of surface water–freshwater resources generated by precipitation minus evapotranspiration–in wet regions, and decrease water availability in dry regions. This expectation is based primarily on atmospheric thermodynamic processes. As air temperatures rise, more water evaporates into the…
Writing in PNAS, scientists from Cologne university present important new constraints showing that plate tectonics started relatively slow, although the early Earth’s interior was much hotter than today. In an international collaboration earth scientists at the University of Cologne discovered that during Earth’s early history mantle convection on, i.e. the internal mixing of our planet, was surprisingly slow and spatially restricted. This finding is unexpected because our planet was much hotter during the first hundreds of million years after its…
New study published in Geology It took fifteen years of imaging and nearly three years of stitching the pieces together to create the largest image ever made, the 8-trillion-pixel mosaic of Mars’ surface. Now, the first study to utilize the image in its entirety provides unprecedented insight into the ancient river systems that once covered the expansive plains in the planet’s southern hemisphere. These three billion-year-old sedimentary rocks, like those in Earth’s geologic record, could prove valuable targets for future…
Researchers investigate teeth of a small carnivorous mammal that are almost 150 million years old. Paleontologists at the University of Bonn (Germany) have succeeded in reconstructing the chewing motion of an early mammal that lived almost 150 million years ago. This showed that its teeth worked extremely precisely and surprisingly efficiently. Yet it is possible that this very aspect turned out to be a disadvantage in the course of evolution. The study is published in the journal “Scientific Reports“. At…
Seismometers listen to the resonance vibration of the Hochvogel, Allgäu The entire summit of the 2592 metres high Hochvogel is sliced by a five metres wide and thirty metres long fracture. It continues to open up by up to half a centimetre per month. Throughout the years, the southern side of the mountain has already subsided by several meters; and at some point it will fail, releasing up to 260,000 cubic meters of limestone debris down into the Hornbach Valley…
Novel approach for the exploration of Rare Earth Elements Rare Earth Elements (REE) are essential resources to ensure the energy transition, e-mobility and future technologies. The use of lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) provides a unique opportunity to conduct rapid and non-invasive exploration for REE even in ecologically sensitive areas and in relatively inaccessible locations. For the first time scientists from the Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology (HIF) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have directly identified and mapped REEs…
Compounds discovered on the shores of the Dead Sea. Phosphorus is an element essential for life. It is fundamental to all living organisms, and is a key component of RNA, DNA, and cell membranes. Phosphorus compounds must have been involved in the emergence of primordial life. Importantly though, these compounds were water soluble and reactive so that they could participate in various chemical processes. Only in this case could phosphorus be involved in phosphorylation, which enables the synthesis of complex…
Overwintering team sails with Polarstern to the Antarctic Neumayer Station III This year, the Alfred Wegener Institute’s Neumayer Station III has been exclusively supplied by sea. The research vessel Polarstern has transported – as usual – materials and fuel to the Antarctic. However, due to the coronavirus, this season all the staff who will work at the station will also travel to the Southern Continent by ship. Instead of flying from South Africa, this year’s Antarctic expedition participants will set…
Researchers from the Universities of Tübingen and Bristol show that iron minerals fail to trap the organic carbon; vast source of CO2 and methane not included in global warming forecasts. Around a quarter of the ground in the northern hemisphere is permanently frozen. These areas are estimated to contain about twice as much carbon as the world’s current atmosphere. However, these permafrost soils are increasingly thawing out as the Earth becomes warmer. A University of Tübingen research team led by…
Large amounts of new particles can form in the valleys of the Himalayas from naturally emitted gases and can be transported to high altitudes by the mountain winds and injected into the upper atmosphere. The emitted particles may eventually affect climate by acting as nuclei for cloud condensation. These new findings about particles formation and sources will contribute to a better understanding of past and future climate. “To understand how the climate has changed over the last century we need…
New clues lead to a better understanding of the evolution of the solar system and the origin of Earth as a habitable planet. In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, researchers at the University of Rochester were able to use magnetism to determine, for the first time, when carbonaceous chondrite asteroids–asteroids that are rich in water and amino acids–first arrived in the inner solar system. The research provides data that helps inform scientists about…
Publication in Science: International team researches the limits of life At what depth beneath the seabed does it become so hot that microbial life is no longer possible? This question is the focus of a close scientific cooperative effort between the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) and MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen. An expedition by the drilling program IODP (International Ocean Discovery Program) in 2016 has provided new insights into…
The frozen permafrost in the Arctic is thawing on an alarming scale. The frozen permafrost in the Arctic is thawing on an alarming scale. By analysing an annual record of satellite images, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute have now confirmed these findings: thermokarst lakes in Alaska are draining one by one because warmer and wetter conditions cause deeper thaw, effectively weakening frozen ground as a barrier around lakes. In the season 2017/2018, lake drainage was observed on a scale…
Scientists from Heidelberg University investigate which factors determine the stability of ice masses in East Antarctica. As temperatures rise due to climate change, the melting of polar ice sheets is accelerating. An international team of researchers led by geoscientist Dr Kim Jakob from Heidelberg University has now examined the dynamics of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet more closely. This is by far the largest ice mass on Earth and is assumed to be less sensitive to climate change than other…
Due to its antibacterial properties, nanosilver is used in a wide range of products from textiles to cosmetics; but nanosilver if present at high concentrations also disrupts the metabolism of algae that are essential for the aquatic food web dynamics. Products derived from nanotechnology are efficient and highly sought-after, yet their effects on the environment are still poorly understood. A research team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), working in collaboration with the University of California at Santa Barbara, have…
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