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Geology News And Research - March 2010 Archives
A mass spectrometer that will help researchers interpret and understand the history of the Earth system will join other instruments in the Penn State's multi-user Materials Characterization Laboratory, thanks to a $724,000 grant through the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation Program.
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 | Geologists from the University of Leicester are among four scientists -- including a Nobel prize-winner -- who suggest that the Earth has entered a new age of geological time. ...> Full Article |
 | A British scientific expedition is heading into the world's deepest volcanic rift, more than three miles beneath the waves in the Caribbean, to hunt for the deepest "black smoker" vents detected so far on the ocean floor. The team, working aboard the RRS James Cook, will use a robot submarine called Autosub6000 and a remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle called HyBIS to reveal the features and inhabitants of the world's undersea volcanoes for the first time. ...> Full Article |
 | Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet, which has been increasing during the past decade over its southern region, is now moving up its northwest coast, according to a new international study.
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The Early Aptian (120 million years ago) was an age of intense volcanic activity on Earth, eruptions that emitted large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, thus causing a revolution in the carbon cycle. As a consequence, great changes happened in the whole of the terrestrial system.
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 | When it comes to 3-D puzzles, Rubik's Cube pales in comparison with the latest creation from geophysicists Richard Gordon, Chuck DeMets and Donald Argus. The trio has just put the finishing touches on a 20-year effort to precisely describe the relative movements of the interlocking tectonic plates that make up about 97 percent of Earth's surface. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists have discovered how changes in winds blowing on the Southern Ocean drive variations in the depth of the surface layer of sea water responsible for regulating exchanges of heat and carbon dioxide between the ocean and the atmosphere. ...> Full Article |
 | After the quake of Concepción, the remaining gap in the north of Chile now holds potential for a comparable strong quake and is, thus, moving more and more into the focus of attention. ...> Full Article |
 | A study published in the March issue of the Leading Edge examines series of small earthquakes occurring near the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport between Oct. 30, 2008, and May 16, 2009. ...> Full Article |
 | In a finding that may speed efforts to conserve oil and intensify the search for alternative fuel sources, scientists in Kuwait predict that world conventional crude oil production will peak in 2014 -- almost a decade earlier than some other predictions. Their study is in ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly journal. ...> Full Article |
 | The massive magnitude 8.8 earthquake that struck the west coast of Chile last month moved the entire city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west, and shifted other parts of South America as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza, Brazil. These preliminary measurements, done by researchers including geophysicists on the ground in Chile, paint a much clearer picture of the power behind this temblor, believed to be the fifth-most-powerful since instruments have been available to measure seismic shifts. ...> Full Article |
 | Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a "snowball Earth" event long suspected to have taken place around that time. The new findings -- based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada -- bolster the theory that our planet has, at times in the past, been ice-covered at all latitudes. ...> Full Article |
 | The extremely strong earthquake in Chile on 27 February this year was a complicated rupture process. Scientists ofthe GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences analyzed the first 134 seconds of the quake. ...> Full Article |
 | A section of the Arctic Ocean seafloor that holds vast stores of frozen methane is showing signs of instability and widespread venting of the powerful greenhouse gas, according to the findings of an international research team led by University of Alaska Fairbanks scientists Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered that the Earth's magnetic field 3.5 billion years ago was only half as strong as it is today, and that this weakness, coupled with a strong wind of energetic particles from the young Sun, likely stripped water from the early Earth's atmosphere. ...> Full Article |
 | Responding to challenges to the hypothesis that an asteroid impact caused a mass extinction on Earth 65 million years, a panel of 41 scientists re-analyzed data and provided new evidence, concluding that an impact in Mexico was indeed the cause of the mass extinction. ...> Full Article |
The computational science expertise at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's Daresbury Laboratory is playing a key role in enabling researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, to develop a tool that will make it possible to estimate the likely impact of large magnitude earthquakes at specific locations, before they happen.
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 | To help assess the potential threat of more large earthquakes in Haiti and nearby areas, scientists at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics are co-leading three expeditions to the country with colleagues from Purdue University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the US Geological Survey and five other institutions. The second expedition, beginning Feb. 24, will for the first time use a scientific research vessel to examine the underwater effects of the quake. ...> Full Article |
 | The melting of glaciers is well documented, but when looking at the rate at which they have been retreating, a team of international researchers steps back and says not so fast. ...> Full Article |
 | At the end of the last interglacial epoch, around 115,000 years ago, there were significant climate fluctuations. In Central and Eastern Europe, the slow transition from the Eemian Interglacial to the Weichselian Glacial was marked by a growing instability in vegetation trends with possibly at least two warming events. This is the finding of German and Russian climate researchers who have evaluated geochemical and pollen analyses of lake sediments in Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Russia. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have found evidence of hydrothermal vents on the seafloor near Antarctica, formerly a blank spot on the map for researchers wanting to learn more about seafloor formation and the bizarre life forms drawn to these extreme environments. ...> Full Article |
Hundreds of the world's top scientists and policymakers are expected to attend the State of the Arctic conference at the Miami Hyatt Regency from March 16-19, 2010. Speakers will include Arden Bement, director of the National Science Foundation, Jane Lubchenko, administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and Wendy Watson-Wright, assistant director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
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Scientists are gaining new insight into the mechanisms that generate huge, steep underwater waves that occur between layers of warm and cold water in coastal regions of the world's oceans.
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 | The massive, 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile Feb. 27 occurred in an offshore zone that was under increased stress caused by a 1960 quake of magnitude 9.5, according to geologist Jian Lin of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. ...> Full Article |
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