Geoscience
Researchers say they have discovered what likely triggered the eruption of a "supervolcano" that coated much of the western half of the United States with ash fallout 760,000 years ago.
This dramatic image of Io was taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on New Horizons at 11:04 Universal Time on February 28, 2007, just about 5 hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. The distance to Io was 2.5 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) and the image is centered at 85 degrees west longitude. At this distance, one LORRI pixel subtends 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) on Io.
'The Bermuda Triangle: Beneath the Waves' - An online BBC Television Documentary which includes a dramatic re-enactment of the disappearance of 'Flight 19' (see 'info') and appearances by Richard Winer and Phil Beck.
"..Over the last century a thousand ships have been reported lost without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle. Using state-of-the-art technology, we're going to unlock one of the Ocean's deepest secrets..."
[Updated February 27th: Info (Part 2) now available]
When the next big earthquake hits a region like San Francisco, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grantee Kristy Tiampo wants to ensure that communities will not only be able to evacuate, but also rebuild. This is why Tiampo, the NSERC and Benfield/ICLR Industrial Research Chair in Earthquake Hazard Assessment, is involved in an international effort to improve earthquake forecasting. She studied earthquake engineering in California as an undergraduate, and is now using her research to build better forecasting maps in Canada and other countries.
A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis has made the first 3-D model of seismic wave damping -- diminishing -- deep in the Earth's mantle and has revealed the existence of an underground water reservoir at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. It is the first evidence for water existing in the Earth's deep mantle.
Unique information has been obtained on the composition of the stratosphere in the course of investigations, conducted on board the Russian high-altitude aircraft M-55 “Geophysica”. The scientists are assisted in the analysis of these data by the International Science and Technology Centre. Information on this development of Russian scientists is located on the website of the International Science and Technology Centre (http://www.tech-db.ru).
Africa is being torn apart. And as Ethiopia's rift valley grows slowly wider, an international team of scientists is taking a unique opportunity to plot the progress of continents on the move.
The first scientific report into the causes and impact of Lusi, the Indonesian mud volcano, reveals that the 2006 eruption will continue to erupt and spew out between 7,000 and 150,000 cubic metres of mud a day for months, if not years to come, leaving at least 10 km2 around the volcano vent uninhabitable for years and over 11,000 people permanently displaced.
In assessing the probability of an earthquake, scientists rely on two important pieces of data that are often inconsistent. The past geological record sometimes tells one story, while current measurements from the Global Positioning System (GPS) tell another. But a new forecasting model designed by Stanford University geophysicists may help close the gap. "This is the most realistic model to date," said Kaj Johnson, assistant professor of geological sciences at Indiana University, who worked on the modeling project several years ago when he was a Stanford graduate student. "This is something people had been asking for years now. It's the next step."
For the first time, scientists have directly measured the amount of heat flowing from the molten metal of Earth's core into a region at the base of the mantle, a process that helps drive both the movement of tectonic plates at the surface and the geodynamo in the core that generates Earth's magnetic field.
A combination of luck and being in the right place at the right time allowed a University of Florida geologist and other scientists to capture and record an undersea volcanic eruption for the first time ever. The eruption, which took place early this spring thousands of feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, is described in a paper set for release Thursday in Science Express, the journal Science’s online magazine.
A Princeton-led research group has discovered an isolated community of bacteria nearly two miles underground that derives all of its energy from the decay of radioactive rocks rather than from sunlight. According to members of the team, the finding suggests life might exist in similarly extreme conditions even on other worlds.
Odd as it sounds, in some places the smartest way to safeguard the water supply is to let it drain out of the reservoirs and soak into the ground. That's what been discovered in local water shortages in Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico – all of which could be microcosms of water shortage issues looming throughout the Western U.S.
Droughts are slow, tortuous emergencies that seem to sneak up on us. It doesn't have to be that way, say a climatologist and a political scientist who point to a better way. It's perfectly possible to plan for droughts and minimize the losses they cause. In fact Australia has set in place policies that blaze a trail for the US follow to some extent, says Linda Botterill, a political scientist at the Australian National University in Canberra.
