Issue 43 of RTD info delves into the latest advances in European seismology as scientists grapple to crack the hidden secrets of earthquakes in their bid to minimise the devastating impact of this deadly phenomenon.
“The furies of the Earth can be awesome,” begins a special 11-page report on earthquakes in the latest issue of RTD info. “What can science do in the face of such cataclysms unleashed from the very depths of the Earth? The first step is to know and understand the phenomen
A new study has revealed a mechanism that counters established thinking on how the rate at which tectonic plates separate along mid-ocean ridges controls processes such as heat transfer in geologic materials, energy circulation and even biological production.
The study also pioneered a new seismic technique – simultaneously shooting an array of 20 airguns to generate sound — for studying the Earth’s mantle, the layer beneath the 10- to 40-kilometer-deep crust on the seaflo
New research may improve long-term forecasting skills
The authors, left to right: Andrew Charlton, postdoctoral student; Matthew Wittman, graduate student and principal author; and Lorenzo Polvani, Professor of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics & Earth and Environmental Sciences and Director of the IGERT Joint Program in Applied Mathematics and Earth and Environmental Sciences.
by Jennifer Freeman
Three members of Columbia’s Department of Applied Physics and Appli
Scientists have found the first direct evidence linking large-scale coastal farming to massive blooms of marine algae that are potentially harmful to ocean life and fisheries.
Researchers from Stanford University’s School of Earth Sciences made the discovery by analyzing satellite images of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California-a narrow, 700-mile-long stretch of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Mexican mainland from the Baja California Peninsu
They contributed to ice-age deep freeze
Labrador Sea ocean tides dislodged huge Arctic icebergs thousands of years ago, carrying gigantic ice-rafted debris across the ocean and contributing to the ice age’s deep freeze, say an international team of university researchers.
The study, published in the November issue of Nature, is the first to suggest that ocean tides contributed to enigmatic Heinrich events, a phenomenon where colossal discharges of icebergs periodicall
The length of time necessary to recover from a mass extinction may seem like a problem from the past, but a team of Penn State researchers is investigating recovery from the second largest extinction in Earth’s history at the end of the Ordovician 443 million years ago and sees some parallels to today’s Earth.
“We are currently in an undeniable biotic crisis,” says Andrew Z. Krug, graduate student in geosciences. “We are not just interested in what will disappear, but
No matter whether they’re big, little, long, short, skinny or fat — classic stalactites have the same singular shape. Almost everyone knows that stalactites, formations that hang from the roof of caves, are generally long, slender and pointy. But the uniqueness of their form had gone unrecognized. “There’s only one shape that all stalactites tend to be. The difference is one of magnification — it’s either big or it’s small, but it’s still the same shape,”
There is undeniable proof that water once existed on the planet Mars, a team of researchers has concluded in a series of 11 articles this week in a special issue of the journal Science.
A team of more than 100 scientists from numerous government agencies and universities, among them Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University’s College of Geosciences, co-wrote the articles. Lemmon was the principal author on one article and co-author on three others describing the work of Spiri
It is hard to overstate the scale of the humanitarian emergency unfolding in Sudan’s strife-torn Darfur region: by current estimates there are 1.45 million people displaced from their homes across an area the size of France. However, images from space are assisting aid workers as they cope with the crisis.
An ESA-supported consortium called Respond is supplying Earth Observation-derived maps and other geographical information products direct to users in the field including
University of Leeds and Cambridge research into climate change, published today (December 2nd) in Science Express, reveals that there is no regular pattern in the duration of warm phases (interglacials) on land over the last 350,000 years. This raises doubts over our ability to predict when the onset of the next ice age might occur.
For over 30 years it’s been thought that interglacials lasted about 10,000 years. On this basis, our current interglacial, already 11,500 years old, would appe
The world’s fastest glacier, Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbrae, doubled its speed between 1997 and 2003. The rapid movement of ice from land into the sea provides key evidence of newly discovered relationships between ice sheets, sea level rise and climate warming.
The findings were reported in the journal Nature on December 2, 2004. Co-authoring the study was University of New Hampshire glaciologist Mark Fahnestock of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (
A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon is revealing a grisly sacrificial burial from a period when the ancient metropolis was at its peak, with artwork unlike any seen before in Mesoamerica.
Though archaeologists hope that discoveries at the pyramid will answer lingering questions about the distinctive culture that built the great city, the new find deepens the mystery, with clear cultural connections to other burial
International network reaches 1,500th float deployment-halfway to full array
Note: This news release is issued in conjunction with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO-5) and the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO-6) international meetings held the week of Nov. 29, 2004.
Scientists have crossed an important threshold in an international effort to deploy a global network of robotic instruments to monitor and investigate important changes in the world’s oc
Scientists studied the winds and rains in the eastern Indian Ocean for hints at developing El Ninos. They used that information to create an “Index” or gauge that accurately predicted the El Nino of 2002-2003.
El Nino is signaled by a warming of the ocean surface off the western coast of South America that occurs every 4 to 12 years when cold, nutrient-rich water does not come up from the ocean bottom. It causes die-offs of plankton and fish and affects Pacific jet stream winds,
The December issue of GEOLOGY covers a wide variety of potentially newsworthy subjects. Topics include: impact of shifts in the North Atlantic current on European climate; new method for estimating elevations of Earth’s ancient land surfaces; evidence of terrestrial causes of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction; evidence of a major Precambrian asteroid impact in northwestern Australia; the relationship of intensified hydrologic cycles and global heat transfer during greenhouse phases of E
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, ninety percent of marine species disappeared and life on land suffered greatly during the world’s largest mass extinction. The cause of this great dying has baffled scientists for decades, and recent speculations invoke asteroid impacts as a kill mechanism. Yet a new study published in the December issue of Geology provides strong indications that the extinction cause did not come from the heavens but from Earth itself.
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