Were you aware that earthquakes are sometimes associated with luminescence, called earthquake lightning? This phenomenon had been documented throughout history, such as between 1965 and 1967, the Matsushiro earthquake swarm caused the surrounding mountain to flicker with light multiple times.
Researchers have shaken up a once accepted timeline for cataclysmic events in the early solar system.
A new way of analyzing the chemical composition of soil organic matter will help scientists predict how soils store carbon — and how soil carbon may affect climate in the future, says a Baylor University researcher.
In recent years -- and 2020 is no exception -- parts of the Pacific Northwest that are typically too wet to burn are experiencing more frequent, severe and larger wildfires due to changes in climate.
Scientists recently got a unique glimpse into the “Green Banana” Blue Hole thanks to gutsy divers and a 500-pound autonomous, benthic lander. Together with hand-picked, elite scuba divers, the research team is unraveling the structure and behavior of these marine environments by examining geochemistry, hydrodynamics, and biology. Findings from this exploration also may have important implications for phytoplankton in the Gulf of Mexico, including blooms of the Florida Red-tide species Karenia brevis.
The reactive and piecemeal approach historically used to manage beaches in Hawai'i has failed to protect them.
Fairy circles are one of nature's greatest enigmas and most visually stunning phenomena.
Situated between Africa and Eurasia, the Arabian Peninsula is an important yet understudied region for understanding human evolution across the continents.
An international team of researchers has found that some of the oldest terrain on Venus, known as tesserae, have layering that seems consistent with volcanic activity. The finding could provide insights into the enigmatic planet’s geological history.
The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on the planet. As a result, permafrost that is thousands of years old is now being lost to erosion.
Deep-seated landslides in the central Oregon Coast Range are triggered mostly by rainfall, not by large offshore earthquakes.
When early humans began to travel out of Africa and spread into Eurasia over a hundred thousand years ago, a fertile region around the eastern Mediterranean Sea called the Levant served as a critical gateway between northern Africa and Eurasia.
Some of the oldest remains of early human ancestors have been unearthed in Olduvai Gorge, a rift valley setting in northern Tanzania where anthropologists have discovered fossils of hominids that existed 1.8 million years ago.
Around 4 billion years ago, the solar system was far less hospitable than we find it now. Many of the large bodies we know and love were present, but probably looked considerably different, especially the Earth.
A new study found patterns in how soil organic matter forms across a wide range of climate types. Understanding how soils break down or preserve organic matter is important because organic matter plays a central role in the kind of services soils can provide, such as whether they make good agricultural soils or if they can sequester carbon to slow climate change.
According to a new study, environmental hazards affect populations worldwide and can drive migration under specific conditions, especially in middle-income and agricultural countries.
A team of Israeli and American researchers has uncovered new evidence that an earthquake may have caused the destruction and abandonment of a flourishing Canaanite palatial site about 3,700 years ago.
Several minerals suffer radioactive self-irradiation and hence experience long-term changes of their properties. The mineral monazite virtually behaves "just alike Camembert cheese in which holes are drilled": Existing radiation damage heals itself. An international research team led by Lutz Nasdala, Institute of Mineralogy and Crystallography, University of Vienna, conducted an ion-irradiation study that has unravelled the causes of the self-healing of monazite.
A Dartmouth-led study using multisensor drones has revealed a large circular earthwork at what may be Etzanoa, an archaeological site near Wichita, Kansas.
The scaffolds that help hold together the world’s tropical reefs are at risk from acidification due to increased carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans, according to geoscientists at the University of Sydney.
New research from an international team of evolutionary geneticists, bioinformaticians and paleontologists suggests that dramatic environmental changes accompanying the shift or melting of continental glaciers played a key role as American mastodons moved north from their southern ranges.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Ohio State University discovered a new microbial pathway that produces ethylene, providing a potential avenue for biomanufacturing a common component of plastics, adhesives, coolants and other everyday products.
Microbial communities in Arctic permafrost changed drastically at the end of the ice age—and this shift could happen again due to modern climate change, according to a new study by University of Alberta scientists.
Victoria Orphan is the James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science and Geobiology in the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at the California Institute of Technology.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has renewed funding for OpenTopography, a science gateway that provides online access to Earth science oriented high-resolution topography data and processing tools to a broad user community advancing research and education in areas ranging from earthquake geology to ecology and hydrology.
Watch live and recorded press conferences at https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/news-room/press-conferences.html. Press conferences will be held Monday, Aug. 17 through Thursday, Aug. 20, 2020
Researchers studied different microbiomes to determine if the constituent species were equally good at breaking down leaf litter. The research helped to identify the microbial traits that might lead to related carbon storage or loss and found that the makeup of a soil microbiome is critical to the fate of carbon in soil.
In their first follow-up to a high-profile 2017 study which showed microbes in Antarctica have a unique ability to essentially live on air, researchers from UNSW Sydney have now discovered this process occurs in soils across the world's three poles.
