Feature Channels: Geology

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Released: 25-Jan-2021 10:05 AM EST
Elusive 19th century Alaskan fort located using radar tech
Cornell University

Researchers from Cornell University and the National Park Service have pinpointed and confirmed the location of the remnants of a wooden fort in Alaska – the Tlingit people’s last physical bulwark against Russian colonization forces in 1804 – by using geophysical imaging techniques and ground-penetrating radar.

Released: 22-Jan-2021 3:15 PM EST
Lots of water in the world’s most explosive volcano
Washington University in St. Louis

There isn't much in Kamchatka, a remote peninsula in northeastern Russia just across the Bering Sea from Alaska, besides an impressive population of brown bears and the most explosive volcano in the world. Kamchatka's Shiveluch volcano has had more than 40 violent eruptions over the last 10,000 years.

Released: 19-Jan-2021 12:45 PM EST
Research finds tiny bubbles tell tales of big volcanic eruptions
Rice University

Microscopic bubbles can tell stories about Earth's biggest volcanic eruptions and geoscientists from Rice University and the University of Texas at Austin have discovered some of those stories are written in nanoparticles.

Released: 14-Jan-2021 8:45 AM EST
Greenland Melting Likely Increased by Bacteria in Sediment
Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Bacteria are likely triggering greater melting on the Greenland ice sheet, possibly increasing the island’s contribution to sea-level rise, according to Rutgers scientists. That’s because the microbes cause sunlight-absorbing sediment to clump together and accumulate in the meltwater streams, according to a Rutgers-led study – the first of its kind – in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The findings can be incorporated in climate models, leading to more accurate predictions of melting, scientists say.

Released: 13-Jan-2021 11:40 AM EST
The Faults in Our Earth
California State University (CSU) Chancellor's Office

CSU geology experts study the active land California inhabits to better understand earthquakes and predict the location and intensity of future temblors.

   
Released: 11-Jan-2021 10:35 AM EST
Understanding origins of Arizona's Sunset Crater eruption of 1,000 years ago
Arizona State University (ASU)

Around 1085 AD, along the southern rim of Northern Arizona's elevated Colorado Plateau, a volcano erupted, forever changing ancient Puebloan fortunes and all nearby life.

Released: 6-Jan-2021 11:45 AM EST
New paper describes use of geographic monitoring for early COVID cluster detection
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Researchers describe development of a near-real time spatial assessment of COVID-19 cases to help guide local medical responses to clusters of outbreaks of the virus at the local level. The paper, entitled “Geographic monitoring for early disease detection (GeoMEDD),” appeared in the Dec. 10 issue of Nature Scientific Reports.

Released: 5-Jan-2021 12:10 PM EST
Magnets dim natural glow of human cells, may shed light on how animals migrate
University of Tokyo

Researchers in Japan have made the first observations of biological magnetoreception - live, unaltered cells responding to a magnetic field in real time.

Released: 22-Dec-2020 1:15 PM EST
Slow start of plate tectonics despite a hot early Earth
University of Cologne

Writing in PNAS, scientists from Cologne university present important new constraints showing that plate tectonics started relatively slow, although the early Earth's interior was much hotter than today.

Released: 22-Dec-2020 12:55 PM EST
New imaging method views soil carbon at near-atomic scales
Cornell University

The Earth’s soils contain more than three times the amount of carbon than is found in the atmosphere, but the processes that bind carbon in the soil are still not well understood.

Released: 18-Dec-2020 2:05 PM EST
Oceans without oxygen
University of California, Santa Barbara

With no dissolved oxygen to sustain animals or plants, ocean anoxic zones are areas where only microbes suited to the environment can live.

Released: 18-Dec-2020 12:55 PM EST
Fire-resistant tropical forest on brink of disappearance
Swansea University

A new study led by researchers in the Geography Department at Swansea University reveals the extreme scale of loss and fragmentation of tropical forests, which once covered much of the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Released: 15-Dec-2020 12:05 PM EST
Mummified baboons shine new light on the lost land of Punt
Dartmouth College

Ancient Punt was a major trading partner of Egyptians for at least 1,100 years. It was an important source of luxury goods, including incense, gold, leopard skins, and living baboons.

