U seismologists are analyzing decades of seismic data in the hope of discerning the significance of earthquake swarms in a geologically complex region known as a geothermal hotspot and for recent—geologically speaking—volcanism.
Researchers at a field site in Victoria, Australia are among the first to use fiber optic distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) for high-precision tracking of induced seismicity from a small carbon dioxide (CO2) injection, according to a new study published in Seismological Research Letters.
A Southwest Research Institute-led team has modeled the early impact history of Venus to explain how Earth’s sister planet has maintained a youthful surface despite lacking plate tectonics.
A large portion of Greenland was an ice-free tundra landscape — perhaps covered by trees and roaming wooly mammoths — in the recent geologic past (about 416,000 years ago), according to a new study in the journal Science. The results shed light on the stability of the Greenland ice sheet over the last two and a half million years. Instead, moderate warming (mean global temperatures of 1 to 1.5°C above pre-industrial values) that lasted 30, 000 years, from 420,000 to 390,000 years ago, led to significant melting (at least 20% of the total Greenland Ice sheet volume).
A new study from Tel Aviv University and Tel-Hai College solves an old mystery: Where did early humans in the Hula Valley get flint to make the prehistoric tools known as handaxes?
No, oxygen didn’t catalyze the swift blossoming of Earth’s first multicellular organisms. The result defies a 70-year-old assumption about what caused an explosion of oceanic fauna hundreds of millions of years ago.
Researchers have gained important insights about mysterious structures 1,800 miles below the Earth’s surface—and how they may be connected to volcanoes.
Scientists at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) have developed a radar technique that lets them image hidden features within the upper few feet of ice sheets. The researchers behind the technique said that it can be used to investigate melting glaciers on Earth as well as detect potentially habitable environments on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
A new study featuring data from the NASA Mars Perseverance rover reports on an instrumental detection potentially consistent with organic molecules on the Martian surface, hinting toward past habitability of the Red Planet.
Beneath the water’s surface lays a hidden world: one that cannot be perceived by the human eye. When viewed through a special camera, however, rich polarization patterns are unveiled. These patterns can be used as an alternative approach to geolocation- the process of determining the geographic position of an object.
An international research team involving scientists from the University of Vienna, the Faculty of Physics of the University of Warsaw and Univeristy of Edinburgh has described the process of growing three-dimensional manganese dendrites.
What would a traveler from the future think if one day s/he could analyze the rocks that are currently forming on the planet? Surely, this person would find quite a few plastic fragments and wonder why this material was so abundant in rocks of a certain age on Earth.
A study from Caltech shows that the early Earth accreted from hot and dry materials, indicating that our planet's water—the crucial component for the evolution of life—must have arrived late in the history of Earth's formation.
University of Queensland researchers have optimised a new technique to help forecast how volcanoes will behave, which could save lives and property around the world.
A team of astrophysicists at the University of Toronto (U of T) has revealed how the slow and steady lengthening of Earth’s day caused by the tidal pull of the moon was halted for over a billion years.
How Earth’s inner core formed, grew and evolved over time remains a mystery, one that a team of University of Utah-led researchers is seeking to plumb with the help of seismic waves from naturally occurring earthquakes.
A new research finding shows that a likely large Earth-like granite system is present on the Moon. The finding, details of which are published in a Nature paper, may help expand knowledge of geothermal lunar processes.
A large formation of granite discovered below the lunar surface likely was formed from the cooling of molten lava that fed a volcano or volcanoes that erupted early in the Moon’s history – as long as 3.5 billion years ago.
An international research team has discovered that a subduction zone's age affects the ability for it to recycle water between the Earth's surface and its inner layers
Scientists have wondered what happens to the organic and inorganic carbon that Earth’s Pacific Plate carries with it as it slides into the planet’s interior along the volcano-studded Ring of Fire.
An international team led by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities has, for the first time, accurately determined the age of the East Anatolian fault, allowing geologists to learn more about its seismic history and tendency to produce earthquakes.
A team led by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin has filled a major gap in the state’s fossil record – describing the first known Jurassic vertebrate fossils in Texas.
A study led by the University of Oxford has brought us one step closer to solving a mystery that has puzzled naturalists since Charles Darwin: when did animals first appear in the history of Earth?
The recent tragic loss of the Titan submersible in the depths of the North Atlantic has brought the fascinating (and very dangerous) world of Oceanography and Marine Science to the forefront. Below are some recent stories that have been added to the Marine Science channel on Newswise, including expert commentary on the Titan submersible.
FSU Assistant Professor Richard Bono was part of a multi-institution team that found evidence that the planet’s magnetic field was stable from 3.9 to 3.4 billion years ago, a time when scientists think life may have first originated.
New research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters showed that the plume emitted by the Hunga Volcano eruption in 2022 created the highest lightning flash rates ever recorded on Earth, more than any storm ever documented.
