Salt Pond in Antarctica, Among the Saltiest Waters on Earth, Is Fed From Beneath
University of WashingtonOne of the saltiest bodies on Earth, an analog to how water might exist on Mars, shows signs of being one piece of a larger aquifer.
One of the saltiest bodies on Earth, an analog to how water might exist on Mars, shows signs of being one piece of a larger aquifer.
Prehistoric polar forests were built for survival, but were not hardy enough to live in ultra-high concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide. A UWM geologist is studying the tree fossil record in Antarctica from a mass extinction 250 million years ago, looking for clues to how greenhouse gases affected plants -- then and now.
Crowdsourcing created an online photography archive, financed a British rock band’s tour and advanced a search for intelligent life on other planets. Now a biologist is hoping the approach can help her find rocks. But not just any rocks.
Rural counties continue to rank lowest among counties across the U.S., in terms of health outcomes. A group of national organizations including the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National 4-H Council are leading the way to close the rural health gap.
Using a sophisticated computer model, scientists have demonstrated for the first time that a new research approach to geoengineering could potentially be used to limit Earth’s warming to a specific target while reducing some of the risks and concerns identified in past studies, including uneven cooling of the globe.
Long Valley, California, has long defined the “super-eruption.” About 765,000 years ago, a pool of molten rock exploded into the sky. Within one nightmarish week, 760 cubic kilometers of lava and ash spewed out in the kind of volcanic cataclysm we hope never to witness. A new study shows that the giant body of magma — molten rock — at Long Valley was much cooler before the eruption than previously thought.
Mark Golitko, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, worked with colleagues from the Field Museum in Chicago and institutes in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea to study the Aitape skull and the area it was found in.
The largest number yet of detailed simulations for how a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake might play out provides a clearer picture of what the region can expect when the fault unleashes a 9.0 earthquake.
Scientists around Tetyana Milojevic from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna are in search of unique biosignatures, which are left on synthetic extraterrestrial minerals by microbial activity. The biochemist and astrobiologist investigates these signatures at her own miniaturized "Mars farm" where she can observe interactions between the archaeon Metallosphaera sedula and Mars-like rocks. These microbes are capable of oxidizing and integrating metals into their metabolism. The original research was currently published in the journal "Frontiers in Microbiology".
Carbon dioxide measured by a NASA satellite pinpoints sources of the gas from human and volcanic activities, which may help monitor greenhouse gases responsible for climate change.
Viruses exist amidst all bacteria, usually in a 10-fold excess and include virophages which live in giant viruses and use their machinery to replicate and spread. In Nature Communications, a team including DOE JGI researchers reports effectively doubling the number of known virophages.
New research published in the open access peer-reviewed journal PeerJ uses law enforcement data collected from 2010 to 2015 to understand the geographical distribution of the illegal use of natural resources across the region’s protected area network.
University of Utah scientists have mapped the near-surface geology around Old Faithful, revealing the reservoir of heated water that feeds the geyser’s surface vent and how the ground shaking behaves in between eruptions. The map was made possible by a dense network of portable seismographs and by new seismic analysis techniques.
When a normally cold stream in Iceland was warmed, the make-up of life inside changed as larger organisms thrived while smaller ones struggled. The findings carry implications for life in a warming climate.
Explosive volcanic eruptions in the tropics can lead to El Niño events, those notorious warming periods in the Pacific Ocean with dramatic global impacts on the climate, according to a new study.
A team of scientists has found new evidence that the Great Permian Extinction, which occurred approximately 250 million years ago, was caused by massive volcanic eruptions that led to significant environmental changes.
West Virginia University geology researchers are measuring the quantity and quality of the water along Peters Mountain in collaboration with the Indian Creek Watershed Association.
Ancient DNA extracted from fossil bones and museum specimens has shed new light on the mysterious loss of the Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) from Australia’s mainland.
Last week’s magnitude 7.1 earthquake near Puebla, Mexico, killed and injured hundreds of people and caused widespread damage to structures in Mexico City. Civil engineering professor Clint Wood, a geotechnical-engineering specialist, will travel to Mexico City this week to study the earthquake’s impact on buildings and infrastructure in the area.
