But scientists say human effects can be a positive, not negative, factor for life on earth
Human beings now directly influence more than three quarters of the earth’s landmass, according to a state-of-the-art map of the world produced by a team of scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). Published in the latest issue of the scientific journal BioScienc
During the second century B.C., a mummy-maker took a scroll of poetry and used it as stuffing for a corpse. The roll of papyrus remained hidden inside the mummy’s chest cavity until its rediscovery in the early 1990s. Today, what was once treated like trash survives as the oldest surviving example of a Greek poetry book, as well as an important source of information about the past.
To glean as many clues from this ancient scroll as possible, the University of Cincinnati Department of Class
Advances in detection devices and methods of analysis have allowed seismologists to identify virtually all events that might be nuclear explosions of possible military significance under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), according to Prof. Lynn R. Sykes of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Writing in the 29 October issue of Eos, published by the American Geophysical Union, Sykes analyzes 72 questionable events since 1960.
Verification was a major issue in
A new giant was born recently in the coastal waters of Antarctica. A series of images captured from May through the beginning of this month by ESA`s Envisat satellite shows the subsequent duel between the new iceberg and another as it breaks free of the Ross Ice Shelf and tries to move north.
Christened C-19 by the US National Ice Centre in Maryland, the new iceberg measured 200 x 32 km, and about 200 m thick.
As seen in the accompanying animation of images acquired by Envi
In the high Canadian Arctic, researchers at the University of Rochester have stripped away some of the mystery surrounding the powerhouse that drives the Earth’s magnetic field. The research strongly suggests that several of the characteristics of the field that were long thought to operate independently of one another, such as the field’s polarity and strength, may be linked. If so, then the strength of the field, which has been waning for several thousand years, may herald a pole reversal
A U of T study suggests why giant gold and copper deposits are found at some volcanoes but not others, a finding that could point prospectors to large deposits of this and other valuable metals.
“There’s one characteristic that is common to all of these big gold and copper deposits anywhere in the world,” says Professor James Mungall of the Department of Geology. The ocean’s crust that is pushed down under a volcano can start to melt, which it doesn’t normally do. His study, which appea
The swirl of malleable rock in the earth’s mantle – located between the earth’s crust and core – may have greater effect on the earth’s surface than was once believed, a Purdue research team reports.
Using computer technology to create three-dimensional models of the earth’s mantle, Purdue’s Scott King has found evidence that some dramatic features of the earth’s surface could be the result of relatively rapid shifts in the direction in which crustal plat
Mauna Loa – Hawaii’s biggest and potentially most destructive volcano – is showing signs of life again nearly two decades after its last eruption.
Recent geophysical data collected on the surface of the 13,500-foot volcano revealed that Mauna Loa’s summit caldera has begun to swell and stretch at a rate of 2 to 2.5 inches a year, according to scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Stanford University. Surface inflation can be a precursor of a volcanic eruption
Balloon Experiments Reveal New Information About Sprites
An atmospheric phenomenon called “sprites” could be pumping 50 times more energy into the upper atmosphere than was previously thought, suggesting our understanding of the global atmosphere is incomplete, according to University of Houston space physicists.
Sprites are large, brief flashes of light that occur very high in the atmosphere above large thunderstorms. Instead of discharging toward the earth like lightning,
Air-sea interaction tower built off Martha’s vineyard
In the deep waters two miles south of Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard, not far from where, two centuries ago, the likes of Captain Ahab and a thousand others kept their watch for the great white and his kin, we are now searching to understand another potential beast in those parts: the ocean and the weather.
But this is no allegory. Hoping to avoid any recurrence in these sometimes turbulent waters of the horrendo
Nothing seems more down-to-Earth than dirt, but scientists are going to space to understand how earthquakes and related strains and stresses disturb soil and sand.
When Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off in January, it will carry the Mechanics of Granular Materials (MGM) experiment, which studies soil behavior under conditions that cannot be duplicated on Earth — the microgravity, or low-gravity created as the Shuttle orbits Earth.
Results from this granular mechanics research can le
By examining volcanic rocks retrieved from deep in the ocean, scientists have found they can estimate the carbon dioxide stored beneath much of the earth’s surface – a development that could enhance understanding of how volcanoes affect climate. The research by University of Florida scientists and others will be reported this week in the journal Nature.
Scientists examined chunks of basalt, a type of volcanic rock formed when lava cools, from 12,000 feet below the Pacific along a massiv
As anyone with a smattering of geological knowledge knows, Earth’s crust is made up of plates that creep over the planet’s surface at a rate of several inches per year. But why do they move the way they do? Even experts have had trouble teasing out the exact mechanisms.
A model developed by University of Michigan researchers and published in the Oct. 4 issue of Science provides a relatively simple explanation.
“It’s been known that slabs (portions of plates that ext
Scientists from NASA and the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have confirmed the ozone hole over the Antarctic this September is not only much smaller than it was in 2000 and 2001, but has split into two separate “holes.”
The researchers stressed the smaller hole is due to this year’s peculiar stratospheric weather patterns and that a single year’s unusual pattern does not make a long-term trend. Moreover, they said, the data are not conclusive t
Study suggests macroscopic bilaterian animals did not appear until 555 million years ago
The traces left behind by ancient animals may hold the key to determining when macroscopic bilaterians — animals that are symmetric about a central axis, with a body divided into equivalent right and left halves, and with an anterior-posterior polarity (e.g., this includes worms, ants, and ranging up to humans) — first appeared. A team led by Dr. Mary Droser, professor of geology at the Univers
If you think that summers are getting hotter, you could be right — depending on where you live. Summers are heating up if you live in or near any major U.S. city. But in rural areas, temperatures have remained relatively constant.
“What surprised me was the difference in the extreme temperature trends between rural and urban areas,” says Arthur T. DeGaetano, Cornell associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, who reviewed temperature trends from climate-reporting stations across
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