Fooling with Mother Nature by fragmenting long-established land parcels can have unanticipated and punishing consequences, leaving lasting damage to the environment.

A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (online early edition the week of Nov. 10) by two University of Illinois at Chicago biologists documents such harm caused to a tree native to Tanzania’s East Usambara Mountains where habitat fragmentation has broken a mutual relationship with the bir

As mountains of scrap tires continue to rise above the landscape, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found an environmentally friendly use for them: grind them up and place the rubber bits beneath golf course greens.
In a paper accepted for publication in the journal Waste Management, the researchers show that these ground tires can absorb excess chemicals from fertilizers and pesticides, preventing them from leaching into groundwater and contaminating the surrounding enviro

A computer model developed at Ohio State University is giving researchers a new understanding of how municipal wells at a famous toxic waste site in Woburn, Massachusetts, came to be contaminated, and how much contamination was delivered to residents.

As dramatized in the book and movie A Civil Action, a cluster of childhood leukemia cases in Woburn led to a lengthy court battle in the 1980s, during which three commercial companies were accused of dumping toxic chemicals that entered

Almost all of the active volcanoes on Earth lie beneath miles of seawater at mid-ocean ridges, creating the long chain of volcanic mountains that encircles the Earth like the seam of a baseball. Scientists have long been puzzled by the observation that flows, erupted as white-hot lava at mid-ocean ridges, can be traced for several miles from their vents despite the fact that they erupt into seawater close to its freezing point. Now a group of scientists from academia and government believe they have

The latest expeditions to ice caps in the high, tropical Peruvian Andes Mountains by Ohio State University scientists may shed light on a mysterious global climate change they believe occurred more than 5,000 years ago.

They hope that ice cores retrieved from two tropical ice caps there, as well as ancient plants retrieved from beneath the retreating glaciers, may contain clues that could link ancient events that changed daily life in South America, Europe and Asia.

Something happ

Two Dartmouth researchers have quantified the chemical weathering rates of bedrock at three sites around the world. By concentrating their testing in localized areas and using X-ray fluorescence to measure elements and oxides, they have found that variations in the chemistry of weathered bedrock (clay) do not always follow the patterns of the underlying bedrock.

This study by Earth sciences graduate student Benjamin Burke and Assistant Professor Arjun Heimsath will be presented at The Geolo

Using naturally occurring patterns of stable-isotopes created by weather and plants, Jason Duxbury of the University of Alberta and his colleagues are tracking the migration routes of birds of prey. Their work on the summer origins of migrating and wintering Peregrine Falcons and Burrowing Owls has shed new light on what has previously been the secret, non-breeding half of the birds’ lives.

By analyzing stable isotopes of hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen in bird feathers, Duxbury has bee

A computer model developed at Ohio State University is giving researchers a new understanding of how municipal wells at a famous toxic waste site in Woburn, Massachusetts, came to be contaminated, and how much contamination was delivered to residents.

As dramatized in the book and movie A Civil Action, a cluster of childhood leukemia cases in Woburn led to a lengthy court battle in the 1980s, during which three commercial companies were accused of dumping toxic chemicals that entered two o

From a newly discovered, and armored, amphibian to new tools for understanding volcanoes, to dating hillside erosion, geologists from the University of Cincinnati’s McMicken College of Arts & Sciences fill the agenda at the upcoming Geological Society of America (GSA) annual meeting Nov. 2-5.

UC geologists will present 27 papers and posters among the 170 symposia and other sessions scheduled at the conference. More than 6,000 geoscientists will gather for “Geoscience Horizons,” the 115th

Sometimes the most extreme environment for life isn’t at the bottom of the ocean or inside a volcano. It’s just south of Chicago.

Illinois groundwater scientists have found microbial communities thriving in the slag dumps of the Lake Calumet region of southeast Chicago where the water can reach extraordinary alkalinity of pH 12.8. That’s comparable to caustic soda and floor strippers — far beyond known naturally occurring alkaline environments.

The closest known relatives

Work recently published in Nature announces a significant correlation between sediment deposition in two Bolivian rivers, which flow into one of the principal tributaries of the Amazon, and climatic events of the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) type. It is the fruit of a research partnership between the IRD, the Bolivian Meteorology and Hydrology Centre in La Paz and scientists from the universities of Washington and California. The results represent a major advance in the study of the Amazon Bas

Researchers here have discovered that a reddish deposit seeping out from the face of a glacier in Antarcticas remote Taylor Valley is probably the last remnant of an ancient salt-water lake. The lake probably formed as much as 5 million years ago when the sea levels were higher and the ocean reached far inland.

Ohio State University scientists reported their conclusions today at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Se

Mars is kind of like Texas: things are just bigger there. In addition to the biggest canyon and biggest volcano in the solar system, Mars has now been found to have sand ripples twice as tall as they would be on Earth.

Initial measurements of some of the Red Planet’s dunes and ripples using stereo-images from the Mars Orbiter Camera onboard the Mars Global Surveyor have revealed ripple features reaching almost 20 feet high and dunes towering at 300 feet.

One way to imagine the ta

While most scientists agree that a meteor strike killed the dinosaurs, the cause of the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history, 251 million years ago, is still unknown, according to geologists.

“During the end-Permian extinction 95 percent of all species on Earth became extinct, compared to only 75 percent during the KT when the dinosaurs disappeared,” says Dr. Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences. “The end-Permian is puzzling. There is no convincing smoking gun, no compelling evi

Wine lovers take note: global warming is already tinkering with your favorite indulgence.

A study of the world’s top 27 wine regions’ temperatures and wine quality over the past 50 years reveals that rising temperatures have already impacted vintage quality. As for the next 50 years, climate modeling for these same wine regions predicts a 2°C temperature rise that is likely to make cool growing regions better producers of some grape varieties, and already warm wine regions

Stratospheric data supplied by Envisat are the basis for a near-real time global ozone forecasting service now available online.

Up in the stratosphere about 25 km above our heads is the ozone layer. Stratospheric ozone absorbs up to 98% of the Sun’s harmful ultraviolet light – making the difference between a suntan and sunburn, and safeguarding all life on Earth. But chemical activity in the stratosphere ultimately due to the presence of manmade gases such as chlorofluorocarbons (CF