Released: 14-Dec-2020 2:20 PM EST
Chance played a major role in keeping Earth fit for life
University of Southampton

A study by the University of Southampton gives a new perspective on why our planet has managed to stay habitable for billions of years - concluding it is almost certainly due, at least in part, to luck.

Released: 11-Dec-2020 3:55 PM EST
Research Can Help Pawpaws Gain New Ground
State University of New York at Geneseo

Despite its tropical-sounding name and exotic-tasting In a recent article in Plant Ecology, Associate Professor The pawpaw is extremely rare in New York State, with only 20 known locations. Stephen Tulowiecki, a geographer at SUNY Geneseo, studied the conditions that pawpaws favor, and developed a model to predict locations where pawpaws may grow and identify areas that might sustain newly introduced trees.

Released: 11-Dec-2020 1:20 PM EST
Last Interglacial: warming amplified in mountain environments
University of Innsbruck

The Last interglacial period was the last warm period before our present Holocene age and dates back some 129,000 to 116,000 years ago.

3-Dec-2020 10:05 AM EST
A Day at The Beach Helps Model How Sound Moves Through Coastal Areas
Acoustical Society of America (ASA)

At a North Carolina beach, researchers have been poking and prodding the sand to study how moisture levels affect sounds as they move across the environment. Over short distances, even moderately wet sand reflects sound more like water does than as a solid surface does. Faith Cobb and her team are looking into if the same is true for long-range sound propagation. Their findings will be presented as a part of the 179th ASA Meeting.

Released: 9-Dec-2020 7:30 PM EST
AI reveals first direct observation of rupture propagation during slow quakes
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Using a trained neural network and data from the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey, a research team led by Los Alamos National Laboratory revealed the first direct observation of rupture propagation during a slow earthquake.

Released: 9-Dec-2020 1:35 PM EST
Wind Farm Weather Influence
University of Delaware

While offshore wind projects provide clean and renewable energy, a new study from the University of Delaware shows that they can also have unintended effects on local weather in the form of minimal, though statistically significant, impacts when it comes to wind speed and reduced precipitation at nearby onshore locations.

Released: 3-Dec-2020 12:15 PM EST
Cluster of Alaskan islands could be single, interconnected giant volcano
American Geophysical Union (AGU)

A small group of volcanic islands in Alaska's Aleutian chain might be part of a single, undiscovered giant volcano, say scientists presenting the findings Monday, 7 December at AGU's Fall Meeting 2020.

Released: 3-Dec-2020 8:10 AM EST
High-impact research: How meteorite strikes may change quartz on the Earth’s surface
Argonne National Laboratory

Scientists using a unique combination of capabilities at the Advanced Photon Source have learned more about how meteorites affect one of the most abundant materials in the Earth’s crust.

Released: 2-Dec-2020 12:35 PM EST
Greenland ice sheet faces irreversible melting
University of Reading

In a study published this week in The Cryosphere, researchers from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and University of Reading demonstrate how climate change could lead to irreversible sea level rise as temperatures continue to rise and the Greenland ice sheet continues to decline.

Released: 1-Dec-2020 2:55 PM EST
Area burned by severe fire increased 8-fold in western US over past four decades
American Geophysical Union (AGU)

The number of wildfires and the amount of land they consume in the western U.S. has substantially increased since the 1980s, a trend often attributed to ongoing climate change.

Released: 1-Dec-2020 12:10 PM EST
An escape route for seafloor methane
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Methane, the main component of natural gas, is the cleanest-burning of all the fossil fuels, but when emitted into the atmosphere it is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Released: 23-Nov-2020 12:05 PM EST
What are the promises and perils of geoengineering?
University at Buffalo

In a new book, “Has It Come to This? The Promises and Perils of Geoengineering on the Brink,” Holly Jean Buck and colleagues weigh in on social, ethical and political dimensions of deliberate, large-scale interventions in the planet’s climate.

