The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile’s Atacama Desert has inspired engineers at the University of California, Irvine to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars.
KICT and Deltares conducted a research on prediction of the future changes in river landscapes using an eco-morphodynamic model applied to an actual river. According to the study result, the vegetation cover increases continuously until 2031, and the area covered by willow trees occupies up to 20% of the river area.
Louis Urtecho and his team hope to study dust devils in the Mojave Desert on Earth, then extend the analysis to scale for the different atmosphere on Mars. Based on microbarometer data from the Mojave, they built an algorithm to look for the pressure activity indicative of a dust devil. The vortices have a distinct drop in pressure near their centers, and their pressure fluctuates to look like an electrocardiogram signal over time. The team hopes to learn more about the convective vortices and how they move, which will improve the accuracy of Martian weather models.
In Physics of Fluids, researchers have been studying the dynamics of how crescent-shaped sand dunes are formed. Known as barchans, these formations are commonly found in various sizes and circumstances, on Earth and on Mars. Using a computational fluid dynamics approach, the team carried out simulations by applying the equations of motion to each grain in a pile being deformed by a fluid flow, showing the ranges of values for the proper computation of barchan dunes down to the grain scale.
A year before the largest active volcano in the world erupted, research by two University of Miami scientists revealed which of the two rift zones of the Mauna Loa volcano would spew magma.
By: Bill Wellock | Published: December 2, 2022 | 11:55 am | SHARE: The Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on the planet, is erupting for the first time since 1984.Vincent Salters, director of the Geochemistry Program at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University, is available to speak to media about the geology behind this eruption.
Min Chen was an assistant professor at MSU in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in the College of Natural Science. Using the power of supercomputing, Chen developed the method applied to Maguire’s images to model more accurately how seismic waves propagate through the Earth. Chen’s creativity and skill brought those images into sharper focus, revealing more information about the amount of molten magma under Yellowstone’s volcano.
One of Australia’s most captivating landscapes can now be explored virtually, thanks to a University of South Australia project that documents the geological and cultural significance of the Flinders Ranges.
Satellite observations have revealed that weak seismic ground shaking can trigger powerful landslide acceleration – even several years after a significant earthquake.
A recent study co-authored by associate professor Matthew Bowker found important connections between grazing pressure on drylands and the ecosystem services they provide.
From September to October of 2015, a 60-person team were gathering on the Guliya ice cap in the Kunlun Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau, with the purpose to retrieve the world’s oldest ice.
Volcanic eruptions are dangerous and difficult to predict. A team at the University of Tokyo has found that the ratio of atoms in specific gases released from volcanic fumaroles (gaps in the Earth’s surface) can provide an indicator of what is happening to the magma deep below — similar to taking a blood test to check your health.
Rapid changes in marine oxygen levels may have played a significant role in driving Earth’s first mass extinction, according to a new study led by Florida State University researchers.
The Earth’s climate has undergone some big changes, from global volcanism to planet-cooling ice ages and dramatic shifts in solar radiation. And yet life, for the last 3.7 billion years, has kept on beating.
In two connected studies, cave ecologist Jut Wynne, along with dozens of co-authors including engineers, astrophysicists, astrobiologists and astronauts, lay out the research that needs to be done to get us closer to answering the old-age question about life beyond Earth.
Social sciences and international relations experts at Hiroshima University in Japan have proposed a new framework for studying the immensely complex power dynamics between China and the U.S., and its allies bordering the Pacific Ocean – “hybrid balancing.”
The Devonian Period, 419 to 358 million years ago, was one of the most turbulent times in Earth’s past and was marked by at least six significant marine extinctions, including one of the five largest mass extinctions ever to have occurred.
In a new study published in the journal Nature Sustainability, an international team of scientists from the Earth Commission, convened by Future Earth, investigates the Earth system impacts of escaping poverty and achieving a dignified life for all.
The North American southwest has been suffering through weather extremes in recent years ranging from searing heatwaves and scorching wildfires to monsoon rainfalls that cause flash floods and mudslides.
