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Geology News And Research - November 2009 Archives
The Antarctic system comprises of the continent itself, Antarctica, and the ocean surrounding it, the Southern Ocean. In a study for a doctoral degree by geophysicist Kai Rasmus, University of Helsinki, Finland, measurements were made during three Austral summers to study the optical properties of the Antarctic system and to produce radiation information for additional modeling studies.
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 | Earth scientists at Brown University have found strong evidence that the geological processes that lead to the formation of oceanic crust are not as uniformly passive as believed. The team found centers of dynamic upwelling in the shallow mantle beneath spreading centers on the seafloor. Findings are published in this week's Nature. ...> Full Article |
 | A team of Spanish scientists studying recent, active deformations in the Baetic mountain range have shown that the activity of smaller tectonic structures close to larger faults in the south east of the Iberian Peninsula partially offsets the risk of earthquakes. ...> Full Article |
 | Yellowstone National Park is widely known for its more than 10,000 thermal features. Among these features are at least 20 large (100 to greater than 2,500 meters in diameter) hydrothermal explosion craters, produced during the past 16,000 years. Although large hydrothermal explosions are rare on a human time scale, the potential for future explosions in Yellowstone is not insignificant, and events large enough to create even a 100-m-wide crater may be expected every 200 years. ...> Full Article |
Using a technique normally used for detecting weak tremor, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology discovered that the 2004 magnitude 6 earthquake along the Parkfield section of the San Andreas fault exhibited almost 11 times more aftershocks than previously thought.
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 | A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, researchers report. ...> Full Article |
Much of our planet's mineral wealth was deposited billions of years ago when Earth's chemical cycles were different from today's. Using geochemical clues from rocks nearly 3 billion years old, a group of scientists including Andrey Bekker and Doug Rumble from the Carnegie Institution have made the surprising discovery that the creation of economically important nickel ore deposits was linked to sulfur in the ancient oxygen-poor atmosphere.
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A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis of ice core records suggests that Antarctic temperatures may have been up to 6°C warmer than the present day.
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Large blooms of tiny marine plants called phytoplankton are flourishing in areas of open water left exposed by the recent and rapid melting of ice shelves and glaciers around the Antarctic Peninsula. This remarkable colonization is having a beneficial impact on climate change. As the blooms die back phytoplankton sinks to the sea-bed where it can store carbon for thousands or millions of years.
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Alberta is crisscrossed with hidden glacial valleys that hold both resource treasures and potential danger. University of Alberta researcher Doug Schmitt discovered a 300-meter-deep valley hidden beneath the surface of the ground near the community of Rainbow Lake in northwestern Alberta.
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Short-term fluctuations in the spatial distribution of the ocean water masses
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The Earth's climate was far cooler -- perhaps more than 50 degrees -- billions of years ago, which could mean conditions for life all over the planet were more conducive than previously believed, according to a research team that includes a Texas A&M University expert who specializes in geobiology.
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 | Virginia Tech researchers will use gas tracers as a means of remotely ascertaining information about ventilation control systems following a mine collapse or explosion. ...> Full Article |
 | Long-term variations in volcanism help explain the birth, evolution and death of striking geological features called oceanic core complexes on the ocean floor, says geologist Dr. Bram Murton of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. ...> Full Article |
 | Neal Iverson has created a glacier in a freezer that could help scientists understand how glaciers slide across their beds. That could help researchers predict how climate change accelerates glacier sliding and contributes to rising sea levels. ...> Full Article |
 | New data show that the balance between the airborne and the absorbed fraction of CO2 has stayed approximately constant since 1850, despite emissions of CO2 having risen from about 2 billion tons a year in 1850 to 35 billion tons a year now.This suggests that terrestrial ecosystems and the oceans have a much greater capacity to absorb CO2 than had been previously expected. ...> Full Article |
California experienced centuries-long droughts in the past 20,000 years that coincided with the thawing of ice caps in the Arctic, according to analysis of stalagmites from a cave in the Sierra Nevada.