Released: 20-Nov-2020 2:05 PM EST
'Oasis effect' in urban parks could contribute to greenhouse gas emissions
Arizona State University (ASU)

It will come as no surprise to anyone living in Phoenix, Arizona, that 2020 has been a record-breaking year for high temperatures.

Released: 20-Nov-2020 11:35 AM EST
Field Geology at Mars’ Equator Points to Ancient Megaflood
Cornell University

Floods of unimaginable magnitude once washed through Gale Crater on Mars’ equator around 4 billion years ago – a finding that hints at the possibility that life may have existed there, according to data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover and analyzed in joint project by scientists from Jackson State University, Cornell University, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Hawaii.

Released: 19-Nov-2020 9:25 AM EST
Pandemic has surprising impacts on public transit demand
Ohio State University

The COVID-19 pandemic had surprising effects on demand for public transit in American cities, new research suggests. While demand for public transit dropped about 73% across the country after the pandemic hit, the reduction didn’t impact all cities equally.

Released: 17-Nov-2020 9:55 AM EST
Unlocking the history of life on Earth
West Virginia University - Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Geology student Sam Ocon is fulfilling her dream of studying invertebrate paleontology.

Released: 17-Nov-2020 8:20 AM EST
Former piece of Pacific Ocean floor imaged deep beneath China
Rice University

In a study that gives new meaning to the term "rock bottom," seismic researchers have discovered the underside of a rocky slab of Earth's surface layer, or lithosphere, that has been pulled more than 400 miles beneath northeastern China by the process of tectonic subduction.

Released: 12-Nov-2020 11:30 AM EST
New maps document big-game migrations across the western United States
US Geological Survey (USGS)

For the first time, state and federal wildlife biologists have come together to map the migrations of ungulates - hooved mammals such as mule deer, elk, pronghorn, moose and bison - across America's West.

Released: 10-Nov-2020 3:35 PM EST
Researchers present wild theory: Water may be naturally occurring on all rocky planets
University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

The emergence of life is a mystery. Nevertheless, researchers agree that water is a precondition for life. The first cell emerged in water and then evolved to form multicellular organism. The oldest known single-cell organism on Earth is about 3.5 billion years old.

Released: 10-Nov-2020 6:05 AM EST
Lawrence Livermore and its partners provide researchers access to next-generation carbon dioxide storage simulator
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

After more than two years of joint research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Total, and Stanford University are releasing an open-source, high-performance simulator for large-scale geological carbon dioxide (CO2) storage.

Released: 10-Nov-2020 3:40 AM EST
Global analysis of forest management shows local communities often lose out
University of Manchester

Maintaining forest cover is an important natural climate solution, but new research shows that too often, communities lose out when local forest management is formalised.

Released: 5-Nov-2020 3:45 PM EST
Clay subsoil at Earth’s driest place may signal life on Mars
Cornell University

Diverse microbes discovered in the clay-rich, shallow soil layers in Chile’s dry Atacama Desert suggest that similar deposits below the Martian surface may contain microorganisms, which could be easily found by future rover missions or landing craft.

Released: 4-Nov-2020 1:05 PM EST
Magma 'conveyor belt' fuelled world's longest erupting supervolcanoes
Curtin University

International research led by geologists from Curtin University has found that a volcanic province in the Indian Ocean was the world's most continuously active -- erupting for 30 million years -- fuelled by a constantly moving 'conveyor belt' of magma.

Released: 3-Nov-2020 11:25 AM EST
New remote sensing technique could bring key planetary mineral into focus
Brown University

Planetary scientists from Brown University have developed a new remote sensing method for studying olivine, a mineral that could help scientists understand the early evolution of the Moon, Mars and other planetary bodies.