Combing through historical seismic data, researchers using a machine learning model have unearthed distinct statistical features marking the formative stage of slow-slip ruptures in the earth’s crust months before tremor or GPS data detected a slip in the tectonic plates. Given the similarity between slow-slip events and classic earthquakes, these distinct signatures may help geophysicists understand the timing of the devastating faster quakes as well.
It’s one of the best-known geological heritage sites around the world, filled with fossils and glacial secrets. Now, thanks to virtual reality technology, the ice-age past of Hallett Cove Conservation Park is revealed in a new, gamified VR experience – Beyond the Ice – and is launched this week as part of National Science Week.
Billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide risk being lost into the atmosphere due to tropical forest soils being significantly more sensitive to climate change than previously thought.
Glaciers in the Southern Alps of New Zealand have lost more ice mass since pre-industrial times than remains today, according to a new study.
Deep beneath the surface of the Salton Sea, a shallow lake in California’s Imperial County, sits an immense reserve of critical metals that, if unlocked, could power the state’s green economy for years to come. These naturally occurring metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of geothermal energy production. Now the race is on to develop technology to efficiently extract one of the most valuable metals from the brine produced by the geothermal plants near the Salton Sea: lithium.
Geologists from Florida State University’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science have discovered how carbon-rich molten rock in the Earth’s upper mantle might affect the movement of seismic waves.
A global meta-analysis led by UNSW scientists shows tiny organisms that cover desert soils - so-called biocrusts - are critically important for supporting the world's shrinking water supplies.
The classic dinosaur family tree has two subdivisions of early dinosaurs at its base: the Ornithischians, or bird-hipped dinosaurs, which include the later Triceratops and Stegosaurus; and the Saurischians, or lizard-hipped dinosaurs, such as Brontosaurus and Tyrannosaurus.
Rutgers’ Eagleton Institute of Politics announced that seven scientists have been selected for the 2020-2021 cohort of Eagleton Science and Politics Fellows. Over the next year, the Eagleton Science Fellows will serve as full-time science advisors in New Jersey state government and will assist in the development and implementation of state policy for issues ranging from COVID-19 response, clean energy, education, mental health, and others.
By: Bill Wellock | Published: July 27, 2020 | 2:27 pm | SHARE: This summer, NASA’s Perseverance rover mission will begin its exploration of Mars, gathering valuable data that will help scientists understand our neighboring planet.Once on Mars, the rover will search for signs of ancient microscopic life and collect data about the planet’s geology and climate.
The climate represents the set of atmospheric conditions that characterize a region. Yet these conditions are the result of global interaction between dry land, vegetation, ice, atmosphere and ocean.
IUPUI’s Daniel Johnson is working to develop a predictive model of COVID-19 based on the physical environment, social environment and cases of infection.
Unique geography allows for wide variety of soils
Climate records from a cave in the southern Great Basin show that Nevada was even hotter and drier in the past than it is today, and that one 4,000-year period in particular may represent a true, “worst-case” scenario for the Southwest and the Colorado River Basin — and the millions of people who rely on its water supply.
The activity of the solid Earth - for example, volcanoes in Java, earthquakes in Japan, etc - is well understood within the context of the ~50-year-old theory of plate tectonics.
In hotter, dryer conditions with climate change, a secret agent for more sustainable agricultural production could lie in harvesting the diverse beneficial soil microbiome in native bushland settings, scientists say. New research from CSIRO, Flinders University and La Trobe University highlights the importance of soil biological health and further potential to use organic rather than chemical farm inputs for crop production. "We know antibiotics are very useful in pharmaceuticals, and actinobacteria found plentifully and in balance in various natural environments play a vital role in the plant world," says lead author Dr Ricardo Araujo, a visiting Flinders University researcher from the University of Porto in Portugal. "These actinobacterial communities contribute to global carbon cycling by helping to decompose soil nutrients, increase plant productivity, regulate climate support ecosystems - and are found in abundance in warm, dry soil conditions common in Australia." A n
It was a surprising thing to see on the otherwise lifeless peak of a South American volcano — a mouse, specifically a yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse, or Phyllotis xanthopygus, scurrying among the rocks on the summit.The find was especially startling because the mouse was living at an elevation of 22,100 feet, a higher elevation than scientists had ever observed mammals living at previously.
Insects can be both beneficial and harmful to agricultural land
After working on a climate change experiment that showed plants adapt to additional carbon dioxide by putting extra carbon into their roots, Colleen Iverson has been on a mission to understand the role of roots in the environment, especially the tundra.
In a new study in the journal Gondwana Research demonstrated that the Carnian Pluvial Episode affected the southern hemisphere, specifically South America, which strengthens the case that it was a global climate event.
A new portal is increasing access to surface and groundwater water quality data from shale gas regions around the state to inform stakeholders about trends in water quality.
A new study by the University of Leeds and University of California at San Diego reveals that changes in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field may take place 10 times faster than previously thought.
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