Earth Sciences news

Statistics experts reject global cooling claims

Oct 26, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (92) | 23

(AP) -- Have you heard that the world is now cooling instead of warming? You may have seen some news reports on the Internet or heard about it from a provocative new book.

African desert rift confirmed as new ocean in the making

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 02, 2009 | 4.9 / 5 (36) | 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled ...

Previously Unknown Volcanic Eruption Helped Trigger Cold Decade

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 29, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (27) | 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of chemists from the U.S. and France has found compelling evidence of a previously undocumented large volcanic eruption that occurred exactly 200 years ago, in 1809.

Greenland ice cap melting faster than ever

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 12, 2009 | 3.6 / 5 (32) | 24

Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is loosing mass at an accelerating rate, reports a new study in Science.

Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 18, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (21) | 28

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis ...

Early life on Earth may have developed more quickly than thought (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 11, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (18) | 0

The Earth's climate was far cooler -- perhaps more than 50 degrees -- billions of years ago, which could mean conditions for life all over the planet were more conducive than previously believed, according ...

Earthquakes actually aftershocks of 19th century quakes

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 04, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (19) | 13

(PhysOrg.com) -- When small earthquakes shake the central U.S., citizens often fear the rumbles are signs a big earthquake is coming. Fortunately, new research instead shows that most of these earthquakes ...

Record high temperatures far outpace record lows across US (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 12, 2009 | 3 / 5 (28) | 7

Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs ...

Oceans' uptake of manmade carbon may be slowing

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 18, 2009 | 3.8 / 5 (22) | 9

The oceans play a key role in regulating climate, absorbing more than a quarter of the carbon dioxide that humans put into the air. Now, the first year-by-year accounting of this mechanism during the industrial ...

Volcanoes played pivotal role in ancient ice age, mass extinction

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 26, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (15) | 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers here have discovered the pivotal role that volcanoes played in a deadly ice age 450 million years ago.

A new wrinkle in ancient ocean chemistry

Ancient ocean chemistry: Effects of biological oxygen production 100 million years before it accumulated in atmosphere

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 29, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (13) | 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists widely accept that around 2.4 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere underwent a dramatic change when oxygen levels rose sharply. Called the "Great Oxidation Event" (GOE), the ...

Life's Ancient Island in the Ice

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 29, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (12) | 3

During the last ice age, massive glaciers covered much of our planet. However, a region of Alaska, Siberia and the Canadian Yukon remained ice-free. This region, known as Beringia, supported unique organisms ...

Atomic Particles Help Solve Planetary Puzzle

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 10, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (12) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Arkansas professor and his colleagues have shown that the Earth's mantle contains the same isotopic signatures from magnesium as meteorites do, suggesting that the planet formed ...

Earth's early ocean cooled more than a billion years earlier than thought: Stanford study

Earth's early ocean cooled more than a billion years earlier than thought (w/ Video)

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 11, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (12) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- The scalding-hot sea that supposedly covered the early Earth may in fact never have existed, according to a new study by Stanford University researchers who analyzed isotope ratios in 3.4 ...

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 19, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (11) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground ...