Earth Sciences

A team of geologists has determined the age of the oldest known meteorite impact on Earth – a catastrophic event that generated massive shockwaves across the planet billions of years before a similar event helped wipe out the dinosaurs.

In a study published in the Aug. 23 issue of the journal Science, the research team reports that an ancient meteorite slammed into Earth 3.47 billion years ago.

Scientists have yet to locate any trace of the extraterrestrial object itself or the gi

Meteorologists can no longer view the Earth as an isolated system. Both long-term climate changes and day-to-day weather show links with the Sun`s activity. Scientists therefore study the nature of those links intensely. With data from ESA`s spaceprobes SOHO, Cluster, and Ulysses, we now have the information we need to solve the mystery of how the Sun`s activity affects the climate here on Earth. This study is the first step in setting up a new type of weather forecast – the space-weather bulletin.

The event which occurred almost a hundred years ago in Podkamennaya Tunguska has drawn scientists` attention again. What actually exploded at that time in the remote taiga, the power of explosion being equal to the 50-megaton H-bomb? The hypothesis that it was a meteorite or any other extraterrestrial object has not quite satisfied inquisitive minds, since too many puzzles remain unsolved. A geologist Vladimir Epifanov, Siberian Research Institute of Geology, Geophysics and Mineral, reported to the

Important ocean process examined with newly developed ’BubbleCam’

The relaxing atmosphere of a walk along the shore, especially the sounds of waves breaking on the beach, has seemingly forever lured people to coastlines.

For Grant Deane and Dale Stokes, oceanographers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, the seaside sounds of hundreds of millions of air bubbles bursting at the shoreline represent an important key to und

Researchers from Woods Hole, Scripps oceanographic institutes sail on new Coast Guard ice breaker to study climate, ocean changes

A University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientist is part of a team of researchers sailing the Bering and Chukchi seas this summer, searching for clues about the sea floor history and the land bridge that once existed between what is now Alaska and Russia. The team will also explore how the disappearance of the land bridge may have affected that region&#14

Last year was characterised by extremes of weather all over the globe, making it the second-hottest year on record, beaten only by 1988. This year is set to follow that pattern, beginning with a major heat wave: during the first quarter of the year, temperatures were 0.71 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the mean for temperatures between 1961 and 1990. What`s behind the apparent increase in weather extremes? To answer this increasingly urgent question, we need precise and detailed