PHYSorg.com: Earth Sciences News
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en-usPhysOrg TeamPhysOrg.com provides the latest news on earth science, astronomy and space exploration.New radar helps monitor site of century-old tragedy(PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Alberta researcher has turned the site of a southern Alberta rockslide tragedy into the proving ground for new equipment meant to avert such a disaster in the future.
http://www.physorg.com/news178547053.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-27T12:25:08-07:00Past regional cold and warm periods linked to natural climate driversIntervals of regional warmth and cold in the past are linked to the El Niņo phenomenon and the so-called "North Atlantic Oscillation" in the Northern hemisphere's jet stream, according to a team of climate scientists. These linkages may be important in assessing the regional effects of future climate change.
http://www.physorg.com/news178459644.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-26T14:10:05-07:00Aqua satellite sees Tropical Storm Bongani approaching Mozambique ChannelNASA's Aqua satellite flew over Cyclone Bongani today and provided some important data that have helped forecasters figure out where the storm is headed, and helped them see that it has changed course.
http://www.physorg.com/news178381962.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-25T16:00:02-07:00NASA's Aqua satellite sees Nida explode into a category 5 Super typhoonTyphoon Nida is in a favorable environment that has enabled it to intensify faster and stronger than previously forecast, and has now exploded into a Super typhoon. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Nida and captured a visible image of the storm revealing a clear eye, which indicates a strong typhoon.
http://www.physorg.com/news178381705.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-25T14:31:18-07:00Oceanic crust formation is dynamic after allImagine the Earth's crust as the planet's skin: Some areas are old and wrinkled while others have a fresher, more youthful sheen, as if they had been regularly lathered with lotion.
http://www.physorg.com/news178381626.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-25T14:27:50-07:00Ships warned about icebergs headed for New Zealand(AP) -- Ships are on alert and maritime authorities are monitoring the movements of hundreds of menacing icebergs drifting toward New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean, officials said.
http://www.physorg.com/news178374623.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-25T12:33:50-07:00Small faults in Southeast Spain reduce earthquake risk of larger onesA team of Spanish scientists, studying recent, active deformations in the Baetic mountain range, have shown that the activity of smaller tectonic structures close to larger faults in the south east of the Iberian Peninsula partially offsets the risk of earthquakes.
http://www.physorg.com/news178368974.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-25T10:57:11-07:00Icebergs head from Antarctica for New Zealand(AP) -- Ships in the south Pacific Ocean have been alerted that hundreds of icebergs believed to have split off Antarctic ice shelves are drifting north toward New Zealand, officials said Tuesday.
http://www.physorg.com/news178297000.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-24T15:30:01-07:00LSU gets to the bottom of things -- in AntarcticaAntarctica has long held secrets of the earth's history locked in its icy depths, and until recently, there has been very little information on the environments that have been sealed beneath miles of ice for millions of years. Now, a team of researchers from nine institutions - including LSU - have been funded to the tune of $10 million dollars by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, to get to the bottom of things - literally. These scientists will drill through the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica to directly access a subglacial lake and the cavity below the ice shelf.
http://www.physorg.com/news178293790.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-24T14:40:02-07:00Oceans absorbing carbon dioxide more slowly, scientist findsThe world's oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide (CO2), a Yale geophysicist has found after pooling data taken over the past 50 years. With the oceans currently absorbing over 40 percent of the CO2 emitted by human activity, this could quicken the pace of climate change, according to the study, which appears in the November 25 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.
http://www.physorg.com/news178293345.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-24T13:56:18-07:00Researchers Establish Common Seasonal Patterns Among Bacterial Communities in Arctic Rivers(PhysOrg.com) -- New research on bacterial communities throughout six large Arctic river ecosystems reveals predictable temporal patterns, suggesting that scientists could use these communities as markers for monitoring climate change in the polar regions. The study, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, shows that bacterial communities in the six rivers shifted synchronously over time, correlating with seasonal shifts in hydrology and biogeochemistry.
http://www.physorg.com/news178280399.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-24T11:20:01-07:00From Greenhouse to IcehouseA new study that reconstructed ocean temperatures from millions of years ago could provide new insight into how the Earth responds to climate change.
http://www.physorg.com/news178272697.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-24T08:12:24-07:00Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years agoA 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, researchers report.
http://www.physorg.com/news178210720.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-23T14:59:10-07:00Using new technique, scientists find 11 times more aftershocks for 2004 quake(PhysOrg.com) -- Using a technique normally used for detecting weak tremor, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that the 2004 magnitude 6 earthquake along the Parkfield section of the San Andreas fault exhibited almost 11 times more aftershocks than previously thought. The research appears online in Nature Geoscience and will appear in print in a forthcoming edition.
http://www.physorg.com/news178201188.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-23T12:50:07-07:00Intensive land management leaves Europe without carbon sinksA new calculation of Europe's greenhouse gas balance shows that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide tip the balance and eliminate Europe's terrestrial sink of greenhouse gases.
