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Worldwide Earthquake Activity | Travels in Geology | US Volcanic Activity | Earth Science POD |NASA Earth Images

Melting rate of ice caps in Greenland and Western Antarctica lower than expected

Sep 7 - The melting of the ice caps has been charted since 2002 using the measurements produced by the two GRACE satellites. From space they detect small changes in the Earth's gravitational field. These changes are related to the exact distribution of mass on Earth, including ice and water. more at esciencenews.com

Indonesian volcano erupts again; strongest yet

Sep 7 - An Indonesian volcano shot a towering cloud of black ash high into the air Tuesday, dusting villages 15 miles (25 kilometers) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last week from four centuries of dormancy.  more at physorg.com

NZ quake reveals unknown fault

Sep 6 - The magnitude 7.1 quake in the South Island's Canterbury region, which has torn apart the heart of Christchurch, occurred on a previously unknown fault line. Seismologists believe the major earthquake risk to Christchurch comes from known faults in North Canterbury, in the Canterbury foothills, and from the 400 kilometre Alpine fault, which runs between Milford Sound and the Lewis Pass along the spine of the South Island. However, the epicentre of the latest earthquake was much further to the east than any of the splays found in earlier seismic studies, says Clive Collins, a senior seismologist at Geosciences Australia.  more at abc.net.au

Giant Greenland Iceberg Enters Nares Strait

Sep 3 - ESA's Envisat satellite has been tracking the progression of the giant iceberg that calved from Greenland's Petermann glacier on 4 August 2010. A new animation shows that the iceberg, the largest in the northern hemisphere, is now entering Nares Strait -- a stretch of water that connects the Lincoln Sea and Arctic Ocean with Baffin Bay.  more at sciencedaily.com

Water in Earth's mantle key to survival of oldest continents

Sep 2 - Earth today is one of the most active planets in the Solar System, and was probably even more so during the early stages of its life. Thanks to the plate tectonics that continue to shape our planet's surface, remnants of crust from Earth's formative years are rare, but not impossible to find. A paper published in Nature Sept. 2 examines how some ancient rocks have resisted being recycled into Earth's convecting interior.  more at asu.edu

Geomagnetic field flip-flops in a flash

Sep 2 - Just north of a truck stop along Interstate 80 in Battle Mountain, Nev., lies evidence that the Earth’s magnetic field once went haywire. Magnetic minerals in 15-million-year-old rocks appear to preserve a moment when the magnetic north pole was rapidly on its way to becoming the south pole, and vice versa. Such “geomagnetic field reversals” occur every couple hundred thousand years, normally taking about 4,000 years to make the change. The Nevada rocks suggest that this particular switch happened at a remarkably fast clip.  more at sciencenews.org

US Team Studies Alaskan Rare Earth Deposit

Sep 2 - Executives of Ucore Rare Metals Inc. said Thursday that a team of scientists from the US Geological Survey had spent part of August studying the company’s Bokan Mountain heavy rare earth project site in southeast Alaska and is particularly interested in terbium and dysprosium deposits which are militarily important. The two so-called “heavy” rare earths have been found in what are called “anomalously high grades” in the Bokan area. The mineralogy in the area is believed be the largest historically documented heavy rare earth elements (HREE) deposit in the United States.  more at resourceinvestor.com

Caltech mineral physicists find new scenery at Earth's core-mantle boundary

Sep 2 - Using a diamond-anvil cell to recreate the high pressures deep within the earth, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found unusual properties in an iron-rich magnesium- and iron-oxide mineral that may explain the existence of several ultra-low velocity zones (ULVZs) at the core-mantle boundary.  more at caltech.edu

Yellowstone Hot Spot Shreds Ancient Pacific Ocean

Sep 2 - If you thought the geysers and overblown threat of a supervolcanic eruption in Yellowstone National Park were dramatic, you ain't seen nothing: deep beneath Earth's surface, the hot spot that feeds the park has torn an entire tectonic plate in half. The revelation comes from a new study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that peered into the mantle beneath the Pacific Northwest to see what happens when ancient ocean crust from the Pacific Ocean runs headlong into a churning plume of ultra-hot mantle material.  more at discovery.com

Chloride in Groundwater and Streams of Glacial Aquifer Systems

Sep 2 - The amount of salt being used for winter road treatments is increasing. USGS published a study of chloride in groundwater and surface water conducted for the glacial aquifer system of the northern United States in forested, agricultural, and urban areas. more at usgs.gov

