News tagged with geologic record
Ice sheets can expand in a geologic instant, Arctic study shows
(PhysOrg.com) -- A fast-moving glacier on the Greenland Ice Sheet expanded in a geologic instant several millennia ago, growing in response to cooling periods that lasted not much longer than a century, according ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 14, 2011 |
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Study finds climate changes faster than species can adapt
The ranges of species will have to change dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100 because the climate will change more than 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, ...
Dec 05, 2011 |
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Researchers pinpoint date and rate of Earth's most extreme extinction
It's well known that Earth's most severe mass extinction occurred about 250 million years ago. What's not well known is the specific time when the extinctions occurred. A team of researchers from North America ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 17, 2011 |
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Supervolcanoes: Not a threat for 2012
The geological record holds clues that throughout Earth's 4.5-billion-year lifetime massive supervolcanoes, far larger than Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo, have erupted. However, despite the claims of ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 15, 2011 |
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Why did the Southern Gulf of California rupture so rapidly?
The November GSA Today science article, "Why did the Southern Gulf of California rupture so rapidly? -- Oblique divergence across hot, weak lithosphere along a tectonically active margin," is now online.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 03, 2011 |
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History's normal rate of species disappearance is accelerating, scientists say
Biologist E.O. Wilson once pondered whether many of our fellow living things were doomed once evolution gave rise to an intelligent, technological creature that also happened to be a rapacious carnivore, fiercely territorial ...
Jul 31, 2011 |
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Atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup unlikely to spark abrupt climate change
There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades, and some have speculated the same could happen again as ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jun 20, 2011 |
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Climate played big role in Vikings' disappearance from Greenland
The end of the Norse settlements on Greenland likely will remain shrouded in mystery. While there is scant written evidence of the colony's demise in the 14th and early 15th centuries, archaeological remains ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 30, 2011 |
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Unexpected exoskeleton remnants found in Paleozoic fossils
Surprising new research shows that, contrary to conventional belief, remains of chitin-protein complex -- structural materials containing protein and polysaccharide -- are present in abundance in fossils of ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 07, 2011 |
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Putting the dead to work
Conservation paleobiologists -- scientists who use the fossil record to understand the evolutionary and ecological responses of present-day species to changes in their environment -- are putting the dead to ...
Jan 14, 2011 |
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Species loss tied to ecosystem collapse and recovery
The world's oceans are under siege. Conservation biologists regularly note the precipitous decline of key species, such as cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish and sharks. Lose enough of these top-line predators (among ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 10, 2011 |
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Rolling the dice with evolution: Massive extinction will have unpredictable consequences
(PhysOrg.com) -- New research by Macquarie University palaeobiologist, Dr John Alroy, predicts major changes to the rules of evolution as we understand them now. Those changes will have serious consequences for future biodiversity ...
Sep 03, 2010 |
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First Fossil-Makers in Hot Water
Microbe mats in Yellowstone's hot springs may be living analogs of the primordial microbe communities that constructed the oldest rock fossils on Earth.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 02, 2010 |
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New study finds link between marine algae and whale diversity over time
A new paper by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Otago in New Zealand shows a strong link between the diversity of organisms at the bottom of the food chain and the diversity of mammals at the top.
Feb 19, 2010 |
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Biologists merge methods, results from different disciplines to find new meaning in old data
A growing number of scientists are merging methods and results from different disciplines to extract new meaning from old data, says a team of researchers in a recent issue of Evolution.
Jan 11, 2010 |
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