http://www.physorg.com/news178200670.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-23T12:12:17-07:00Antarctic ice loss vaster, faster than thought: studyThe East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study.
http://www.physorg.com/news178122015.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-22T14:50:06-07:00New Method to Measure Snow, Soil Moisture With GPS May Benefit Meteorologists, Farmers(PhysOrg.com) -- A research team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder has found a clever way to use traditional GPS satellite signals to measure snow depth as well as soil and vegetation moisture, a technique expected to benefit meteorologists, water resource managers, climate modelers and farmers.
http://www.physorg.com/news177948533.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-20T14:20:07-07:00International expedition investigates climate change, alternative fuels in ArcticScientists from the Marine Biogeochemistry and Geology and Geophysics sections of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) organized and led a team of university and government scientists on an Arctic expedition to initiate methane hydrate exploration in the Beaufort Sea and determine the spatial variation of sediment contribution to Arctic climate change.
http://www.physorg.com/news177948181.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-20T14:08:11-07:00El Nino intensifies Latin America droughtFrom a devastating food crisis in Guatemala to water cuts in Venezuela, El Nino has compounded drought damage across Latin America this year.
http://www.physorg.com/news177921078.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-20T06:50:11-07:00Paleontologists find extinction rates higher in open-ocean settings during mass extinctionsArnie Miller, University of Cincinnati professor of paleontology in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, and co-author Michael Foote of the University of Chicago publish their research in the Nov. 20 issue of Science with their paper, "Epicontinental Seas Versus Open-Ocean Settings: The Kinetics of Mass Extinction and Origination."
http://www.physorg.com/news177873594.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-19T17:23:28-07:00Rich Ore Deposits Linked to Ancient Atmosphere(PhysOrg.com) -- Much of our planet's mineral wealth was deposited billions of years ago when Earth's chemical cycles were different from today's. Using geochemical clues from rocks nearly 3 billion years old, a group of scientists including Andrey Bekker and Doug Rumble from the Carnegie Institution have made the surprising discovery that the creation of economically important nickel ore deposits was linked to sulfur in the ancient oxygen-poor atmosphere.
http://www.physorg.com/news177863954.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-19T15:30:01-07:00After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape(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 sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction.
http://www.physorg.com/news177864298.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-19T14:45:49-07:00Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica(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 of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.
http://www.physorg.com/news177773495.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-18T13:32:16-07:00Oceans' uptake of manmade carbon may be slowingThe 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 era suggests the oceans are struggling to keep up with rising emissions -- a finding with potentially wide implications for future climate. The study appears in this week's issue of the journal Nature.
http://www.physorg.com/news177772960.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-18T13:23:43-07:00QuikScat and Aqua providing important data on Tropical Storm AnjaAnja has continued to weaken over the last 24 hours, and NASA's QuikScat satellite has confirmed that the once mighty Category 4 Cyclone is now a tropical storm in the southern Indian Ocean. Two instruments on NASA's Aqua satellite have also helped forecasters determine Anja's location and change of shape.
http://www.physorg.com/news177765379.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-18T11:17:36-07:00El Nino Could Play A Role In Colorado's Winter Weather, Scientist Says (PhysOrg.com) -- El Nino, a warming event of the tropical Pacific Ocean that affects weather patterns in the United States and elsewhere, has strengthened in recent months and already appears to have influenced Colorado's fall weather, says Klaus Wolter, an atmospheric scientist with the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
http://www.physorg.com/news177701606.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-17T17:50:07-07:00Cyclone Anja hits wind shear, weakens drasticallyThis morning, Cyclone Anja was a powerful Category 4 cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Wind shear has now giving Anja a strong "punch in the gut" as the storm has weakened to a Category 1 cyclone.
http://www.physorg.com/news177693888.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-17T15:40:02-07:00Ancient high-altitude trees grow faster as temperatures risePIC=32536:left]Increasing temperatures at high altitudes are fueling the post-1950 growth spurt seen in bristlecone pines, the world's oldest trees, according to new research.
http://www.physorg.com/news177608541.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-16T16:30:01-07:00Terra satellite spots Tropical Cyclone Anja, the first of the southern seasonNASA's Terra satellite captured a stunning image of Anja, the first tropical cyclone of the southern Hemisphere cyclone season. When Anja formed on Saturday, November 14, in the Southern Indian Ocean, about 330 miles south-southwest of Diego Garcia it was designated Tropical Cyclone 01S ("S" for south). By Sunday, November 15, 01S had strengthened into a tropical storm and was named Anja.
http://www.physorg.com/news177606562.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-16T16:10:02-07:00Volatile gas could turn Rwandan lake into a freshwater time bombA dangerous level of carbon dioxide and methane gas haunts Lake Kivu, the freshwater lake system bordering Rwanda and the Republic of Congo.
http://www.physorg.com/news177606996.html
Space & Earth - Earth Sciences2009-11-16T15:50:02-07:00