Released: 2-Nov-2020 2:20 PM EST
Warming of 2°C would release billions of tonnes of soil carbon
University of Exeter

Global warming of 2°C would lead to about 230 billion tonnes of carbon being released from the world's soil, new research suggests.

Released: 30-Oct-2020 3:50 PM EDT
Expect more mega-droughts
University of Queensland

Mega-droughts - droughts that last two decades or longer - are tipped to increase thanks to climate change, according to University of Queensland-led research.

Released: 28-Oct-2020 12:55 PM EDT
Using a volcano’s eruption ‘memory’ to forecast dangerous follow-on explosions
University of Bristol

Stromboli, the ‘lighthouse of the Mediterranean’, is known for its low-energy but persistent explosive eruptions, behaviour that is known scientifically as Strombolian activity. Occasionally, however, more intense and sudden explosions occur, most recently in July and August last year (2019). These are known as ‘Strombolian paroxysms’. During such events several of Stromboli’s craters are active simultaneously and much greater volumes of pyroclastic materials are erupted than is usual for the volcano.

Released: 27-Oct-2020 12:10 PM EDT
Back to the future of climate
ETH Zürich

Between 57 and 55 million years ago, the geological epoch known as the Paleocene ended and gave way to the Eocene. At that time, the atmosphere was essentially flooded by the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, with concentration levels reaching 1,400 ppm to 4,000 ppm. So it's not hard to imagine that temperatures on Earth must have resembled those of a sauna.

Released: 27-Oct-2020 10:10 AM EDT
Geologists simulate soil conditions to help grow plants on Mars
University of Georgia

Humankind’s next giant step may be onto Mars. But before those missions can begin, scientists need to make scores of breakthrough advances, including learning how to grow crops on the red planet.

Released: 23-Oct-2020 12:15 PM EDT
AI detects hidden earthquakes
Stanford University

In a recent paper published in Nature Communications, Mousavi and co-authors describe a new method for using artificial intelligence to bring into focus millions of these subtle shifts of the Earth. "By improving our ability to detect and locate these very small earthquakes, we can get a clearer view of how earthquakes interact or spread out along the fault, how they get started, even how they stop," said Stanford geophysicist Gregory Beroza, one of the paper's authors.

Released: 22-Oct-2020 12:55 PM EDT
Artificial intelligence reveals hundreds of millions of trees in the Sahara
University of Copenhagen

If you think that the Sahara is covered only by golden dunes and scorched rocks, you aren't alone.

Released: 22-Oct-2020 12:20 PM EDT
Simple actions can help people survive landslides
University of Washington

Simple actions can dramatically improve a person’s chances of surviving a landslide, show records from 38 landslides in the U.S. and around the world. People who survived landslides tended to have moved upstairs or to higher ground, among other key actions.

Released: 21-Oct-2020 3:05 PM EDT
A new way of looking at the Earth's interior
ETH Zürich

There are places that will always be beyond our reach. The Earth's interior is one of them.

Released: 20-Oct-2020 3:00 PM EDT
Lost and found: Geologists 'resurrect' missing tectonic plate
University of Houston

The existence of a tectonic plate called Resurrection has long been a topic of debate among geologists, with some arguing it was never real. Others say it subducted - moved sideways and downward - into the earth's mantle somewhere in the Pacific Margin between 40 and 60 million years ago.

12-Oct-2020 12:25 PM EDT
Ground-breaking discovery finally proves rain really can move mountains
University of Bristol

A pioneering technique which captures precisely how mountains bend to the will of raindrops has helped to solve a long-standing scientific enigma.

Released: 16-Oct-2020 10:45 AM EDT
Young Permafrost Provides New Insights on Climate Change
Department of Energy, Office of Science

Cold temperatures keep the microorganisms in permafrost dormant. Thawing could cause these microorganisms to degrade organic material, releasing carbon dioxide and methane. Scientists have now studied the diversity and metabolic capacity of microbial communities in a unique permafrost environment.



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