The rising global interest in coal fires

Sep 1 - Thousands of coal fires are reported to be burning in at least 22 countries on every continent except Antarctica. In the U.S., more than 100 underground fires are burning in at least nine states, including Colorado, Kentucky, Maryland, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.  more at earthmagazine.org

Ancient coral reef uncovered in South Pacific

Sep 1 - An ancient reef found in the Pacific may provide clues to what will happen to coral when sea temperatures rise. A team of researchers from Australia and New Zealand have discovered a huge 9,000-year-old reef surprisingly far south.  more at bbc.co.uk

Bacteria Make Gold Nuggets

Sep 1 - Gold nuggets are often the creations of bacterial biofilms, say Australian researchers who have demonstrated the process and even identified the bacteria at work. Layers of bacteria can actually dissolve gold into nanoparticles, which move through rocks and soils, and then deposit it in other places, sometimes creating purer "secondary" gold deposits in cracks and crevices of rocks. The process overturns the long-held belief by some scientists that gold ore is created only by "primary" physical geological processes.  more at news.discovery.com

Expedition explores violent Russian volcanoes

Aug 31 - A group of scientists is hiking in one of the most remote areas on the planet in pursuit of new information about the recurring deaths and rebirths of two volcanoes. The European expedition is spending two weeks on the Kamchatka Peninsula, a vast, isolated region of the Russian Far East that is home to one of the most active volcanic areas in the world.  more at mnsbc.msn.com

No Tyrannosaurs in the south

Aug 31 - In a study published online today in Science, the team argues that a pair of pelvic bones discovered at Dinosaur Cove, southern Victoria, over 20 years ago, does not belong to a tyrannosaur.  more at sciencealert.com.au

"Stocky Dragon" Dinosaur Terrorized Late Cretaceous Europe

Aug 30 - Paleontologists have discovered that a close relative of Velociraptor hunted the dwarfed inhabitants of Late Cretaceous Europe, an island landscape largely isolated from nearby continents. While island animals tend to be smaller and more primitive than their continental cousins, the theropod Balaur bondoc was as large as its relatives on other parts of the globe, and demonstrated advanced adaptations including fused bones and two terrifyingly large claws on each hind foot. more at nsf.gov

No, seriously. What killed the dinosaurs?

Aug 30 - Seems like an easy one to answer: an asteroid around six miles wide slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula. Continent-wide firestorms, planet-enshrouding dust cloud, massive plant death, toxic ozone, carbon monoxide poisoning ... and that's it: one resounding mass extinction all wrapped up in a pretty, hellish package and explained by a big hole in southeastern Mexico, right? Well, the more scientists look, the more complicated the answer becomes. For starters, there were a series of truly enormous volcanic eruptions in what is now western India around the same time. Then there's a weird crater-looking structure right next door to the Deccan Traps that may be from an asteroid impact, and would be the largest crater found on Earth. And just this week, a study in the journal Geology reported there may have been yet another impact, in the Ukraine. more at msnbc.msn.com

Thousands flee as Indonesia volcano erupts

Aug 29 - A volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumatra erupted for the first time in 400 years Sunday, spewing a vast cloud of smoke and ash into the air and sending thousands of people fleeing from their homes. Indonesia issued a red alert after the Sinabung volcano erupted, blanketing the area in thick and acrid black smoke.  more at terradaily.com

North Carolina farm yields record emerald

Aug 27 - The Alexander County, N.C., community famed for its lunker emeralds has yielded a 64-carat gem that experts say is North America's largest cut emerald. Gem miner Terry Ledford said the deep-green crystal he dug up in Hiddenite last August was so big it "looked like an empty 7-Up bottle." About 2 inches square, it weighed 310 carats before being cut. Its hue made it even more desirable.  more at www.cleveland.com; pictures at news.discovery.com

New view of tectonic plates

Aug 27 - Computational scientists and geophysicists at the University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed new computer algorithms that for the first time allow for the simultaneous modeling of the earth's Earth's mantle flow, large-scale tectonic plate motions, and the behavior of individual fault zones, to produce an unprecedented view of plate tectonics and the forces that drive it. more at esciencenews.com

