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Geology News And Research - August 2009 Archives
 | Some slow-moving faults may help protect against destructive earthquakes, suggests new research. Until now, geologists thought when the crack between two pieces of the Earth's crust was at a very gentle slope, there was no movement along that particular fault line. Now two University of Arizona geoscientists have found that such a low-angle normal fault in Italy is moving slowly and steadily. ...> Full Article |
Cognitive scientists, geologists and vision scientists are teaming up to learn how expert geologists unconsciously view landscapes for clues that point the way to important discoveries. The National Science Foundation has awarded the team, led by the University of Rochester and including the Rochester Institute of Technology, $2 million over the next five years to find the answers.
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 | Long ago a group of Himalayan glaciers grew by several kilometers even while Central Asia's climate warmed up to six degrees Celsius.BYU professor Summer Rupper's analysis attributes much of the glacial growth to increased cloudiness and wind. Rupper is lending her glacier expertise to a project that will forecast the Indus River system's water supply for the coming decades. ...> Full Article |
Australian scientists using a climate model that includes a treatment of tiny particles -- or aerosols -- report that the build up of these particles in the northern hemisphere affects their simulation of recent climate change in the southern hemisphere, including rainfall in Australia.
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 | A new 2,000-year-long reconstruction of sea surface temperatures from the Indo-Pacific warm pool suggests that temperatures in the region may have been as warm during the Medieval Warm Period as they are today. ...> Full Article |
 | New analysis shows that the water scarcity being experienced in southeast Australia started up to 15 years ago. ...> Full Article |
 | New research by scientists at UC Santa Barbara indicates a possible Antarctic location for ice that seemed to be missing at a key point in climate history 34 million years ago. The research, which has important implications for climate change, is described in a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. ...> Full Article |
 | The first season of the international ice core drilling project NEEM completed ...> Full Article |
A team of scientists from Oregon State University has created the first global 3-D map of electrical conductivity in the Earth's mantle and their model suggests that that enhanced conductivity in certain areas of the mantle may signal the presence of water.
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Research at Virginia Tech has shown that the oldest complex life forms -- living in nutrient-rich oceans more than 540 million years ago -- likely fed by osmosis.
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Chemistry researchers uncover why the archean world was not frozen solid
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 | Three research institutes from the German federal state Bremen among others have set up an observation ward for the long-term observation of a mud volcano in the Norwegian deep sea. This took place during RV Polarstern's 24th Arctic expedition July 10-August 3. The endeavors are part of the project ESONET, funded by the European Union. ...> Full Article |
 | New research about what triggers earthquakes, authored by Michael Strasser of Bremen University, Germany, with colleagues from the USA, Japan, China, France and Germany, will appear in the Aug. 16, 2009 issue of Nature Geoscience (online version). The research article, titled "Origin and evolution of a splay-fault in the Nankai accretionary wedge" is drawn from the scientists' participation in the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE). ...> Full Article |
NOAA ships and scientists have returned to Alaska's Kachemak Bay to kick off year two of Hydropalooza -- a NOAA-led project to develop the most detailed seafloor and coastline maps ever generated of the area.Kachemak Bay, one of Alaska's most productive and ecologically diverse estuaries, supports maritime commerce, ferry transportation, fishing, and recreational boating. Up-to-date NOAA nautical charts are needed to ensure safe navigation, manage coastal resources and support local planning.
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Analysis shows climate change to yield more extreme rainfall
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Surveyors and scientists from NOAA's Office of Coast Survey and Oregon State University over the next two years will create the most detailed maps ever generated of the seafloor along Oregon's coast. Using the latest technologies, they will measure water depth, search for navigational hazards, and record the natural features of coastal seabeds and fragile aquatic life. The images will help researchers and coastal managers protect coastal communities and marine habitat.
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Using a technique called "ambient noise correlation," University of Illinois seismologist Xiaodong Song and graduate student Zhen J. Xu have observed significant changes in the behavior of parts of Earth's crust that were disturbed by three major earthquakes.
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 | The thinning of a gigantic glacier in Antarctica is accelerating, scientists warned today. ...> Full Article |
Prediction models can identify eroded waterways from digital terrain information, and thereby identify placement of grassed waterways to reduce soil erosion
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 | An interdisciplinary team of scientists from the University of Miami, University of Rochester, University of Idaho-Moscow and the Instituto Geofisico, Escuela Politecnica Nacional (Quito, Ecuador) have joined to study one the world's most active volcanoes, Sierra Negra in the Galapagos. Using an NSF grant they deployed a seismic network of 16 stations around Isla Isabela, which will record data for the next three years. ...> Full Article |
Using satellite data, UC Irvine and NASA hydrologists have found that groundwater beneath northern India has been receding by as much as 1 foot per year over the past decade -- and they believe human consumption is almost entirely to blame.
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 | Scientists of the Geesthacht GKSS Research Centre have developed a radar system with which it is possible to study the behaviour of sea waves. This technology will be used immediately on the North Sea on the FINO3 research platform in order to determine the interactions between offshore wind power machines and swells. ...> Full Article |
Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years -- they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth's rotation and axis.
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 | When Alaska's Kasatochi Volcano erupted on Aug. 7, 2008, it virtually sterilized Kasatochi Island, covering the small Aleutian island with a layer of ash and other volcanic material several meters thick. The eruption also provided a rare research opportunity: the chance to see how an ecosystem develops from the very first species to colonize the island. ...> Full Article |
 | How H2O helps tectonic plates slide in New Zealand ...> Full Article |
Simulations point to changes in water depth and currents as increasing likelihood of rogue waves
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 | The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, with industry partner AGR Drilling Services, has engineered an ultra-deepwater drilling technology for use by IODP drilling vessels in scientific research. Originally developed for shallow-water oil and gas exploration, the "riserless mud recovery" technology holds great promise for scientists striving to reach the long-held goal of Project Mohole in the 1950s: drilling through ocean crust into the Earth's mantle; a frontier not yet explored today. ...> Full Article |
New research involving scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, highlights the potential utility of iron isotopes for addressing important questions in ocean science. The findings are published in the August edition of the journal Geology.
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 | A research program aimed at using platinum as an exploration guide for nickel has for the first time been able to put a time scale on the planet's large-scale convection processes. ...> Full Article |
 | For the first time in the history of scientific ocean drilling, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program conducted operations using the riser capabilities of the Japan-sponsored research vessel, CHIKYU, to successfully drill down to a depth of 1,603.7 meters beneath the sea floor (at water depth of 2,054 meters), in an earthquake-generating zone. ...> Full Article |
Geoengineering -- deliberately manipulating physical, chemical or biological aspects of the Earth system to confront climate change -- could contribute to a comprehensive risk management strategy to slow climate change but could also create considerable new risks, according to a policy statement released by the American Meteorological Society today.
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