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 | The global ocean covering the Earth 3.4 billion years ago was far cooler than has been thought, according to Stanford University researchers who analyzed isotope ratios in rocks formed on that ancient ocean floor. Instead of a hot primordial soup, much more tepid temperatures prevailed. Cooler temperatures may have had effects on the evolution of the early atmosphere and could have opened the door to an earlier spread of photosynthetic life forms across the planet. ...> Full Article |
 | University of Miami study by Dr. Shimon Wdowinski in this week's Nature Geosciences demonstrates that deep creep may mean milder, more frequent earthquakes along SoCal's San Jacinto fault, making it a less likely candidate for a major earthquake than its neighbor to the east, the Southern San Andreas fault. ...> Full Article |
The lush, tropical Congo Basin was much different 150 million to 200 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed Gondwana, the single continent formed by Africa and South America. Geochemical analysis of rare ancient soils from Central Africa suggests the land was arid, with a small amount of seasonal rainfall, and few bushes or trees. There's very little data for the paleoclimate of the Late Jurassic, but it's important because climate determines plant communities.
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 | A team from University of Miami, University of El Paso and University of Rochester used Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) images compiled over a decade to study volcanic activity in the African Rift. A paper, published in the November issue of Geology, focuses on the section of the rift in Kenya. Surface deformation of four active volcanoes underscore possibility for human hazard, as well as the potential of geothermal resources. ...> Full Article |
 | he Alps are growing just as quickly in height, as they are shrinking. This paradoxical result could be proven by a group of German and Swiss geoscientists. ...> Full Article |
 | The remaining ice fields atop famed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone within two decades and perhaps even sooner, based on the latest survey of the ice fields remaining on the mountain. The findings indicate a major cause of this ice loss is very likely to be the rise in global temperatures. Although changes in cloudiness and precipitation may also play a role, they appear less important, particularly in recent decades. ...> Full Article |
 | Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks. Their study is scheduled for November/December issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication.
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 | In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath the Ethiopian rift are nearly identical to those at the bottom of the world's oceans. ...> Full Article |
When small earthquakes shake the central US, citizens often fear the rumbles are signs a big earthquake is coming. Fortunately, a new Northwestern University study instead shows that most of these earthquakes are aftershocks of big earthquakes (magnitude 7) in the New Madrid seismic zone that struck the Midwest almost 200 years ago. Aftershocks go on until the fault recovers, which takes much longer in the middle of a continent.
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Most land use changes occurring in the continental US result in raised regional surface temperatures, says a new study by scientists at the University of Maryland, Purdue University and the University of Colorado in Boulder. The study in the Royal Meteorological Society's International Journal of Climatology found that almost any change that makes land cover less "green" contributes to warming. A perhaps less intuitive finding is that conversion of any land to agricultural use results in cooling, even land that was previously forested.
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Glaciers, water under the glaciers, seismic activity and robotic rovers are all part of three National Science Foundation Polar Program grants awarded to Sridhar Anandakrishnan, professor of geosciences, Penn State. The grants, which total nearly a million dollars, are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.
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 | Researchers spent two months this summer high in the Peruvian Andes and brought back two cores, the longest ever drilled from ice fields in the tropics. Ohio State glaciologist Lonnie Thompson said that this latest expedition focused on a yet-to-be-named ice field 5,364m above sea level in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. ...> Full Article |
 | Although declining streamflows and half-full reservoirs have gotten most of the attention in water conflicts around the United States, some of the worst battles of the next century may be over groundwater, experts say -- a critical resource often taken for granted until it begins to run out. But lessons learned as oil was running out may offer some solutions. ...> Full Article |
 | Despite a slight recovery in summer Arctic sea ice in 2009 from record-setting low years in 2007 and 2008, the sea ice extent remains significantly below previous years and remains on a trend leading toward ice-free Arctic summers, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder's National Snow and Ice Data Center. ...> Full Article |
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