Diamonds are a supercomputer's best friend

Aug 27 - Scientists in California have used commercially available technology to create diamonds with tiny, nitrogen-filled holes, which could be the key to the next generation of supercomputers. The nitrogen-vacancy diamonds, as the sheets are called by scientists, could store millions of times more information than current silicon-based systems and process that information dozens of times faster.  more at abc.net.au

Double meteorite strike 'caused dinosaur extinction'

Aug 27 - The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite impacts, rather than a single strike, a new study suggests. Previously, scientists had identified a huge impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the event that spelled doom for the dinosaurs. Now evidence for a second impact in Ukraine has been uncovered. This raises the possibility that the Earth may have been bombarded by a whole shower of meteorites.  more at bbc.co.uk

Weird Oblong Crater Deepens Mars Mystery

Aug 27 - The amoeba-shaped depression on Mars, called Orcus Patera, has had planetary scientists scratching their heads for decades. Despite these sharp new images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft, the crater’s origin is a complete mystery. Orcus Patera, discovered in 1965 by the Mariner 4 spacecraft, is located near Mars’ equator, between the volcanoes Elysium Mons and Olympus Mons. At 236 miles long, it would stretch from New York to Boston on Earth. Its rim rises over a mile above the surrounding plains, and its floor lies 1,300 to 1,900 feet below its surroundings. more at wired.com

Interactive Map of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and More

Aug 27 - The National Geophysical Data Center has an online Geographic Information System that enables you to explore the locations of earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, seafloor topography and other earth science data.  view at map.ngdc.noaa.gov

New View of Tectonic Plates

Aug 26 - Computational scientists and geophysicists at the University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology have developed new computer algorithms that, for the first time, allow for the simultaneous modeling of the Earth's mantle flow, large-scale tectonic plate motions, and behavior of individual fault zones, to produce an unprecedented view of plate tectonics and the forces that drive it. more at nsf.gov

Shrinking atmospheric layer linked to low levels of solar radiation

Aug 26 - Large changes in the sun's energy output may drive unexpectedly dramatic fluctuations in Earth's outer atmosphere. Results of a study published today link a recent, temporary shrinking of a high atmospheric layer with a sharp drop in the sun's ultraviolet radiation levels. The research, led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU), indicates that the sun's magnetic cycle, which produces differing numbers of sunspots over an approximately 11-year cycle, may vary more than previously thought.  more at eurekalert.org

OU GeoChip technology plays critical role in Gulf of Mexico deepwater oil plume study

Aug 26 - An OU research team led by Jizhong Zhou, director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics, developed the new generation GeoChip, which contributed to the findings of the study by simultaneously detecting more than 150,000 different functional genes for various microbial ecological and biogeochemical processes.  more at ou.edu

Play-of-Color Opal from Wegel Tena, Wollo Province, Ethiopia

Aug 26 - A new opal deposit was discovered in 2008 near the village of Wegel Tena, in volcanic rocks of Ethiopia’s Wollo Province. Unlike previous Ethiopian opals, the new material is mostly white, with some brown opal, fire opal, and colorless “crystal” opal. Some of it resembles Australian and Brazilian sedimentary opals, with play-of-color that is often very vivid. However, its properties are consistent with those of opal-CT and most volcanic opals.  more at gia.eud

North American continent is a layer cake, scientists discover

Aug 25 - The North American continent is not one thick, rigid slab, but a layer cake of ancient, 3 billion-year-old rock on top of much newer material probably less than 1 billion years old, according to a new study by seismologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The finding, which is reported in the Aug. 26 issue of Nature, explains inconsistencies arising from new seismic techniques being used to explore the interior of the Earth, and illuminates the mystery of how the Earth's continents formed. more at berkeley.edu

Colombia's Galeras erupts

Aug 25 - Colombia's Galeras Volcano erupted on Wednesday, forcing authorities to order the evacuation of thousands, but only a few residents trickled from nearby villages to shelters, officials said. Seated in Colombia's Andes near the frontier with Ecuador, Galeras coughed ash over neighboring towns. Authorities reported no injuries or damage after the latest eruption. The volcano erupted ten times last year, mostly with little impact on surrounding areas. "People are obliged  more at reuters.com

