Virginia Tech Geoscientists Patricia Dove and Nizhou Han have demonstrated that crystals dissolve and grow by the same set of analogous ’reversed’ mechanisms. Previously, the scientific community had long-maintained that growth and dissolution could not be unified into a single framework of understanding. The new evidence is certain to overturn that perception.
Dove, Han, and James J. De Yoreo of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory report their research in the Oct.
New high-resolution images of mid-latitude Mars are revealing glacier-formed landscapes far from the Martian poles, says a leading Mars researcher.
Conspicuous trains of debris in valleys, arcs of debris on steep slopes and other features far from the polar ice caps bear striking similarities to glacial landscapes of Earth, says Brown University’s James Head III. When combined with the latest climate models and orbital calculation for Mars, the geological features make a comp
Something remarkable happened on the island closest to the epicenter of the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake last December: Only seven of the island’s 78,000 inhabitants died. This is despite the fact tsunamis hit the island only eight minutes after the quake, despite the destruction of many Simuelue villages, and despite the lack of an official tsunami warning system and little in the way of telecommunications.
Why were the lives of Simuelue islanders spared when all around the I
Here’s one way to win a debate: Start an argument with folks who aren’t particularly talented debaters. Then keep them on the defensive with complicated, highly philosophical spurious attacks and baffling red herring arguments. Finally, before they have finished responding, pull the rug out from under them with a well-planned political end-run that trumps the whole debate.
That basically sums up the strategy being employed by the Intelligent Design (ID) movement as it con
A long time ago, people inhabiting settlements at the boarder of Dykoye Pole (Wild Field) used to bury empty jugs into the ground: if they started buzzing this meant that a cavalry detachment was galloping across the steppe and it was time to escape to the outpost from the foray. Specialists of the Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, suggest a similar way for tracking oncoming natural disasters like earthquakes or catastrophic landslides.
“The main task of the
The San Francisco Bay region has a 25 percent chance of a magnitude 7 or greater earthquake in the next 20 years, and a roughly 1 percent chance of such an earthquake each year, according to the “Virtual California” computer simulation.
The Virtual California approach to earthquake forecasting is similar to the computer models used for weather forecasting, said John Rundle, director of the UC Davis Computational Science and Engineering Center, who has developed the model with
’Popping rocks’ found in deep sea give researchers clues about rare gases from ’young’ seafloor volcano
Scientists aboard the Scripps research vessel Roger Revelle this week solved a 45-year-old geological mystery.
In 1960, Scripps oceanographer Dale Krause reported the discovery of extraordinary deep-sea volcanic rocks in waters off Mexico, near Guadalupe Island, approximately 200 miles south of San Diego. When brought to the surface, the rocks spontaneously explo
EarthScope, an enormous, nationwide earth science project, is poised to revolutionize understanding of earthquakes, fault systems, volcanoes and the North American continent’s structure.
But geologists can mine even more information from the project and engage nonscientists of all ages if they take a radically different approach to deciding where to focus attention and funding, said Ben van der Pluijm, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Michigan.
Mass kills of fish, insects and plants could have saved Earth from greenhouse sterilization
Prehistoric global warming episodes from massive atmospheric pollution involving carbon dioxide and methane could have created and preserved “mass kills” of wildlife, according to a University of Oregon study presented at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting.
The work, done by Gregory Retallack, professor of geologic sciences at Oregon, involved a worldwide compi
By storing carbon in their fields through no-till farming practice, farmers can help countries meet targeted reductions in atmospheric carbon dioxide and reduce the harmful effects of global warming.
Growing plants take carbon dioxide from the air and store it as carbon in their tissues. Most of this carbon is returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide when crops are harvested and consumed. Some carbon, however, can be permanently stored, or sequestered, in the soil as organi
The goal: Control toxin mobility
If you have pathogenic bacteria in the groundwater, flowing through the soil, are those bacteria going to attach to a mineral surface or are they going to reach your well?
Virginia Tech researchers are looking at the mobility of bacteria and of heavy metals in surface and ground water. Geosciences professor Michael Hochella Jr. will present recent findings at the Geological Sciences of America national meeting in Salt Lake City Oct. 16-19
What happened to the chicken when she crossed the road is less important that what happens to what she eats when it is used as fertilizer.
Organic arsenic is fed to poultry to prevent bacterial infections and improve weight gain. A little bit of arsenic is taken up by the tissue and the majority of it is excreted in urine. Poultry litter — the wood chips, feathers, droppings, and urine from under poultry houses — is rich in nitrogen and phosphorous, so is a logical fertilizer. But
Virginia Tech biology researchers have applied tools from geology, geography, and hydrologic modeling to determine the effect of different land uses on stream quality across 10 watersheds of the French Broad River in the North Carolina mountains. The result is a new protocol for determining the health or condition of huge land-water systems. The research has also resulted in a set of tools for predicting the effect of development decisions in the watersheds studied, which are near Ashville, N.C
Fluid inclusions – tiny bubbles of fluid or vapor trapped inside rock as it forms – are clues to the location of ores and even petroleum; and they are time capsules that contain insights on the power of volcanoes and hints of life in the universe.
But the realization of the scientific value of fluid inclusions is relatively recent. At the Centennial Celebration Symposia for the Society of Economic Geologists, Virginia Tech Distinguished Professor of Geosciences Robert Bodnar wil
Hurricane Charley came ashore on the southwest coast of Florida as a Category 4 hurricane on Friday, Aug. 13, 2004, and changed the look of North Captiva Island.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are studying the effects of Charley as part of a cooperative research project investigating coastal change.
The USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program investigates the extent and causes of coastal impacts of hurricanes and extreme
Expedition to help protect Florida’s unique oculina deepwater reefs
On Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2005, scientists will begin a six-day expedition to explore one of Florida’s most vital but least familiar marine resources–the spectacular deepwater coral reefs of the Oculina Bank–some 30 years after their discovery. Among the team’s goals is the start of a sustained and critically needed monitoring program to complement , and evaluate the effectiveness of, stricter regul
Feedback
