Feature Channels: Geology

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Researcher Don Hood from LSU and colleagues from collaborating universities studied an unusual region on Mars -- an area with high elevation called Thaumasia Planum. They analyzed the geography and mineralogy of this area they termed Greater Thaumasia, which is about the size of North America. They also studied the chemistry of this area based on Gamma Ray Spectrometer data collected by the Mars Odyssey Orbiter, which was launched in 2001. What they found was the mountain ridge that outlines Greater Thaumasia was most likely created by a chain of volcanoes. The results were published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets.

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The scroll-like structure of the newly discovered mineral merelaniite grows into tiny, silver-gray whiskers. A physicist from Michigan Tech found the mineral on a sample of larger minerals from the Merelani Mining District in Tanzania.

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A comet strike may have triggered the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a rapid warming of the Earth caused by an accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide 56 million years ago, which offers analogs to global warming today.

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In a paper published today in Scientific Reports, Assistant Professor of Geology Mainak Mookherjee explores how feldspar, one of the most important minerals in the Earth’s crust, changes under pressure. Typically, materials become stiffer when pressure is applied, but Mookherjee found that these pale-colored crystals actually become softer under extreme pressures.

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How do you make half the mass of two continents disappear? To answer that question, you first need to discover that it’s missing. That’s what a trio of University of Chicago geoscientists and their collaborator did, and their explanation for where the mass went significantly changes prevailing ideas about what can happen when continents collide.

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A billion years ago, the core of what was to become North America nearly ripped apart, creating a huge branched scar that extends from the tip of Lake Superior deep into the Midwest. Washington University in St. Louis scientists are using data from seismometers they placed across and along the rift to take a good hard look.

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Scientists have developed a method to estimate weakness in the Earth’s outer layers which will help explain and predict volcanic activity and earthquakes.

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"Rockd" serves both amateur rock lovers and professional geologists. For amateurs, "the goal is to help people discover the natural history that is recorded all around them. People see rocks at highway cuts, and some may wonder what they are and when they formed. The answers to many of these questions exist in the databases that we tap into."

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Study: Overpumping of groundwater to supply one of the planet’s largest cities could be jeopardizing the future water supply for citizens living outside the city center.

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As scientists continue finding evidence for life in the ocean more than 3 billion years ago, those ancient fossils pose a paradox that raises questions about whether there was more land mass than previously thought.

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Scientists say ocean fossils found in mountains are cause for concern over future sea levels

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An expert comments on a new study on the Greenland Ice Sheet that provides valuable insight on climate change. The research uses unique research methods to establish new estimates of ice loss for both modern and ancient times, the expert explains.

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A popular geosciences mobile app, developed by the University of Minnesota, just received a major upgrade. The free Flyover Country app now includes 53 new field trip guides for Colorado and surrounding states, including almost 400 field trip stops.

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Every material can bend and break. Through nearly a century’s worth of research, scientists have had a pretty good understanding of how and why. But, according to new findings from Drexel University materials science and engineering researchers, our understanding of how layered materials succumb to stresses and strains was lacking. The report suggests that, when compressed, layered materials — everything from sedimentary rocks, to beyond-whisker-thin graphite — will form a series of internal buckles, or ripples, as they deform.

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Utah’s iconic Rainbow Bridge hums with natural and man-made vibrations, according to a new University of Utah study, published September 21 in Geophysical Research Letters. The study characterizes the different ways the bridge vibrates and what frequencies and energy sources cause the rock structure to resonate. The vibrations are small, according to geology and geophysics professor Jeff Moore, but the study provides a baseline measure of the bridge’s structural integrity and shows how human activities can rattle solid rock.

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Professor Mathew Schmidtlein will discuss his research findings Sept. 27 in an on-campus lecture.

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If you chop a magnet in half, you end up with two smaller magnets. Both the original and the new magnets have “north” and “south” poles. But what if single north and south poles exist, just like positive and negative electric charges? These hypothetical beasts, known as “magnetic monopoles,” are an important prediction in several theories.

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New research published Monday (Sept. 19) in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark and the University of Wisconsin–Madison illuminates where and why novel species combinations are likely to emerge due to recent changes in temperature and precipitation.

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Addressing fundamental unknowns about the earliest history of Earth’s crust, scientists have precisely dated the world’s oldest rock unit at 4.02 billion years old. Driven by the University of Alberta, the findings suggest that early Earth was largely covered with an oceanic crust-like surface.

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The winds that gust across the Tibetan Plateau have done so for far longer than previously believed, showing they are resilient to the formation of mountains and changes in carbon dioxide and temperature.

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In the popular nursery story The Three Little Pigs, the prudent porker who builds his house of brick is chided by his pals, who choose much easier ways to construct their respective abodes. Only later in the cautionary tale does the reader discover the benefits of extra cost and effort in erecting shelter.

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The leading theory for the moon's formation got in trouble recently when it was revealed that the moon and Earth are isotopic twins. Now highly precise measurements of the isotopes of an element that was still condensed at the "cut off" temperature when material started to fall back to Earth suggest a dramatic solution to the problem.

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With three new detectors coming online in the next several years, scientists are confident they will collect enough geoneutrino data to measure Earth's fuel level

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With support from NASA, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are exploring whether RNA could have formed on early Earth deep beneath the ocean's surface or deep underground.

