Earth Sciences news

Hawaiian hot spot has deep roots

Hawaiian hot spot has deep roots

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 03, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (11) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Hawaii may be paradise for vacationers, but for geologists it has long been a puzzle. Plate tectonic theory readily explains the existence of volcanoes at boundaries where plates split apart ...


Map - France - UK

'Super-river' formed the English Channel

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (17) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Anglo-French scientists studying sedimentary deposits in the Bay of Biscay have concluded that Britain and France were separated by a "super-river" during three periods of glaciations, ...


Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years ago

Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years ago

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 23, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (17) | comments 3

A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, ...


After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 19, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (12) | comments 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 ...


Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica

Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 18, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (26) | comments 31

(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 ...


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

created Nov 11, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 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 ...


Deep creep means milder, more frequent earthquakes along Southern California's San Jacinto fault

Deep creep means milder, more frequent earthquakes along Southern California's San Jacinto fault

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 08, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1

With an average of four mini-earthquakes per day, Southern California's San Jacinto fault constantly adjusts to make it a less likely candidate for a major earthquake than its quiet neighbor to the east, the ...


Study: Earth more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously thought

Study: Earth more sensitive to carbon dioxide than previously thought

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 06, 2009 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (30) | comments 46

In the long term, the Earth's temperature may be 30-50% more sensitive to atmospheric carbon dioxide than has previously been estimated, reports a new study published in Nature Geoscience this week.


Samoan Tsunami wave was 46 feet high

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 04, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0

(AP) -- The tsunami that killed more than 200 people in the Samoan islands and Tonga earlier this year towered up to 46 feet (14 meters) high - more then twice as tall as most of the buildings it slammed into, scientists ...


San Andreas fault

Quake prediction model developed

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 03, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The third in a series of papers in the journal Nature completes the case for a new method of predicting earthquakes.


Antarctica served as climatic refuge in Earth's greatest extinction event

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 02, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 0

A new fossil species suggests that some land animals may have survived the end-Permian extinction by living in cooler climates in Antarctica. Researchers have identified a distant relative of mammals that apparently survived ...


Acid test: Study reveals both losers and winners of CO2-induced ocean acidification

Acid test: Study reveals both losers and winners of CO2-induced ocean acidification

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (12) | comments 8

(PhysOrg.com) -- As the world’s seawater becomes more acidic due to rising atmospheric carbon dioxide, some shelled marine creatures may actually become bigger and stronger, according to a new study.


A closer look at the Hudson Canyon shows why the canyon is critical for fish

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 01, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1

A series of newly discovered pits in the bottom of the Hudson Canyon, 100 miles southeast of New York Harbor, may be a key ingredient for the abundant and diverse marine ecosystem in and around the canyon, according to research ...


Big freeze plunged Europe into ice age in months

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 30, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (17) | comments 7

In the film, 'The Day After Tomorrow' the world enters the icy grip of a new glacial period within the space of just a few weeks. Now new research shows that this scenario may not be so far from the truth after all.


Past regional cold and warm periods linked to natural climate drivers

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 26, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (19) | comments 28

Intervals of regional warmth and cold in the past are linked to the El Niño phenomenon and the so-called "North Atlantic Oscillation" in the Northern hemisphere's jet stream, according to a team of climate scientists. These ...