The National Science Foundation recently awarded a $680,000 grant to Wake Forest University Associate Professor of Chemistry Patricia Dos Santos. In addition to funding research that helps scientists better understand life on earth, the grant also enables her to mentor students from other Triad-area colleges.
West Virginia University professors Paul Ziemkiewicz, Shikha Sharma and Tim Carr will present research on technology in the shale industry at the Shale Insight Conference on Wednesday, Sept. 27 in Pittsburgh, Pa.
The U-led study is the first attempt to map escape routes for wildland fire fighters from an aerial perspective. The researchers used LiDAR technology to analyze the terrain slope, ground surface roughness and vegetation density of a fire-prone region in central Utah, and assessed how each landscape condition impeded a person’s ability to travel.
A Texas A&M University research team has examined a 100,000-year-old ocean core and found that there have been at least eight occurrences of iron penetrating the Pacific Ocean, each likely associated with abrupt global climate change over thousands of years.
Satellite data shows underground water reserves in California’s Silicon Valley rebounded quickly after the recent severe drought. The research points to the success of aggressive conservation measures and lays the groundwork for low-cost monitoring of subterranean water reserves around the world.
Researchers in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis are challenging the notion that environment drives the evolution of brain size. A new study was released Sept. 25 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Oceanographers and a Seattle engineering company are testing a simple technique to track seafloor movement in earthquake-prone coastal areas.
Searching for water, some tree roots probe hundreds of feet deep and many trees send roots through cracks in rocks, according to a new study led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick professor. Moreover, the depth of plant roots, which varies between species and soil conditions, will play a key role in plants’ adaptation to climate change, said Ying Fan Reinfelder, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Department of Environmental Sciences.
Missouri S&T geologist Dr. Wan Yang has devoted his academic career to unlocking the mysteries of thePermian mass extinction more than 250 million years ago. That geological odyssey now finds him leading an 11-institution consortium that’s been collectively awarded a $2.1 million National Science Foundation research grant.
The University of Adelaide will lead a $14.6 million research consortium to develop advanced technologies to boost South Australia’s copper production and develop a globally competitive mining technology services sector in the state.
New research led by the University of Delaware resolves debate over the strength of olivine, the most abundant mineral in the Earth's mantle. Measuring olivine’s strength is critical to understanding how strong tectonic plates are, which matters to how plates break and create subduction zones.
East Africa may be a long way from the Crescent City but it is top of mind for Tulane PhD student Sarah Oliva, who is studying data from volcanoes and earthquakes in that region. Her goal is a better understanding of how a 3,000-kilometer long deep valley– the East African rift system— formed. Ultimately, she hopes her research will enable her to work with scientists and help governments protect residents living near the rift.
Montmorillonite clays prevent uranium from precipitating from liquids, letting it travel with groundwater.
A new rare-earth magnet recycling process developed by researchers at the Critical Materials Institute (CMI) dissolves magnets in an acid-free solution and recovers high purity rare earth elements.
Researchers from the University of California, Irvine and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have reported the first observation of sea level “fingerprints,” tell-tale differences in sea level rise around the world in response to changes in continental water and ice sheet mass. The team’s findings were published today in the American Geophysical Union journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Using a fleet of airplanes, ships and intrepid scientists, Cornell is leading the largest single deployment of seismometers along the Alaskan Peninsula – a $4.5 million endeavor that geologists from across the country hope will solve long-standing mysteries about the region and the planet.
It may seem counterintuitive, but Sacramento State Professor Jamie Kneitel is traveling to Israel this fall to learn more about seasonal wetlands in California, as well as those elsewhere in the world.
A tiger shark named “Andy” is like the marine version of the Energizer Bunny – he keeps going and going and going…
New research, led by the University of Southampton and involving a team of international scientists, suggests that an extreme global warming event 56 million years ago was driven by massive CO2 emissions from volcanoes, during the formation of the North Atlantic Ocean.
A fungus known to decimate populations of gypsy moths creates “death clouds” of spores that can travel more than 40 miles to potentially infect populations of invasive moths, according to a new Cornell study.