IUPUI scientists have found evidence that the evolution of tree roots over 300 million years ago triggered mass extinction events through the same chemical processes created by pollution in modern oceans and lakes.
When scientists discovered a hydrothermal vent site in the Arctic Ocean’s Aurora hydrothermal system in 2014, they did not immediately realize just how exciting their discovery was.
Building up the lunar settlement is the ultimate aim of lunar exploitation since human's first step on the moon. Yet, limited fuel and oxygen supplies restrict human survival on the moon.
Water is transported by oceanic plates into the Earth's deep interior and changes the properties of minerals and rocks, affecting the Earth's internal material cycle and environmental evolution since the formation of the Earth.
Scientists working at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) discover that under the conditions present at Earth’s core-mantle boundary, water and metal combine to form diamonds.
Research shows that coupling geothermal power plants with lithium extraction from geothermal brine would make geothermal energy more economically viable, providing renewable energy and valuable raw materials.
Scientists have uncovered new details of how ice forming below the ocean surface in Antarctica provides cold dense water that sinks to the seabed in an important aspect of global water circulation.
Thawing permafrost soils in the rapidly warming Arctic will emit as much greenhouse gas as large industrial nations by the end of this century, according to a University of Alberta researcher involved in an international study that stresses to policy makers that it’s not too late to act to stabilize the climate and avoid exceeding temperature targets.
By the end of this century, permafrost in the rapidly warming Arctic will likely emit as much carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere as a large industrial nation, and potentially more than the U.S. has emitted since the start of the industrial revolution.
For his work helping to arrange that many-pieced, time-shifting puzzle, the Geological Society of America has named Florida State University Assistant Professor Richard Bono as the 2022 recipient of the Seth and Carol Stein Early Career Award in Geophysics and Geodynamics. Bono is the first person to receive the award.
Scientists from the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University and Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of Russian Academy of Sciences described changes in conditions of bottom waters of the Atlantic during last 500 thousand years. As oceans plays an important role in formation of global climate, this information can help to understand contemporary changes and predict future variations in temperature and risks connected with them.
Ramping up renewable energy products will require a range of critical metals. One of these elements, tellurium, is gaining in popularity for use in photovoltaics, or solar panels. As global demand for solar panels continues to increase, so is the need for critical metals like tellurium.
An artificial-intelligence approach borrowed from natural-language processing — much like language translation and autofill for text on your smart phone — can predict future fault friction and the next failure time with high resolution in laboratory earthquakes,. The technique, applying AI to the fault’s acoustic signals, advances previous work and goes beyond by predicting aspects of the future state of the fault’s physical system.
Scientists seeking the connection between gravitational forces deep in the Earth and landscape evolution discovered that deep roots under mountain belts trigger dramatic movements along faults that result in collapse of the mountain belt and exposure of rocks that were once below the surface.
Some estimates of Antarctica’s total contribution to sea-level rise may be over- or underestimated, after researchers detected a previously unknown source of ice loss variability.
Deep valleys buried under the seafloor of the North Sea record how the ancient ice sheets that used to cover the UK and Europe expelled water to stop themselves from collapsing.
When the Chelyabinsk fireball exploded across Russian skies in 2013, it littered Earth with a relatively uncommon type of meteorite. What makes the Chelyabinsk meteorites and others like them special is their dark veins, created by a process called shock darkening.
ST. LOUIS – A $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation will create the Taylor Geospatial Institute Regional AI Learning System. Launched in April 2022 and led by Saint Louis University, the Taylor Geospatial Institute brings together eight Midwestern universities and research centers to harness innovation in geospatial science.
The first probable impact crater in Spain has been identified in the southern province of Almeria. The discovery was presented last week at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2022 by Juan Antonio Sánchez Garrido of the University of Almeria.
A multidisciplinary group of Cornell researchers has modeled and synthesized lava in the laboratory as the kinds of rock that may form on far-away exoplanets. They developed 16 types of surface compositions as a starter catalog for finding volcanic worlds that feature fiery landscapes and oceans of magma.