France drains lake under Mont Blanc glacier

Aug 25 - French engineers have begun an operation to drain a lake under a glacier on Mont Blanc which threatens to flood the Saint Gervais valley. The lake, which is said to contain 65,000 cubic metres (2.3m cubic ft) of water, was discovered last month during routine checks. The engineers are drilling a hole into the ice to pump the water away. In 1892, water from an underground lake flooded the same valley, killing 175 people.  more at bbc.co.uk

A 'great fizz' of carbon dioxide at the end of the last ice age

Aug 25 - According to a paper published recently in the journal Nature, the last ice age featured a decrease in the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide and an increase in the atmospheric carbon 14, the isotope that guides scientists in evaluating the rate of decay of everything from shells to trees. In recent years, other researchers have suggested that some of that carbon dioxide flowed back into the northern hemisphere rather than being entirely released into the atmosphere in the southern hemisphere. Sikes and her colleagues disagree.  more at esciencenews.com

Geo-engineering and sea-level rise over the 21st century

Aug 24 - Scientific findings by international research group of scientists from England, China and Denmark just published suggest that sea level will likely be 30-70 centimeters higher by 2100 than at the start of the century  more at esciencenews.com

Erupting Vanuatu volcano lures thrill-seeking tourists

Aug 22 - As the Mount Yasur volcano cracks like thunder, spewing molten rock and billowing clouds of ash, it sends a warm rush of air to tourists watching from its rim. Amid the roars from the abyss, the hiss of steam, and the thud of large pieces of magma hitting the ashen dust on the other side of the vent, more visitors arrive to view the eruptions in the pre-dawn dark.  more at terradaily.com

Ancient microbes responsible for breathing life into ocean 'deserts'

Aug 22 - Billions of years ago, Earth differed greatly from our modern environment -- the ancient atmosphere contained almost no oxygen. The life-supporting atmosphere we currently enjoy did not develop overnight. On the most basic level, biological activity in the ocean shaped the oxygen concentrations in the atmosphere. A paper published by Nature Geoscience shows that "oxygen oases" in the surface ocean were sites of significant oxygen production long before the breathing gas began to accumulate in the atmosphere. more at eurekalert.org

Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan

Aug 22 - Afghanistan produces some of the world’s finest lapis lazuli, a bright blue gemstone that has been treasured for thousands of years. View this CNN photo gallery from a visit to a workshop in Afghanistan that specializes in lapis lazuli creations.  view at blogs.cnn.com

California overdue for major quake, study says

Aug 21 - Earthquakes strike along California's San Andreas Fault more often than scientists previously thought, a new study suggests. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and Arizona State charted temblors that occurred there stretching back 700 years. They found that large ruptures have occurred on the Carrizo Plain portion of the San Andreas Fault — about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles — as often as every 45 to 144 years. But the last big quake was in 1857, more than 150 years ago. The researchers said that while it's possible the fault is experiencing a natural lull, they think it's more likely a major quake could happen soon. more at msnbc.msn.com

September 2010 Geology and GSA Today highlights

Aug 20 - From biofilms to carbon burial, the September Geology covers science all over the map. Highlights include studies of earthquake frequency along the San Andreas fault; using Iranian and Pakistani river sediment to understand Himalayan orogenesis; discovery of a thin-walled sponge in a Burgess Shale-type deposit near Stanley Glacier, British Columbia; and the science behind elevation gain of the southern African Plateau. GSA Today examines the possibility of a slab window within the subducting Chilean Ridge. more at geosociety.org

Limiting ocean acidification under global change

Aug 20 - Emissions of carbon dioxide are causing ocean acidification as well as global warming. Scientists have previously used computer simulations to quantify how curbing of carbon dioxide emissions would mitigate climate impacts. New computer simulations have now examined the likely effects of mitigation scenarios on ocean acidification trends. They show that both the peak year of emissions and post-peak reduction rates influence how much ocean acidity increases by 2100. more at noc.ac.uk

Surfing for earthquakes

Aug 20 - A better understanding of the ground beneath our feet will result from research by seismologists and Rapid—a group of computer scientists at the University of Edinburgh. The Earth's structure controls how earthquakes travel and the damage they can cause. A clear picture of this structure would be extremely valuable to earthquake planners, but it requires the analysis of huge amounts of data. The Rapid team developed a system that performs the seismologists' data-crunching, and have made it easy to use by relying on an interface familiar to all scientists – a web browser. more at eurekalert.org

