FSU Expert Available to Discuss NASA Mars Discovery
Florida State University
Mark Salvatore, who studied the surface of the Red Planet, also is part of a team that collaborates with scientists, engineers and NASA's rover operations to guide the Curiosity around Mars.
Dinosaur-age fossilised remains of tiny organisms normally found in the sea have been discovered in inland, arid Australia – suggesting the area was, for a short time at least, inundated by sea water 40 million years before Australia’s large inland sea existed.
The early Earth might have been habitable much earlier than thought, according to new research from a group led by University of Chicago scientists.
A new study that reconstructs the deep history of our planet’s relationship to the moon shows that 1.4 billion years ago, a day on Earth lasted just over 18 hours. This is at least in part because the moon was closer and changed the way the Earth spun around its axis.
An international team of scientists has concluded the asteroid that smashed into Earth 66 million years ago not only wiped out the dinosaurs, but erased the world’s forests and the species that lived in trees. The researchers say only small ground-dwelling birds survived the mass extinction, profoundly changing the course of bird evolution.
Researchers have recently published results identifying the major sources of E. coli breakouts on several beaches on Lake Michigan. They have also researched an effective method of reducing the breakouts and the resulting beach closings.
New cracks and lava leaks on Hawai’i near two established volcano vents pose significant hazards for the area’s residents, and not only from the currents of lava flow creeping toward the Pacific Ocean. According to Graham Andrews, West Virginia University volcanologist, large earthquakes and repeated small, explosions at the volcanos, plus toxic gases and vapors released from the lava and where the it enters the ocean are likely to make breathing difficult, a combination that is making life on Hawai’i perilous.
UPTON, NY—Do you know someone who’s so caught up in the details of a problem that they “can’t see the forest for the trees?” Scientists seeking to understand how forests recover from wildfires sometimes have the opposite problem. Conventional satellite systems that survey vast tracts of land burned by forest fires provide useful, general information, but can gloss over important details and lead scientists to conclude that a forest has recovered when it’s still in the early stages of recovery.
Every 405,000 years, gravitational tugs from Jupiter and Venus slightly elongate Earth’s orbit, an amazingly consistent pattern that has influenced our planet’s climate for at least 215 million years and allows scientists to more precisely date geological events like the spread of dinosaurs, according to a Rutgers-led study. The findings are published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A new National Science Foundation grant awarded to Professor of Statistics Steve Wang will help him, his students, and a recent alumna decode why the Earth may be entering a modern extinction.
When lava flows down the slope of a volcano, it can leave behind an extreme environment ideal for unusual microbial life and potential clues to answering the life on Mars question. Kansas State University geology professor Saugata Datta is one of the primary investigators of a new NASA study that will use a robotic vehicle to explore and collect data inside caves at Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California.
Crescent dunes and meandering rivers can “forget” their initial shapes as they are carved and reshaped by wind and water while other landforms keep a memory of their past shape, suggests a new laboratory analysis by a team of mathematicians.
The “Campus as a Living Lab” program uses the CSU itself to teach students real-world skills that are good for the planet and the future of California.
A new earth modeling system unveiled today will have weather-scale resolution and use advanced computers to simulate aspects of Earth’s variability and anticipate decadal changes that will critically impact the U.S. energy sector in coming years.
The latest research and experts on Wildfires in the Wildlife News Source
A new recycling process developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute (CMI) turns discarded hard disk drive (HDD) magnets into new magnet material in a few steps, and tackles both the economic and environmental issues typically associated with mining e-waste for valuable materials.
An unconventional mélange of algae, eucalyptus and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage appears to be a quirky ecological recipe. But, scientists from Cornell University, Duke University, and the University of Hawaii at Hilo have an idea that could use that recipe to help power and provide food protein to large regions of the world – and simultaneously remove carbon dioxide from Earth’s atmosphere.
Although river diversions that bring land building sediment to shrinking coastlands are the best solution to sustaining portions of the Mississippi Delta, a new study says the rate of land building will likely be dwarfed by the rate of wetland loss.
