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Geology News And Research - July 2009 Archives
Researchers at the University of Liverpool have discovered that the Amazon river, and its transcontinental drainage, is around 11 million years old and took its present shape about 2.4 million years ago
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 | Researchers discovered new faults that reveal how earthquake-induced stress is transferred below Southern California's Salton Sea ...> Full Article |
 | Mine shafts on the point of being closed down could be used to provide geothermal energy to local towns. This is the conclusion of two engineers from the University of Oviedo, whose research is being published this month in the journal Renewable Energy. The method they have developed makes it possible to estimate the amount of heat that a tunnel could potentially provide. ...> Full Article |
 | Oil and gas started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and were heated under layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could have been created deeper in the mantle and formed without organic matter. Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under conditions of the upper mantle.
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 | Scientists have recorded a decline in winter precipitation over the past 60 years in Spain, and they now forecast that precipitation will also decrease in spring and summer. A team from the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology has studied rainfall data from 1950 to 2006 and the climate projections for coming decades, showing that less rain will fall in future over the Iberian Peninsula. However, precipitation will continue to be more frequent in winter than in spring and summer. ...> Full Article |
Four expert speakers attended an event organized by the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Academy of Engineering on July 15 at the House of Commons to address an audience curious about geoengineering the planet to combat the effects of global warming; the solutions it offers and the concerns it raises.
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 | Nanosized diamonds found just a few meters below the surface of Santa Rosa Island off the coast of Santa Barbara provide strong evidence of a cosmic impact event in North America approximately 12,900 years ago, according to a new study by scientists. Their hypothesis holds that fragments of a comet struck across North America at that time. ...> Full Article |
 | Indications for volcanic eruptions in the younger geological history found ...> Full Article |
A new method for capturing significantly more heat from low-temperature geothermal resources holds promise for generating virtually pollution-free electrical energy. Scientists at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will determine if their innovative approach can safely and economically extract and convert heat from vast untapped geothermal resources.
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 | A global warming event 55 million years ago cannot be solely explained by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, a study published in Nature Geoscience shows. Richard Zeebe from the University of Hawaii and his team highlight gaps in scientists' understanding of impacts from intense and rapid climate change. Carbon dioxide released at the time can only account for a fraction of the temperature rise. So far unknown mechanisms must have contributed significantly to the ancient warming. ...> Full Article |
The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of America may be greater than previously thought, according to a new study of geological evidence along the Gulf of Alaska coast.
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Significant sea ice formation occurred in the Arctic earlier than previously thought is the conclusion of a study published this week in Nature. "The results are also especially exciting because they suggest that sea ice formed in the Arctic before it did in Antarctica, which goes against scientific expectation," says scientific team member Dr. Richard Pearce of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science based at the National Oceanography Center, Southampton.
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 | Findings may provide insight into the origins of life on Earth, and even the search for life on Mars ...> Full Article |
Hundreds of images derived from classified data that could be used to better understand rapid loss and transformation of Arctic sea ice should be immediately released and disseminated to the scientific research community, says a new report from the National Research Council.
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By accurately modeling Earth's last major global warming -- and answering pressing questions about its causes -- scientists led by a University of Wisconsin-Madison climatologist are unraveling the intricacies of the kind of abrupt climate shifts that may occur in the future.
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 | A small NASA aircraft completed its first successful science flight Thursday in partnership with the University of Colorado at Boulder as part of an expedition to study the receding Arctic sea ice and improve understanding of its life cycle and the long-term stability of the Arctic ice cover.
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 | New research shows that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth that resemble La Niņa and El Niņo events in the tropical Pacific Ocean. The findings may pave the way toward better weather predictions. ...> Full Article |
 | Massive earthquake simulation could lead to stronger, safer wooden buildings ...> Full Article |
 | More frequent tremors correlated with build-up of stress on locked segment of fault near Parkfield ...> Full Article |
 | New evidence for ice-free summers with intermittent winter sea ice in the Arctic Ocean during the Late Cretaceous -- a period of greenhouse conditions -- gives a glimpse of how the Arctic is likely to respond to future global warming. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers have reconstructed atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 2.1 million years in the sharpest detail yet, shedding new light on its role in the Earth's cycles of cooling and warming. ...> Full Article |
 | The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years. If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator may be starved of freshwater by midcentury or sooner. ...> Full Article |
 | Fifty million years ago, the North and South poles were ice-free and crocodiles roamed the Arctic. Since then, a long-term decrease in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has cooled the Earth. Researchers at Yale University, the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University of Sheffield now show that land plants saved the Earth from a deep frozen fate by buffering the removal of atmospheric CO2 over the past 24 million years. ...> Full Article |
 | New research, which reconstructs the extent of ice in the sea between Greenland and Svalbard from the 13th century to the present indicates that there has never been so little sea ice as there is now. The research results from the Niels Bohr Institute, among others, are published in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics. ...> Full Article |
During the past decade, residents of Pasto, Colombia, and neighboring villages near Galeras, Colombia's most dangerous volcano, have been threatened with evacuation, but compliance varies. With each new eruption Colombian officials become increasingly concerned about the safety of the residents who live within striking there. Now, geologists from the University at Buffalo and the Universidad de Nariņo have organized a special workshop in Colombia designed to tackle the communication issue.
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Fish can recognize a face based on UV pattern alone
Ancient DNA from rare fossil reveals that polar bears evolved recently and adapted quickly
'Anaconda' meets 'Jurassic Park': Study shows ancient snakes ate dinosaur babies
Mars Express heading for closest flyby of Phobos
Artificial bee silk a big step closer to reality
Predicting the fate of stem cells
Artificial foot recycles energy for easier walking
New fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing
What drives our genes? Researchers map the first complete human epigenome
Juggling enhances connections in the brain
Tracking down the human 'odorprint'
Fill 'er up - with algae
Scientists discover quantum fingerprints of chaos
Researchers help identify cows that gain more while eating less
Methane releases from Arctic shelf may be much larger and faster than anticipated
Oldest measurement of Earth's magnetic field reveals battle between sun and Earth for our atmosphere
Experts reaffirm asteroid impact caused mass extinction
Rapid response science missions assess potential for another major Haiti earthquake
Research team breaks the ice with new estimate of glacier melt
Scientists locate apparent hydrothermal vents off Antarctica
Were short warm periods typical for transitions between interglacial and glacial epochs?
Chile quake occurred in zone of 'increased stress'
Volcano monitoring will target hazard threat to Marianas, US military and commercial jets
Seamounts reach a pinnacle in upcoming issue of Oceanography
Ice shelves disappearing on Antarctic Peninsula
Team finds subtropical waters flushing through Greenland fjord