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Geography and ecology are key factors that have influenced the genetic makeup of human groups in southern Africa, according to new research discussed in the journal GENETICS, a publication of the Genetics Society of America. By investigating the ancestries of twenty-two KhoeSan groups, including new samples from the Nama and the ≠Khomani, researchers conclude that the genetic clustering of southern African populations is closely tied to the ecogeography of the Kalahari Desert region.

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Although there is significant evidence of ice on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in orbit between Mars and Jupiter, an analysis of the surface geology indicates that ice is not a major factor in forming surface features, according to a paper in the September issue of Science magazine.

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Historic changes to Antarctic sea ice could be unravelled using a new technique pioneered by scientists at Plymouth University.

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Click here to go directly to the Environment News Source.

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MIAMI--An international team of scientists used a state-of-the-art computer model, a high-powered supercomputer, and five billion 'virtual' coral larvae to test Charles Darwin's 1880 hypothesis that marine species cannot cross the Eastern Pacific's "impassable" marine barrier. The team, which included University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Associate Professor Claire Paris, found that Darwin's theory still hold true today even under extreme El Niño conditions known to speed up ocean currents.

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Extensive systems of fossilised riverbeds have been discovered on an ancient region of the Martian surface, supporting the idea that the now cold and dry Red Planet had a warm and wet climate about 4 billion years ago, according to UCL-led research.

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Increased sea temperatures could dramatically enhance and accelerate radiation-induced DNA effects in marine invertebrates, a new study suggests.

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West Virginia University geologist Kathleen Benison is part of a research team using new direct methods to measure the Earth’s oxygenation. The team’s study identifies, for the first time, exactly how much oxygen was in Earth’s atmosphere 813 million years ago—10.9 percent. This finding, they say, demonstrates that oxygenation on Earth occurred 300 million years earlier than previously concluded from indirect measurements, even predating Earth’s earliest life forms.

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Large-scale groundwater pumping is opening doors for dangerously high levels of arsenic to enter some of Southeast Asia's aquifers, with water now seeping in through riverbeds with arsenic concentrations more than 100 times the limits of safety, according to a new study from scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, MIT, and Hanoi University of Science.

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The amount of sea level rise in the Pacific Ocean can be used to estimate future global surface temperatures, according to a new report led by University of Arizona geoscientists.

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Nearly two years ago, on August 24, 2014, just south of Napa, California, a fault in the Earth suddenly slipped, violently shifting and splitting huge blocks of solid rock, 6 miles below the surface. The underground upheaval generated severe shaking at the surface, lasting 10 to 20 seconds. When the shaking subsided, the magnitude 6.0 earthquake -- the largest in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1989 -- left in its wake crumpled building facades, ruptured water mains, and fractured roadways.

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A Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing in the highlands of northern Greece has been dendrocronologically dated to be more than 1075 years old. This makes it currently the oldest known living tree in Europe. The millenium old pine was discovered by scientists from Stockholm University (Sweden), the University of Mainz (Germany) and the University of Arizona (USA).

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Venus may have had a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures for up to 2 billion years of its early history, according to computer modeling of the planet's ancient climate by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

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Liquid methane-filled canyons hundreds of meters deep with walls as steep as ski slopes etch the surface of Titan, researchers report in a new study. The new findings provide the first direct evidence of these features on Saturn's largest moon, and could give scientists insights into Titan's origins and similar geologic processes on Earth, according to the study's authors.

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A solar storm that jammed radar and radio communications at the height of the Cold War could have led to a disastrous military conflict if not for the U.S. Air Force's budding efforts to monitor the sun's activity, a new study finds.

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A new report from the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis offers a big picture look at the scale and impacts of nitrogen in California. According to the report, excess nitrogen in the state comes primarily from agriculture and fossil fuel combustion. For years, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources scientists have been working with farmers throughout the state to refine fertilizer management, irrigation efficiency and other farming practices to manage nitrogen, and the work continues. The following are some examples of current UC ANR research and extension projects to manage nitrogen.

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Mineral veins found in Mars's Gale Crater were formed by the evaporation of ancient Martian lakes, a new study has shown.

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Climate change is threatening to expose hazardous waste at an abandoned camp thought to be buried forever in the Greenland Ice Sheet, new research out of York University has found.

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NDSU faculty and students conduct world-class research, searching for answers to important questions. In a recent study, NDSU researchers explored how major floods affect the growth and development of unborn children.

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New research by University of Montana forest landscape ecology Professor Solomon Dobrowski shows that organisms will face more hardships as they relocate when climate change makes their current homes uninhabitable.

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In a study published in Scientific Reports, scientists discovered impressive abundance and diversity among the creatures living on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ)--an area in the equatorial Pacific Ocean being targeted for deep-sea mining. The study, lead authored by Diva Amon, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), found that more than half of the species they collected were new to science, reiterating how little is known about life on the seafloor in this region.

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A new study by an international team of scientists reveals the exact timing of the onset of the modern monsoon pattern in the Maldives 12.9 million years ago, and its connection to past climate changes and coral reefs in the region. The analysis of sediment cores provides direct physical evidence of the environmental conditions that sparked the monsoon conditions that exist today around the low-lying island nation and the Indian subcontinent.

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New research from the University of British Columbia suggests evolution is a driving mechanism behind plant migration, and that scientists may be underestimating how quickly species can move.

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Effective carbon capture and storage or "CCS" in underground reservoirs is one possible way to meet ambitious climate change targets demanded by countries and international partnerships around the world. But are current technologies up to the task of securely and safely corralling buoyant carbon dioxide (CO2) for at least 10,000 years - the minimum time period required of most agreements?