Top Stories 5-13-2016
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World’s first known multicellular green plant made its debut more than 500 million years ago.
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NMSU researchers have received a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to study the origins of magma in the Cascade Arc.
In 2012, the United States experienced the warmest spring on record followed by the most severe drought since the Dust Bowl. A team of scientists used a network of Ameriflux sites to map the carbon flux across the United States during the drought.
For the first time ever, an international research team under his direction studied the geographical pattern by which new species of corals and reef fish evolved over the millions of years of evolutionary history using a computer model.
Dr. Phillip Bitzer of The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) wants to learn more about long-stroke lightning that makes things sizzle.
Geochemists from Trinity College Dublin's School of Natural Sciences may have found a solution to a long-debated problem as to where - and how - life first formed on Earth.
The tiny crystals probably formed in huge impact craters not long after Earth formed, some 4 billion years ago
Rainwater may play an important role in the process that triggers earthquakes, according to new research.
A team of researchers led by faculty at the University of Georgia has discovered the fate of much of the freshwater that pours into the surrounding oceans as the Greenland ice sheet melts every summer. They published their findings today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
With the monsoon fast approaching, the landslide risk in Nepal remains high a year after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake that killed more than 8,000 people, according to a University of Michigan-led research team.
Researchers have figured out what makes certain chemicals accumulate to toxic levels in aquatic food webs. And, scientists have developed a screening technique to determine which chemicals pose the greatest risk to the environment.
A University of Wyoming researcher contributed to a paper that has apparently solved an age-old riddle of how constituent continents were arranged in two Precambrian supercontinents -- then known as Nuna-Columbia and Rodinia. It's a finding that may have future economic implications for mining companies.
The massive icefield that feeds Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier may be gone by 2200 if warming trend predictions hold true, according to University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers.
In the April 6 issue of the journal Nature Communications, a new study used fossils and mercury isotopes from volcanic gas deposited in ancient proto-Pacific Ocean sediment deposits in Nevada to determine when life recovered following the end-Triassic mass extinction 201.5 million years ago.
An international team that includes University of Montana researcher Jesse Johnson has learned that the Earth's internal heat enhances rapid ice flow and subglacial melting in Greenland.
Study provides new tool to probe meltwater drainage should also help project glacial response to climate change, says University of Oregon researcher.
It's a mystery that has stumped geologists for more than a century. Now, thanks to new technology - including satellite laser imagery - researchers may be one step closer to understanding the origins of an archetypal landform: the drumlin hill.
The earliest instrumental records of Earth’s climate, as measured by thermometers and other tools, start in the 1850s. To look further back in time, scientists investigate air bubbles trapped in ice cores, which expands the window to less than a million years. But to study Earth’s history over tens to hundreds of millions of years, researchers examine the chemical and biological signatures of deep sea sediment archives.
The formation of a distinct pattern of sea surface temperatures in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean can predict an increased chance of summertime heat waves in the eastern half of the United States up to 50 days in advance.
Australian scientists have uncovered the important role of specialist bacteria in the formation and movement of platinum and related metals in surface environments.
The best way to figure out how something is made is to take it apart and put it back together again. That is what Jessica Larsen and her students do at the Geophysical Institute’s Petrology Lab in order to understand active volcanoes in Alaska.
Terrestrial biosphere is contributing to climate change because of human activities including agriculture.
A technique developed by Northern Arizona University researchers can help invasive pest managers make more informed decisions about how to control Japanese beetles and the extensive damage they cause.
New light has been shed on the processes by which ocean water enters the solid Earth during continental breakup. Research led by geoscientists at the University of Southampton, and published in Nature Geoscience this week, is the first to show a direct link on geological timescales between fault activity and the amount of water entering the Earth’s mantle along faults.
New research in Nature Communications sheds light on what happens when a supervolcano erupts. The study combines recent lab tests with vintage field data — some of it captured in colorful Kodachrome slides — to provide insight on how rivers of hot ash and gas travel huge distances in supereruptions.
University of Chicago scientists have discovered evidence in a meteorite that a rare element, curium, was present during the formation of the solar system. This finding ends a 35-year-old debate on the possible presence of curium in the early solar system.
When UO historian Mark Carey hired Jaclyn Rushing, an undergraduate student in the Robert D. Clark Honors College, to explore how nongovernmental organizations were addressing melting Himalayan glaciers, he got an unexpected return.
A Florida State University student has cracked the code to reveal the deep and interesting history of an ancient meteorite that likely formed at the time our planets were just developing.
Jennifer Jacquet, an assistant professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies, has received a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation to examine the feasibility of altering fisheries policies on the high seas.
UCLA geochemist finds striking similarities between climate change patterns today and millions of years ago.
In the February 18, 2016 issue of Science, researchers from UCSB and including a DOE JGI team report that anaerobic gut fungi perform as well as the best fungi engineered by industry in their ability to convert plant material into sugars that are easily transformed into fuel and other products.
A spate of major earthquakes on small faults could overturn traditional views about how earthquakes start, according to a study from researchers at the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior in Ensenada, Mexico, and the University of California, Davis.
Predicting the expected loss of ice sheet mass is difficult due to the complexity of modeling ice sheet behavior. To better understand this loss, a team of Sandia National Laboratories researchers has been improving the reliability and efficiency of computational models that describe ice sheet behavior and dynamics.
Understanding the complex geological processes that form supervolcanoes could ultimately help geologists determine what triggers their eruptions. A new study using an advanced computer model casts doubt on previously held theories about the Yellowstone supervolcano’s origins, adding to the mystery of Yellowstone’s formation.
MyShake Android app crowdsources ground shaking from smartphone accelerometers.
A geologic event known as diking can cause strong earthquakes -- with a magnitude between 6 and 7, according to an international research team.
The mysterious crack that opened up in Michigan's Upper Peninsula first puzzled scientists. Now, a team from Michigan Tech with the Seismological Society of America has determined the structure is a geological pop-up feature.
In Japan and areas like the Pacific Northwest where megathrust earthquakes are common, scientists may be able to better forecast large quakes based on periodic increases and decreases in the rate of slow, quiet slipping along the fault.
UCLA-led research reconstructs massive crash, which took place 4.5 billion years ago.
Around 720-640 million years ago, much of the Earth’s surface was covered in ice during a glaciation that lasted millions of years. Explosive underwater volcanoes were a major feature of this ‘Snowball Earth’, according to new research led by the University of Southampton.
Scientists from the University of Southampton have uncovered evidence of a previously unknown large volcanic eruption in the Caribbean Sea.
American Geophysical Union and Council on Undergraduate Research Partner to Advance Undergraduate Science Education
Villages on the moon, constructed through cooperation between astronauts and robotic systems on the lunar surface, could become a reality as early as 2030. That’s the consensus of a recent international conference of scientists, engineers and industry experts, including Clive Neal, a University of Notre Dame planetary geologist.
Precise reconstruction of regional climate changes in the past.
In their article for Geosphere, R. Craig Kochel and colleagues discuss the geomorphic impact of the flooding caused Tropical Storm Lee in September 2011 on several large watersheds of the Susquehanna River in the Appalachian Plateau region of north-central Pennsylvania. Unlike many Appalachian floods, the physical impacts to channels and floodplains were extensive.