fascinating earth science

Endangered Coral and Climate Change

2007-06-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

Caribbean coral species are dying off, indicating dramatic shifts in the ecological balance under the sea, a new scientific study of Caribbean marine life shows..........

Science Daily

North American Birds Shift Northward Due to Global Warming

2007-06-11T16:35:00.000-07:00

A new study in Conservation Biology analyzed the breeding ranges of North American birds over a 26-year period. The results show that the ranges have shifted northward; coinciding with a period of increasing global temperatures. These results were similar to those found in studies conducted in Great Britain, showing the worldwide extent of these distributional changes..........

Science Daily

Diamonds from Outer Space

2007-01-10T07:05:00.000-08:00

If indeed "a diamond is forever," the most primitive origins of Earth's so-called black diamonds were in deep, universal time, geologists have discovered. Black diamonds came from none other than interstellar space..........

Science Daily

Hot Prehistoric Conditions Could Return By 2100?

2006-10-01T07:59:00.000-07:00

Earth's future could resemble its hottest ancient epoch, a new study says. Picture palm trees swaying in Canada, warm seas lapping at shorelines hundreds of feet higher than they are today—and no natural ice anywhere..........

National Geographic News

Study Suggests Dramatic Climate Changes During Dinosaur Era

2006-09-29T05:40:00.000-07:00

Ancient rocks from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean suggest dramatic climate changes during the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era, a time once thought to have been monotonously hot and humid..........

Science Daily

Study Finds Earth Reaching Warmest Levels Since Thousands of Years Ago

2006-09-28T08:44:00.000-07:00

The study appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, authored by James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, N.Y. and colleagues from Columbia University, Sigma Space Partners, Inc., and the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). The study concludes that, because of a rapid warming trend over the past 30 years, the Earth is now reaching and passing through the warmest levels in the current interglacial period, which has lasted nearly 12,000 years. This warming is forcing a migration of plant and animal species toward the poles..........

Science Daily

Liquid Carbon Dioxide Lake Beneath the Ocean

2006-08-31T05:41:00.000-07:00

A team of scientists based in Japan and Germany has found an unusual "lake" of liquid carbon dioxide beneath the ocean floor..........

National Geographic News

Increased Methane Release from Oceans on the Horizon?

2006-08-30T05:29:00.000-07:00

The last two times the Earth warmed considerably and put glaciers on the run, huge plumes of the potent greenhouse gas methane bubbled out of the ocean off the California coast.

An international team of researchers say they think they know why. If they're right, manmade greenhouse warming could unleash fresh plumes of seabed methane along the North American and European coasts that could make the planet warmer still and speed the acidification of the oceans..........

InsideBayArea.com

Ocean Floor Gas Vents Provide Clues to Global Warming

2006-07-21T04:42:00.000-07:00

Gas escaping from the ocean floor may provide some answers to understanding historical global warming cycles and provide information on current climate changes, according to a team of scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The findings are reported in the July 20 on-line version of the scientific journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles..........

Science Daily

Research Shows Abrupt Global Climate Shifts

2006-06-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

..........Their conclusions mark a massive climate shift to a cooler regime that occurred just over 5,000 years ago, and a more recent reversal to a much warmer world within the last 50 years.
The evidence also suggests that most of the high-altitude glaciers in the planet's tropical regions will disappear in the near future. The paper is included in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Lastly, the research shows that in most of the world, glaciers and ice caps are rapidly retreating, even in areas where precipitation increases are documented. This implicates increasing temperatures and not decreasing precipitation as the most likely culprit..........

Science Daily

New Study Shows Much of World Emerged From Last Ice Age Together

2006-06-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

..........a new study appearing in the upcoming issue of the journal Science suggests that, except for regions of the North Atlantic, most of the Earth did, in fact, begin warming at the same time roughly 17,500 years ago. In addition, scientists suggest that ice core records from Greenland, which show that average temperatures there did not warm appreciably until about 15,000 years ago, may have remained in a hyper-cold state largely as a result of events triggered by warming elsewhere..........

Science Daily

New Study Revises View on How Continents Split

2006-05-25T04:29:00.000-07:00

Like pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle, continents have split, drifted and merged again many times throughout Earth’s history, but geologists haven’t understood the mechanism behind the moves. A new study now offers evidence that continents sometimes break along preexisting lines of weakness created when small chunks of land attach to a larger continent..........

Science Daily

Clues to How Antarctica Evolved

2006-04-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ancient fish teeth are yielding clues about when Antarctica became the icy continent it is today, highlighting how ocean currents affect climate change..........

Science Daily

Scientists Confirm Historic Massive Flood in Climate Change

2006-03-01T05:08:00.000-08:00

Scientists from NASA and Columbia University, New York, have used computer modeling to successfully reproduce an abrupt climate change that took place 8,200 years ago. At that time, the beginning of the current warm period, climate changes were caused by a massive flood of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean..........