Increased Activity at Japan’s Sakurajima Volcano

Aug 20 -  Satellite image showing detail of recent activity at Japan’s Sakurajima Volcano. The image shows a large ash plume to the north, and a pyroclastic flow to the east.  view at earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Explore underwater volcanoes, seafloor hot springs and methane ice

Aug 20 - Scientists are in the early stages of building a fiber optic network on the seafloor for observing, in real time, deep-sea hydrothermal vents---places where super-heated water and minerals spew from Earth's crust offering clues about how life on the planet may have begun. more at physorg.com

Some great geologic sites are on list of least-visited

Aug 20 - The L.A. Times has compiled a list of the 20 least-visited national monuments in the United States that includes some geological sites like the Capulin Volcano in New Mexico and Hagerman Fossil Beds in Idaho. view at latimes.com

Size of Ash from Icelandic Volcano Stuns Scientists

Aug 20 - Most atmospheric models had predicted ash particles with diameters larger than 10 micrometers would be too heavy to stay in the sky, and would simply fall down to Earth within 500 miles (800 kilometers) of their point of origin — in this case, the volcano mouth in southern Iceland. However, the team reported finding a significant amount of particles exceeding 20 micrometers over Germany, some 1,500 miles (2,400 km) away.  more at livescience.com

Rwanda harnesses energy from exploding lake

Aug 19 - Rwanda is centering its new energy plan on an unlikely and potentially dangerous source: Lake Kivu. Beneath it lie huge reservoirs of methane and carbon dioxide that, if released onto the surface, would endanger the two million people living around its shores. Kivu is one of the three known "erupting" lakes in the world. Only a stone's throw away from Nyurangongo volcano, the lake has thousands of years worth of dissolved volcanic gases trapped in its waters. more at msnbc.msn.com

Giant Underwater Plume Confirmed

Aug 19 - A giant plume from BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been confirmed deep in the ocean—and there are signs that it may stick around, a new study says. new evidence shows that a 22-mile-long (35-kilometer-long), 650-foot-high (200-meter-high) pocket of oil has persisted for months at depths of 3,600 feet (1,100 meters), according to a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. more at nationalgeographic.com

Deep plumes of oil could cause dead zones in the Gulf

Aug 19 - A new simulation of oil and methane leaked into the Gulf of Mexico suggests that deep hypoxic zones or "dead zones" could form near the source of the pollution. The research investigates five scenarios of oil and methane plumes at different depths and incorporates an estimated rate of flow from the Deepwater Horizon spill, which released oil and methane gas into the Gulf from April to mid July of this year. more at eurekalert.org

Incredible shrinking moon is revealed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

Aug 19 - The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is revealing previously undetected landforms that indicate the moon is shrinking. The findings are reported in a paper, "Evidence of Recent Thrust Faulting on the Moon Revealed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera" scheduled for publication in the Aug. 20 issue of the journal Science.  more at physorg.com

Galactic super-volcano in action

Aug 19 - A galactic "super-volcano" in the massive galaxy M87 is erupting and blasting gas outwards, as witnessed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and NSF's NRAO's Very Large Array. The cosmic volcano is being driven by a giant black hole in the galaxy's center and preventing hundreds of millions of new stars from forming. more at chandra.harvard.edu

Geologists revisit the Great Oxygenation Event

Aug 19 - Redox proxies, such as the ratio of chromium isotopes in banded iron formations or the ratio of isotopes in sulfide particles trapped in diamonds, tell geologists indirectly whether the Earth' s atmosphere and oceans were reducing (inclined to give away electrons to other atoms) or oxidizing (inclined to glom onto them). In the July issue of Nature Geoscience Washington University in St. Louis geochemist David Fike gives an unusually candid account of the difficulties his community faces in correctly interpreting redox proxies.  more at esciencenews.com

Fingerprinting Obsidian with Fluoresence

Aug 18 -  Archaeologists have collected and cataloged thousands of obsidian artifacts at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. This information enables them to document the source of obsidian used to make a variety of tools and document trade and migration routes of Native Americans dating back to 13,000 years ago. The unique obsidian from the Big Southern Butte has been found at many locations in Idaho, Montana, and Utah and as far away as California’s Joshua Tree National Monument. more at geology.com

Deadly Tonga Earthquake Revealed as Three Big Quakes

Aug 18 - A magnitude-8.1 earthquake and tsunami that killed 192 people last year in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga was in fact a triple-whammy. The 8.1 "great earthquake" concealed and triggered two major quakes of magnitude 7.8, seismologists report in a paper in this week's issue of the journal Nature.  more at nsf.gov