The CSU’s new Sustainability Report shows the progress we're making toward our ambitious goals for greener, more efficient campuses. Here are some of the ways we’re doing it.
Internal climate migrants are rapidly becoming the human face of climate change, according to a new report from World Bank. Brent McCusker, a professor of geography at West Virginia University, has contributed to a study of migration projections in the developing world, including Ethiopia, Mexico and Bangladesh, to help inform government leaders of what to expect from future migration patterns as a result of climate change.
How do plants “know” it is time to flower? A new study uncovers exactly where a key protein forms before it triggers the flowering process in plants.
In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, researchers analyzed remote-sensing data from two lunar missions and concluded that water appears to be evenly spread across the surface of the moon, not confined to a particular region or type of terrain as previously thought. The study was led by Northern Arizona University planetary scientist Christopher Edwards.
Earth has had moderate temperatures throughout its early history, and neutral seawater acidity. This means other rocky planets could likely also maintain this equilibrium and allow life to evolve.
Scientists have directly measured the increasing greenhouse effect of methane at the Earth’s surface for the first time. A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) tracked a rise in the warming effect of methane – one of the most important greenhouse gases for the Earth’s atmosphere – over a 10-year period at a DOE field observation site in northern Oklahoma.
Deep underground, changes to rock layers are impacting the Earth’s surface. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) April 1 Soils Matter blog explains how these deep layers inform our knowledge of surface soils.
Sentinel 2 satellites have a higher spatial resolution and more spectral bands than Landsat 8, but Geospatial Sciences Center of Excellence researchers are combining their data to track changes in land cover and land use in the Upper Midwest.
A study published in Science last week relies on extremely bright X-ray beams from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to confirm the presence of naturally occurring water at least 410 kilometers below the Earth’s surface. This exciting discovery could change our understanding of how water circulates deep in the Earth’s mantle and how heat escapes from the lower regions of our planet.
She may be the first researcher to simulate how the syrup responds to the complete range of plate motions observed at mid-ocean ridges. Up until now, computer simulations have struggled with representing the wandering of the ridges.
Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have discovered that the first people to inhabit Malta arrived 700 years earlier than history books indicate.
The largest and most-devastating earthquakes and volcano eruptions occur where one tectonic plate is shifted underneath another one. A New Mexico State University researcher authored a paper published recently in “Nature Communications” that looks at the so-called subduction zones where the plates become “slabs” and sink into the Earth's mantle.
By applying a new spectroscopy technique to garnet containing fragments of quartz, metamorphic petrologist Frank Spear of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute thinks he’s found the source of water that fuels earthquakes in volcanoes in subduction zones.
A new study, which included experiments at Berkeley Lab, suggests that water may be more common than expected at extreme depths approaching 400 miles and possibly beyond – within Earth’s lower mantle. The study explored microscopic pockets of a trapped form of crystallized water molecules in a sampling of diamonds.
Ancient trees in Mongolia dating back more than 2,000 years are helping place current and future climate change in context, according to a new West Virginia University-led study.
A NASA-funded cube satellite built and operated by CU Boulder researchers will study the inner radiation belt of Earth’s magnetosphere, providing new insight into the energetic particles that can disrupt satellites and threaten spacewalking astronauts.
Humans not only survived a massive volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago, they flourished during the resulting climate change that occurred, a new study by UNLV geoscientist Eugene Smith and colleagues found.
There’s a lot more snow piling up in the mountains of North America than anyone knew, according to a first-of-its-kind study.
A UNLV scientist has discovered the first direct evidence that fluid water pockets may exist as far as 500 miles deep into the Earth’s mantle.
The century-old convention of daylight saving time takes effect this weekend but can be hard for our bodies to handle. Circadian rhythm expert Erik Herzog, of Washington University, offers some tips to help us adjust.
Argonne researchers have found that in the next 100 years, already existing reforestation in the country could help topsoil absorb an additional 2 billion tons of carbon. Their work is detailed in a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.