Science Daily

Oceans Increasing Acidity May Lead to Mass Extinctions

2006-02-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Increased carbon dioxide emissions are rapidly making the world's oceans more acidic and, if unabated, could cause a mass extinction of marine life similar to one that occurred 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared..........

Science Daily

New Evidence of North American-Europe Land Bridge

2006-01-04T14:10:00.000-08:00

The tiny fossilized tooth of a new species of opossum-like mammal that lived 66 million years ago presents new evidence that a land bridge existed between North America and Europe during the age of the dinosaurs..........

Edmonton Journal

Global Warming Accelerating the Rise of Oceans

2005-11-26T15:13:00.000-08:00

Global ocean levels are rising twice as fast today as they were 150 years ago, and human-induced warming appears to be the culprit, say scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and collaborating institutions..........

Science Daily

Early Earth Had Continents

2005-11-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

A surprising new study by an international team of researchers has concluded Earth's continents most likely were in place soon after the planet was formed, overturning a long-held theory that the early planet was either moon-like or dominated by oceans.......... Science Daily

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Summer in 2105 Will Be Much Hotter

2005-10-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

A study conducted by scientists in the U.S. and Italy warns that summers could be a lot hotter in a hundred years because of global warming caused by greenhouse gases..........

National Geographic News

Early Oceans Too Toxic For Advanced Life Forms

2005-10-12T05:19:00.000-07:00

NASA exobiology researchers confirmed Earth's oceans were once rich in sulfides that would prevent advanced life forms, such as fish and mammals, from thriving. The research was funded in part by NASA's exobiology program..........

Read More in ScienceDaily

The Lava Dome at Mount St. Helens

2005-07-03T06:25:00.000-07:00

A large part of the growing lava dome on Mount St. Helens fell Saturday, sending an ash plume above the crater rim, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. A rock fall had caused what scientists called a "substantial seismic signal" and knocked the chunk off the lava dome. The volcano was relatively quiet for the rest of the day..........

The Top Unanswered Science Questions

2005-07-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

The journal, Science, has posted it's top 25 unanswered science questions. Reading the questions is an education in itself.

Mountain-Building Sped Up

2005-07-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

Geologists at Queen's University have discovered that the time it takes for mountain ranges to form is millions of years shorter than previously thought. This controversial finding could have implications for our understanding of other geological processes that shaped the Earth, says Professor James Lee and postdoctoral fellow Alfredo Camacho of Queen's Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering Department. The study will appear in the June 30 edition of the international journal Nature........... Physorg.com July 1, 2005 Read More

A New Ocean Being Created

2005-06-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

Research at the University of Leicester Department of Geology is confirming how a plume of hot mantle rock rising beneath Africa is splitting the continental crust apart and driving a plate tectonic sequence that could eventually form a new ocean in Ethiopia..........

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Early Earth a Wet Place

2005-06-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

Using a newly developed thermometer made of zircon, researchers have found evidence that environmental conditions on early Earth, within 200 million years of the solar system's formation, were characterized by liquid-water oceans and continental crust similar to those of the present day.

The findings are reported in the May 6 issue of the journal Science.
"Our data support recent theories that Earth began a pattern of crust formation, erosion, and sediment recycling as early in its evolution as 4.35 billion years ago, which contrasts with the hot, violent environment envisioned for our young planet by most researchers and opens up the possibility that life got a very early foothold," said Bruce Watson, a geochemist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York..........

ScienceDaily, June 1, 2005

Map Of Life On Earth Could Be Used On Mars

2005-05-13T06:10:00.000-07:00

May 9, 2005 — A geologist from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new techniques to render a more coherent story of how primitive life arose and diverged on Earth — with implications for Mars.........

-- ScienceDaily, May 13, 2005

California is Parting from the Mainland

2005-05-11T05:32:00.000-07:00

The dynamics of plate tectonics will ensure that California eventually becomes one giant peninsula, with a view of the water not just to the west, but to the east, as well.

Read the Article

Earth's Ancient Sea More Like a Great Salt Lake

2005-05-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

The ancient sea was more like a giant salty lake than a rolling ocean, report scientists from Imperial College London in the May edition of the Journal of the Geological Society. A new computer model that simulates how tides in North West Europe would have behaved 300 million years ago shows a sea with so little movement that it was unlike any on Earth today...........

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Vegetation Changes Influence Extreme Weather

2005-05-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A Purdue University climatologist has found that vegetation can significantly affect extreme weather, a discovery that could add a new piece to the global warming puzzle...........

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Earth Four Billion Years Ago: Warm and Pleasant

2005-05-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

The first half billion years of our planet were long believed to be a hellish mix of fiery eruptions, swirling lava and incessant meteorites.

Not so. They were in fact balmy and pleasant, with cool oceans, blue skies and the same amount of landmass as today, according to new scientific research published yesterday.......