Geology News And Research - January 2009 Archives

'Fossil earthquakes' abundant (1/31/2009)

Rocks formed only under the extreme heat and friction during earthquakes, called pseudotachylytes, may be more abundant than previously reported, according to new research focused on eight faults found in the Sierra Nevada. ...> Full Article

Geoengineering could complement mitigation to cool the climate (1/30/2009)

The first comprehensive assessment of the climate cooling potential of different geoengineering schemes has been carried out by researchers at the University of East Anglia. ...> Full Article

Charcoal evidence tracks climate changes in Younger Dryas (1/30/2009)

A new study reports that charcoal particles left by wildfires in sediments of 35 North American lake beds don't readily support the theory that comets exploding over the continent 12,900 years ago sparked a cooling period known as the Younger Dryas. However, researchers did find clear links between abrupt climate changes and fire activity during the transition between the last Ice Age and the warm interglacial period that began 11,700 years ago. ...> Full Article

The Dead Sea: Tectonic concurrence below ten kilometers of sediments (1/30/2009)

The Dead Sea lies in a basin structure situated below the sea level. This deep subsidence is a result of a tectonic concurrence between processes in the upper lithosphere that led to subsiding and a compensating upward flow of rocks in the deeper layers of the lithosphere. ...> Full Article

US scientific ocean drilling vessel sets sail for science sea trials (1/29/2009)

After a complete transformation to modernize and upgrade the research vessel JOIDES Resolution (JR, for short), the ship has set sail from the Singapore shipyard where the work was done, for science sea trials and transit to Honolulu. ...> Full Article

Comet impact theory disproved (1/28/2009)

New data, published today, disproves the recent theory that a large comet exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, causing a shock wave that traveled across North America at hundreds of kilometers per hour and triggering continent-wide wildfires. Dr. Sandy Harrison from the University of Bristol and colleagues tested the theory by examining charcoal and pollen records to assess how fire regimes in North America changed between 15 and 10,000 years ago, a time of large and rapid climate changes. ...> Full Article

The continents as a heat blanket (1/25/2009)

Drifting of the large tectonic plates and the superimposed continents is not only powered by the heat-driven convection processes in the Earth's mantle, but rather retroacts on this internal driving processes. In doing so, the continents function as a thermal blanket, which leads to an accumulation of heat underneath, and which in turn can cause the break-up of the super-continents. ...> Full Article

Sea bed provides information about present climatic change (1/24/2009)

Knowing climatic variability in the geological past provides climatic change scenes which help us to understand the responses of future climatic system components.Sapropels (sediments rich in organic matter) of Eastern Mediterranean are an excellent example of the relationship between climate and preferential accumulation of organic matter in sediments, and the conclusions applied can be extended to other present and past environments. ...> Full Article

Danube delta holds answers to 'Noah's flood' debate (1/24/2009)

Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions drown the shores of the Black Sea 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic settlements around its perimeter? A geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and two Romanian colleagues report in the January issue of Quaternary Science Reviews that, if the flood occurred at all, it was much smaller than previously proposed by other researchers. ...> Full Article

Off the shelf maps help mitigate volcanic hazards (1/23/2009)

When volcanoes erupt, pinpointing the regions at high risk for lethal hazards and deciding whether or not to evacuate a resistant population comprise the most difficult problems faced by hazards managers. Now a team of volcanologists has a program that maps potential problem areas quickly, taking much of the guesswork out of decision making and evacuations. ...> Full Article

Satellites confirm half-century of West Antarctic warming (1/23/2009)

The Antarctic Peninsula juts into the Southern Ocean, reaching farther north than any other part of the continent. The southernmost reach of global warming was believed to be limited to this narrow strip of land, while the rest of the continent was presumed to be cooling or stable. Not so, according to a new analysis involving NASA data. In fact, the study has confirmed a trend suspected by some climate scientists. ...> Full Article

Cosmic rays detected deep underground reveal secrets of the upper atmosphere (1/22/2009)

Cosmic rays detected half a mile underground in a disused US iron-mine can be used to detect major weather events occurring 20 miles up in the Earth's upper atmosphere, a new study has revealed. ...> Full Article

Satellites help locate water in Niger (1/22/2009)

