News tagged with oxygen isotopes

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 ...

53 million-year-old high Arctic mammals wintered in darkness

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Jun 01, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (17) | 74

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ancestors of tapirs and ancient cousins of rhinos living above the Arctic Circle 53 million years ago endured six months of darkness each year in a far milder climate than today that featured ...

Half-baked asteroids have Earth-like crust

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Jan 07, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (3) | 2

Asteroids are hunks of rock that orbit in the outer reaches of space, and scientists have generally assumed that their small size limited the types of rock that could form in their crusts. But two newly discovered ...

Theory of the sun's role in formation of the solar system questioned

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Sep 04, 2008 | 4.7 / 5 (35) | 7

A strange mix of oxygen found in a stony meteorite that exploded over Pueblito de Allende, Mexico nearly 40 years ago has puzzled scientists ever since. Small flecks of minerals lodged in the stone and thought ...

Snail fossils suggest semiarid eastern Canary Islands were wetter 50,000 years ago

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 27, 2009 | 2.5 / 5 (2) | 0

Fossil land snail shells found in ancient soils on the subtropical eastern Canary Islands show that the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa has become progressively drier over the past 50,000 years.

Abrupt global warming could shift monsoon patterns, hurt agriculture

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Jun 11, 2009 | 2.2 / 5 (6) | 2

At times in the distant past, an abrupt change in climate has been associated with a shift of seasonal monsoons to the south, a new study concludes, causing more rain to fall over the oceans than in the Earth's tropical regions, ...

Ancient mammals shifted diets as climate changed

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Jun 03, 2009 | 4 / 5 (3) | 2

A new University of Florida study shows mammals change their dietary niches based on climate-driven environmental changes, contradicting a common assumption that species maintain their niches despite global ...

Carbon and oxygen in tree rings can reveal past climate information

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 03, 2009 | 3 / 5 (4) | 1

The analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopes embedded in tree rings may shed new light on past climate events in the Mackenzie Delta region of northern Canada.

Peruvian stalagmites a new basis for 'Inconvenient truth'?

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Apr 29, 2009 | 2.9 / 5 (7) | 5

Will the Netherlands that is dominated by water succumb to the 'Inconvenient Truth' predicted by Al Gore? Dutch researcher Martin van Breukelen analysed stalagmites from the South American Amazon tributaries in Peru. He used ...

Researchers Study Cave's 'Breathing' for Better Climate Clues

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Mar 09, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (3) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Arkansas researcher studying the way caves "breathe" is providing new insights into the process by which scientists study paleoclimates.