Researchers have discovered a mineral gel created when rocks abrade each other under earthquake-like conditions. If present in faults during a quake, the gel may reduce friction to nearly zero in some situations, resulting in larger energy releases that could cause more damage.
Terry Tullis and David Goldsby of Brown University in Providence, R.I., and Giulio Di Toro of the University of Padova in Italy announce their findings in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal Nature.
The research
Freighters, cruise lines, marine rescuers and coastal managers are among those who could benefit from prototype three-dimensional, three-day ocean condition forecasts created with the assistance of NASA satellite data, computer models and on-site ocean measurements.
Scientists hope to forecast ocean conditions several days ahead, much like regional weather forecasts broadcast on television news. “It’s a three-dimensional look at the ocean, from the surface to the ocean bottom,” said Yi
Ruby is mineralogically the chromiferous variety of corundum gemstone, in other words an aluminium oxide in which some of the aluminium ions have been substituted by chromium. Chromium contributes, along with vanadium, another metal constituent of ruby, to the crystal’s red colour. The most prized ruby deposits are those of Central and South-East Asia, like in the celebrated Mogok deposit in Myanmar (ex-Burma), from which the highest gem-quality rubies are extracted, reputed for their intense “pigeo
In the 19th century a fossil was uncovered in Belgium that was believed to be the jaw of a fish. Now a team of scientists have shown that it is in fact a fossil from an ancestor of all present-day land animals. It is the first discovery of a so-called tetrapod from the Devonian Period in continental Europe, which may trigger an interest in re-examining objects in museums.
In collaboration with researchers from France, England, and Belgium, Per Ahlberg, professor of evolutionary organism bio
The cooler and drier conditions in Southern California over the last few years appear to be a direct result of a long-term ocean pattern known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), according to research presented at the 2004 meeting of the American Meteorological Society.
The study, by Steve LaDochy, associate professor of geography at California State University-Los Angeles; Bill Patzert, research oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.; and others, su
The rapidly changing face of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is portrayed by contrasting Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images taken less than four years apart, most notably as a whole new artificial island is seen to rise from the seabed.
An initial radar image of Dubai was taken by ERS-2’s SAR instrument in May 1999. The coastal city has since been re-imaged by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument aboard Envisat, ESA’s latest Earth Observation satellite. Unlike optica
In September of the past year, Russian scientists made sensational findings on the famous mammoth’ burial site Lugovskoe in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area. Particularly, about 300 human-shaped stone objects and a mammoth’s vertebra pierced by a spear or javelin head were found. The pierced vertebra is the first indisputable proof that men hunted mammoths. A site of human settlement that functioned about 14 000 years ago is discovered by the researchers. This is the northernmost settlement
A statistical model from Ohio State University is forecasting sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean in a new way.
The model gives scientists a way to quantify the uncertainty that surrounds the climatic phenomenon known as El Niño, which triggers severe weather changes in North and South America and Australia and endangers crops and wildlife, said Noel Cressie, professor of statistics and director of the university’s Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Sci
Approximately 75,000 years ago, a massive explosive eruption from a volcano in western Indonesia (Toba caldera) coincided with the onset of the Earth’s last Ice Age.
In the current issue of Geology, University of Rhode Island geological oceanographers Meng-Yang Lee and Steven Carey; Chang-Hwa Chen and Yoshiyuki Iizuka of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan; and Kuo-Yen Wei of National Taiwan University describe their investigation into the possibility that eruptions from the Toba caldera on
Scientists have discovered why icy clouds found at the edge of space are higher at the South Pole than at the North. The answer to this puzzle is that the intensity of solar radiation at the South Pole is six percent higher than at the North Pole during the austral summer, as the Earth comes closer to the sun. New research from British Antarctic Survey and University of Illinois is reported in this month’s Geophysical Research Letters (published online 29 January 2004). This research helps under
Two scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that iron in Earth-core conditions melts at a pressure of 225 GPa (or 32 million pounds per square inch) or about 5,100 kelvins (8,720 degrees Fahrenheit).
Determining the melting point of iron is essential to determine the temperatures at core boundaries and the crystal structure of the Earth’s solid inner core. To date, the properties of iron at high pressure have been investigated experimentally through laser-h
Eleven Earth and space scientists say that a recent paper attributing most climate change on Earth to cosmic rays is incorrect and based on questionable methodology. Writing in the January 27 issue of Eos, published by the American Geophysical Union, Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and colleagues in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States challenge the cosmic ray hypothesis. In July 2003, astrophysicist Nir Shaviv and geologist Jan Ve
At the end of the Cretaceous, when large-sized theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, roamed terrestrial environments, shallow seas and oceans were invaded by giant marine monitors – the mosasaurs. A recent investigation, presented in a new dissertation at Lund University in Sweden, has revealed that the Swedish mosasaur fauna is one of the most diverse assemblages known. Moreover, available data indicate that a major faunal turnover occurred about 80 million years ago.
The family Mosasaur
Massive Siberian peat bogs, widely known as the permanently frozen home of untold kilometers of moss and uncountable hordes of mosquitoes, also are huge repositories for gases that are thought to play an important role in the Earth’s climate balance, according to newly published research by a team of U.S. and Russian scientists in the Jan. 16 edition of the journal Science.
Those gases, carbon dioxide and methane, are known to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but the enormous
The anticipated Mars landing on Jan. 24 of the Opportunity rover will be a bit more challenging than the Spirit’s bounce onto the red planet earlier this month, according to a University at Buffalo geologist, but if it’s successful, then scientists will be able to be much bolder about selecting future Mars landing sites.
“If both of these landers survive with airbag technology, then it blows the doors wide open for future Mars landing sites with far more interesting terrain,” said
A hot debate in the Earth Sciences is finally resolved in this week’s issue of Nature. Researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences at Bristol University show that large volcanoes do not contain material from the Earth’s core. This overturns previous theories that conflicted with models of how the Earth’s magnetic field is sustained.
The magnetic field results from the movement of liquid iron in the core and affects everything from bird migration to the navigation of aircraft, so it is
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