Like most sub-Saharan African countries, Niger faces problems meeting its water needs. As part of ESA's TIGER initiative, satellite data are being used to identify underground water resources in the drought-prone country. ...> Full Article

Satellites search out South Pole snowfields (1/21/2009)

As skiers across the world pay close attention to the state of the snow on the slopes, there are a different group of scientific snow-watchers looking closely at a South Pole snowfield this January. ...> Full Article

Report calls aerosol research key to improving climate predictions (1/20/2009)

Scientists need a more detailed understanding of how human-produced atmospheric particles, called aerosols, affect climate in order to produce better predictions of Earth's future climate, according to a NASA-led report issued by the US Climate Change Science Program on Friday. ...> Full Article

Arctic heats up more than other places (1/18/2009)

Glacier and ice-sheet melting, sea-ice retreat and coastal erosion expected as a result ...> Full Article

Cenozoic sedimentary records and geochronological constraints of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau uplift (1/17/2009)

The Northeastern part of the present-day Qinghai-Tibet region had a higher elevation than the Southwestern part until the earliest Miocene, i.e., circa 23 million years ago. Thereafter, two phases (12-8 and 5 million years ago) of intensive differential tectonic uplifting led to a significant geomorphologic reversal, resulting in the Southwest/Northeast tilting of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as seen today. ...> Full Article

Study links swings in North Atlantic oscillation variability to climate warming (1/16/2009)

Using a 218-year-long temperature record from a Bermuda brain coral, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have created the first marine-based reconstruction showing the long-term behavior of one of the most important drivers of climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic. ...> Full Article

Dirty snow causes early runoff in Cascades, Rockies (1/15/2009)

Soot from pollution causes winter snowpacks to warm, shrink and warm some more. This continuous cycle sends snowmelt streaming down mountains as much as a month early, a new study finds, which could exacerbate winter flooding and summer droughts. How pollution affects a mountain range's natural water reservoirs is important for water resource managers in the western United States and Canada who plan for hydroelectricity generation, fisheries and farming. ...> Full Article

Soil maps generate reliable Quaternary geologic map (1/14/2009)

New research conducted at Iowa State University led to the successful creation of a detailed Quaternary geological map for the Des Moines Lobe with a user-controlled level of scale, with the results of the research published in the Winter 2008 issue of Soil Survey Horizons. ...> Full Article

Sea level rise of 1 meter within 100 years (1/13/2009)

New research indicates that the ocean could rise in the next 100 years to a meter higher than the current sea level -- which is three times higher than predictions from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. The groundbreaking new results from an international collaboration between researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, England and Finland are published in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics. ...> Full Article

Floods to become commonplace by 2080 (1/12/2009)

Storms across the UK set to increase in intensity by up to 30 percent in the next 75 years, new research shows. ...> Full Article

Decline of carbon-dioxide-gobbling plankton coincided with ancient global cooling (1/11/2009)

The evolutionary history of diatoms -- abundant oceanic plankton that remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air each year -- needs to be rewritten, according to a new Cornell study. The findings suggest that after a sudden rise in species numbers, diatoms abruptly declined about 33 million years ago -- trends that coincided with severe global cooling. ...> Full Article

Sequence matters in droughts and floods (1/9/2009)

New study investigates effects of extreme hydrological events on vegetation ...> Full Article

Volcanoes cool the tropics, say researchers (1/7/2009)

Climate researchers have shown that big volcanic eruptions over the past 450 years have temporarily cooled weather in the tropics but suggest that such effects may have been masked in the 20th century by rising global temperatures. ...> Full Article

Stronger coastal winds due to climate change may have far-reaching effects (1/3/2009)

Future increases in wind strength along the California coast may have far-reaching effects, including more intense upwelling of cold water along the coast early in the season and increased fire danger in Southern California, according to researchers at the Climate Change and Impacts Laboratory at UC Santa Cruz. ...> Full Article

Trapped water cause of regular tremors under Vancouver Island (1/2/2009)

University of British Columbia researchers are offering the first compelling evidence to explain regular tremors under Vancouver Island. ...> Full Article

6 North American sites hold 12,900-year-old nanodiamond-rich soil (1/2/2009)

Discoveries consistent with theory of Clovis-age disruption by cosmic event, says 9-member team ...> Full Article