Speaking of Geoscience

Aug 18 - The Geological Society of America has a new blog called “Speaking of Geoscience”. It will be populated by posts from guest contributors. The first post, titled “Which square centimeter interests you?” by Jerry De Graff is ready for reading. more at geosociety.wordpress.com

Discovery of Possible Earliest Animal Life Pushes Back Fossil Record

Aug 17 - Scientists may have discovered in Australia the oldest fossils of animal bodies. These findings push back the clock on the scientific world's thinking regarding when animal life appeared on Earth. The results suggest that primitive sponge-like creatures lived in ocean reefs about 650 million years ago. more at nsf.gov

Scientist googles crater find

Aug 16 - Scientists using Google Maps have discovered a new crater like structure in the Bayuda Desert of Sudan. If confirmed, it will be the second such discovery using the popular online mapping tool and could spawn a new generation of home-based amateur crater hunters.  more at abc.net.au

A river flipped: Humans trump nature on Texas river

Aug 16 - A new study by geochemists at Rice University finds that damming and other human activity has completely obscured the natural carbon dioxide cycle in Texas' longest river, the Brazos. more at esciencenews.com

Are We Underestimating Mt. Vesuvius?

Aug 15 - We all know the infamous story of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. There is only one historical witness account of what happened in 79 A.D. on August 24 and historians interpreted the observation to mean that the victims from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis who were not crushed from flying rocks or buried underneath collapsing building, died from suffocation due to a lethal cocktail of ash and volcanic gas. And until now, no one had bothered to challenge that interpretation. A new study, led by vulcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo from the Naples Observatory in Italy, shows that the residents killed in Pompeii and the neighboring towns located on the slopes of the volcano died from an extreme heat surge produced by the volcano, not suffocation. more at news.discovery.com

Historic geological map discovered in Iwate, Japan

Aug 15 - A geological map believed to have been used by poet and children's author Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) during his school days was recently found at Iwate University Library. Discovered with related documents and books, the map is one of the oldest of its kind ever produced in this country. The findings will be extremely valuable to understanding the circumstances surrounding the introduction of geology into this country.  more at yomiuri.co.jp

Haiti Quake Occurred on Previously Unknown Fault

Aug 12 - The devastating quake that slammed Haiti on Jan. 12 occurred on a previously unrecognized fault zone, report scientists who are still trying to determine the implications for the region’s long-term seismic risk. The newly discovered fault hasn’t been officially named yet but is informally known as the Léogane fault, after one of the Haitian cities that sits directly atop it, study leader Eric Calais told Science News.   more at wired.com

New Trojan asteroid found in Neptune's dead zone

Aug 12 - Astronomers have found a new 100km diameter Trojan asteroid near Neptune. Trojans are a type of asteroid found in space graveyards. They shed light on what the early Solar System was like. Scientists say up to 150 similar objects could await discovery in the same area. The new asteroid was discovered by Dr Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution and Dr Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, Hawaii  more at bbc.co.uk

Chunk of original earth found

Aug 11 - What's been found beneath the crust in northern Canada is a chunk of pristine, undisturbed rock from the time when Earth was nothing but molten rock. The evidence comes in the form of lava rocks that, themselves, are a mere 60 million years old. But these rocks contain an early Earth mixture of helium, lead and neodymium isotopes which suggest the mantle rock beneath the crust that yielded them is a virgin pocket of Earth's original material. That pocket had survived for 4.5 billion years under Baffin Island without being mixed by plate tectonics or erupted onto the surface. more at msnbc.msn.com

Arctic rocks offer new glimpse of primitive Earth

Aug 11 - Scientists have discovered a new window into the Earth's violent past. Geochemical evidence from volcanic rocks collected on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic suggests that beneath it lies a region of the Earth's mantle that has largely escaped the billions of years of melting and geological churning that has affected the rest of the planet. Researchers believe the discovery offers clues to the early chemical evolution of the Earth.  more at eurekalert.org

The Mysterious Roving Rocks of Racetrack Playa

Aug 11 - In a particularly parched region of an extraordinary planet, rocks big and small glide across a mirror-flat landscape, leaving behind a tangle of trails. Some rocks travel in pairs, their two tracks so perfectly in synch along straight stretches and around curves that they seem to be made by a car. Others go freewheeling, wandering back and forth alone and sometimes traveling the length of several football fields. In many cases, the trails lead right to resting rocks, but in others, the joyriders have vanished.  more at earthobservatory.nasa.gov

