Feature Channels: Geology

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There is a “silent hazard” lurking underneath our major global cities, and our buildings were not designed to handle it.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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A recent study by scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and collaborators found that many of the fossils from Germany’s Posidonia shale do not get their gleam from pyrite, commonly known as fool’s gold, which was long thought to be the source of the shine. Instead, the golden hue is from a mix of minerals that hints at the conditions in which the fossils formed.

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Geoscientists have detected specific gases being released from fractured rocks in real time after a series of small chemical explosions set underground. This fundamental research, led by Sandia National Laboratories geoscientist Steve Bauer, could one day improve the prediction of earthquakes or detection of underground explosions.

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Hundreds of villagers who live in the shadow of the Western Hemisphere’s deadliest volcano, Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz, have been on edge for nearly a month ever since the 17,000-foot-tall mountain started spewing plumes of ash and steam high into the atmosphere, indicating that an eruption could be imminent.

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In Physics of Fluids, researchers develop an early warning system that combines acoustic technology with AI to immediately classify earthquakes and determine potential tsunami risk. They propose using underwater microphones, called hydrophones, to measure the acoustic radiation produced by the earthquake, which carries information about the tectonic event and travels significantly faster than tsunami waves. The computational model triangulates the source of the earthquake and AI algorithms classify its slip type and magnitude. It then calculates important properties like effective length and width, uplift speed, and duration, which dictate the size of the tsunami.

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Researcher will discuss the study which involved a sleeping aid known as suvorexant that is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for insomnia, hints at the potential of sleep medications to slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

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Researchers know a lot about Turkey’s next major earthquake. They can pinpoint the probable epicenter, estimate its strength and see the spatial footprint of where damage is most likely to occur.