The San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (SAFOD)-the first underground observatory to provide physical samples and real-time seismological data from deep inside an active fault zone-is yielding surprising new clues about the origin of earthquakes. SAFOD scientists from around the world will discuss these new findings on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) at Moscone Center West in San Francisco.

SAFOD is a major research component of EarthScop

Scientists studying the effects of carbon on climate warming are very likely underestimating, by a vast amount, how much soil carbon is available in the high Arctic to be released into the atmosphere, new University of Washington research shows.

A three-year study of soils in northwest Greenland found that a key previous study greatly underestimated the organic carbon stored in the soil. That’s because the earlier work generally looked only at the top 10 inches of soil, sa

Scientists using satellite data have now created the most detailed maps ever produced of the vast snow-covered Antarctic continent. The maps reveal unprecedented views of surface features that provide clues to how and why the continent’s massive ice sheets and glaciers are changing.

Researchers can now decipher the intricate history of ice movements in the just-released “Mosaic of Antarctica,” which uses images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer onboard NASA’s Te

If humans continue to use fossil fuels in a business as usual manner for the next several centuries, the polar ice caps will be depleted, ocean sea levels will rise by seven meters and median air temperatures will soar 14.5 degrees warmer than current day.

These are the stunning results of climate and carbon cycle model simulations conducted by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By using a coupled climate and carbon cycle model to look at global climate and carbon

Planting trees across the United States and Europe to absorb some of the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels may just outweigh the positive effects of sequestering that CO².

New climate modeling research from LLNL and the Carnegie Institution shows that northern temperate forests (top) may contribute to global warming, while tropical forests (bottom) can help keep global temperatures cool. (Click here to download a high-resolution image.)
In theory, gro

NASA researchers, using data from the agency’s AURA satellite, determined the seasonal ozone hole that developed over Antarctica this year is smaller than in previous years.

NASA’s 2005 assessment of the size and thickness of the ozone layer was the first based on observations from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on the agency’s Aura spacecraft. Aura was launched in 2004.

This year’s ozone hole measured 9.4 million square miles at its peak between

Glacier has shrunk by nine miles, now at midpoint of retreat

Alaska’s rapidly disintegrating Columbia Glacier, which has shrunk in length by 9 miles since 1980, has reached the mid-point of its projected retreat, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.

Tad Pfeffer, associate director of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, said the glacier is now discharging nearly 2 cubic miles of ice annually into the Prince William Sound,

Ohio State University scientists have used minute fluctuations in gravity to produce the best map yet of ocean tides that flow beneath two large Antarctic ice shelves.

They did it using the twin satellites of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center.

Large tides flow along the ocean floor beneath the Larsen and Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelves. Though scientists have long known of these tides, they have not

Almost a century after the 1906 earthquake, Stanford geophysicists have revisited San Francisco’s ’’Big One’’ and now paint a new picture of a fault that was ready to go and that ruptured farther and faster than previously supposed.

“Our understanding of seismic hazard in Northern California, including the Bay Area, relies on a thorough understanding of this earthquake and the San Andreas Fault,” said Professor Gregory C. Beroza, who with graduate student

By soaking up moisture with their roots and later releasing it from their leaves, plants play an active role in regulating the climate. In fact, in vegetated ecosystems, plants are the primary channels that connect the soil to the atmosphere, with plant roots controlling the below-ground dynamics.

“Most climate models assume that roots are shallow — usually within 6 feet of the surface — and that only the soil moisture near the surface can significantly impact the climate,” said Pr

Recent evidence from the Huygens Probe of the Cassini Mission suggests that Titan, the largest moon orbiting Saturn, is a world where rivers of liquid methane sculpt channels in continents of ice. Surface images even show gravel-sized pieces of water ice that resemble rounded stones lying in a dry riverbed on Earth.

But with a surface temperature of minus 179 degrees Celsius and an atmospheric pressure 1-1/2 times that of Earth, could fluvial processes on Titan be anything lik

The Coral Reef Research Unit (CRRU) at the University of Essex has been awarded a grant to explore unknown coral reefs around an un-explored island in the Seychelles.

The research, funded by the EarthWatch Institute and Mitsubishi, will start in July 2006.

Dr David Smith, Director of the CRRU, recently returned from the annual EarthWatch PI conference where he presented a paper about the research: ’Scientists from all over the world met to discuss their research an

Last week the historic fortified town of Campeche, in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, was the centre for a Conference on the use of space technologies to conserve the world’s natural and cultural heritage, including UNESCO biosphere reserves.

Experts representing more than 30 countries attended this international conference on the ’Use of Space Technologies for the Conservation of Natural and Cultural Heritage’, organised by the National Institute of Anthropology and Historia (

In both poor and rich countries, well-educated people are receptive to the knowledge of climate experts. Expert knowledge can make people see climate change as a shared, global problem even though it affects different parts of the world so differently. This is shown in a dissertation by the political scientist Monika Bauhr at Göteborg University in Sweden.

You often hear that climate change is a global problem. At the same time, political and economic differences lead to differe

A study scheduled for publication in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal, Environmental Science and Technology, shows that for the first time, toxic metals emitted from automotive catalytic converters have been detected in urban air in the United States. The research was done by Swedish scientists working in collaboration with researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The researchers found high c

Russian researchers suggest that diamond deposits should be explored by smell of soil. Kimberlite pipes deeply hidden under the sedimentary rock cover are given away by the composition of adsorbed gases in superstrata. Specialists of the All-Russian Research Institute of Geological, Geophysical and Geochemical Systems, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Open Joint Stock Company “Arkhangelskgeoldobycha” (Stock company “ALROSA”) have compared the composition of gases adsorbed in the rock of already