Situated 60 kilometers beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, the magma channel covers more than 100,000 square kilometers, and originated from the Galápagos Plume more than 20 million years ago, supplying melt for multiple magmatic events — and persisting today.
By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone, according to a new study.
An innovative, decade-long experiment in the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains shows carbon stocks buried deep underground are vulnerable to climate change. The findings have implications for mitigating global warming through the natural carbon sinks provided by soil and forests which capture 25% of all carbon emissions.
As we enter the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere and the possibility of extreme heat becomes more common, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the science of heat waves and take measures to protect ourselves from this growing public health threat.
Chen Zhu, a globally recognized geologist and professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, has been awarded $736,000 from the National Science Foundation to solve long-standing gaps in scientists’ understanding of CO2-water-rock interactions that naturally remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The first side-necked turtle ever to be found in the UK has been discovered by an amateur fossil collector and palaeontologists at the University of Portsmouth.
Cratons are pieces of ancient continents that formed several billions of years ago. Their study provides a window as to how processes within and on the surface of Earth operated in the past.
To investigate the role eddies play in determining the path of the ITF, an international research group has harnessed a high-resolution ocean general circulation model that reproduces eddies.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies have discovered that variations in the thickness of tectonic plates relate directly to the distribution of earthquakes in Britain, Ireland and around the world.
A new study published in Geology evaluates the potential for cobalt extraction from the Idaho Cobalt Belt (ICB) of east-central Idaho, using a detailed study of the Iron Creek deposit. The ICB hosts the second largest known domestic resource of the critical mineral cobalt, one of the key ingredients in many rechargeable batteries needed for the green energy transition.
Underwater volcanism on the Earth's crust are active contributors of many different elements to the oceanic environment. Hence, they play an important role in biogeochemical and chemosynthetic cycles of the ocean.
Three studies now published in the open-access journal The Seismic Record offer an initial look at the February 6, 2023 earthquakes in south-central Türkiye and northwestern Syria, including how, where, and how fast the earthquakes ruptured and how they combined as a “devastating doublet” to produce damaging ground shaking.
The Taylor Geospatial Institute announces the inaugural group of TGI fellows. The program enables TGI member institutions to recruit and retain distinguished researchers in geospatial science fields, develop the next generation of scientific leaders and catalyze collaboration to accelerate the St. Louis region’s development as a global geospatial center of excellence.
A new study led by climate researchers at Columbia Engineering and the University of Exeter demonstrates that the treaty’s impact reaches all the way into the Arctic: its implementation is delaying the occurrence of the first ice-free Arctic by as much as 15 years.
Sensors that detect changes in atmospheric pressure due to ground shaking can also obtain data about large earthquakes and explosions that exceed the upper limit of many seismometers, according to new research.
In addition to the 18-member Executive Board, the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) has a General Council that serves to further the mission of the organization. These individuals are highly engaged volunteers who have a passion for undergraduate research and contribute as thought leaders.
Stony Brook University will honor the life and legacy of eminent paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician Richard E. Leakey by hosting “Africa: The Human Cradle: An International Conference Paying Tribute to Richard E. Leakey” from June 5 - 9, 2023 at the university’s Charles B. Wang Center. The Turkana Basin Institute (TBI) and Stony Brook are hosting the conference, in partnership with the National Geographic Society. Thought leaders from around the world will celebrate the immeasurable, life-long contributions by Leakey to furthering the appreciation of Africa’s centrality in the narrative of human evolution.
Every second, the planet loses a stretch of forest equivalent to a football field due to logging, fires, insect infestation, disease, wind, drought, and other factors.
A new report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) shows that the world’s average temperature could breach a record 1.5 Celsius of warming compared to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. News reports call the WMO announcement a critical warning of an average world temperature limit in the face of climate. Researchers indicate the threshold could be broken as early as 2027.
A research team, composed of climatologists and an astronomer, have used an improved computer model to reproduce the cycle of ice ages (glacial periods) 1.6 to 1.2 million years ago. The results show that the glacial cycle was driven primarily by astronomical forces in quite a different way than it works in the modern age. These results will help us to better understand the past, present, and future of ice sheets and the Earth’s climate.
Scientists at Flinders University have used sub-surface imaging and aerial surveys to see through floodplains in the Red Lily Lagoon area of West Arnhem Land in Northern Australia.
New research from Cornell and the Smithsonian Institution deepens the geological understanding of Earth’s continents by testing and ultimately eliminating a popular hypothesis about why continental and oceanic crusts have contrasting compositions.
In a new report published this spring in the Geological Society of America journal Geosphere, a UNLV-led research team outlines how it identified and bestowed a moniker upon a previously unexplored 500 million-year-old Grand Canyon formation: The Frenchman Mountain Dolostone.