Gondwana supercontinent underwent massive shift during Cambrian explosion

Aug 10 - The Gondwana supercontinent underwent a 60-degree rotation across Earth's surface during the Early Cambrian period, according to new evidence uncovered by a team of Yale University geologists. The study, which appears in the August issue of the journal Geology, has implications for the environmental conditions that existed at a crucial period in Earth's evolutionary history called the Cambrian explosion, when most of the major groups of complex animals rapidly appeared. more at esciencenews.com

An ancient Earth like ours

Aug 9 - An international team of scientists has reconstructed the Earth's climate belts of the late Ordovician Period, between 460 and 445 million years ago. The findings have been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA – and show that these ancient climate belts were surprisingly like those of the present.  more at esciencenews.com

Fossils of Iowa and More

Aug 7 - The Iowa Geological Survey has a number of short educational publications that you can view online for free or print for reference. Lots of basic subjects such as fossils, landscape features, aquifers, stratigraphic column, caves, minerals and more. view and download at uiowa.edu

Geology of Kansas

Aug 7 - Kansas Geological Survey The Kansas Geological Survey has placed their Surficial Geology of Kansas Map (KGS Map M-118) online for free viewing.  view at ku.edu.  Also available is map of the Permian system in Kansas. view pdf at ku.edu

Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan

Aug 6 - A University of Delaware researcher reports that an "ice island" four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962. more at esciencenews.com

New material turns oil from liquid to solid

Aug 6 - A material in development could help recover spilled oil by solidifying it into a solid gel floating on the ocean's surface. Oil in a solid state could be scooped away like fat congealed on the top of a pot of soup. The gel could then be melted and the oil separated from the material, which could be reused. more at msnbc.msn.com

Ice age permafrost unearthed in Poland to help clock warming

Aug 6 - Permafrost dating from the end of the last Ice Age around 13,000 years ago recently discovered in Poland could prove an invaluable tool in gauging global warming. The unique discovery of pre-historic permafrost was made on Monday in a corner of north-eastern Poland bordering Lithuania, near the village of Szypliszki. more at  physorg.com

NASA to Visit Asteroid Predicted to Hit Earth?

Aug 6 - There's a mountain-size asteroid on a potential collision course with Earth, and NASA has plans to pay it a visit. The asteroid 1999 RQ36 made headlines last week with the announcement that the space rock could hit our planet in 2182. But a handful of scientists have had their eyes on this asteroid since 2007, planning a sample-return mission designed to help us better predict—and avoid—impact hazards. more at nationalgeographic.com

Giant Fold in Earth's Crust Explained

Aug 6 - Located smack in the middle of the spot where the India-Australia, Eurasia and Pacific tectonic plates are converging, the Banda Arc is a geological feature whose origins on how it came to be or how it has evolved over time have remained unexplained. Now a pair of researchers may have discovered the origin of this giant fold in Earth's crust... continued at livescience.com

Expedition finds ancient bedrock beneath ice

Aug 5 - After more than a year of drilling through ice in one of the harshest environments on earth, scientists in Greenland hit bedrock more than 8,300 feet below the surface of the Arctic island's vast ice sheet last week. With this milestone, the group of researchers has sampled what it was after all along: very, very old ice. Specifically, ice from 115,000 to 330,000 years ago, a time known as the Eemian interglacial period, when the planet was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it is today.  more at msnbc.msn.com

NASA Images Show Continuing Mexico Quake Deformation

Aug 5 - New NASA airborne radar images of Southern California near the U.S.-Mexico border show Earth's surface is continuing to deform following the April 4 magnitude, 7.2 temblor and its many aftershocks that have rocked Mexico's state of Baja California and parts of the American Southwest. The data, from NASA's airborne Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), reveal that some faults in the area west of Calexico, Calif., have continued to move at Earth's surface, most likely in the many aftershocks. This fault motion is likely to be what is known as "triggered slip," caused by changes in stress in Earth's crust from the main quake rupture. more + maps at earthobservatory.nasa.gov

New information about how Himalayas were formed

Aug 5 - Evidence of the mineral majorite in Himalayan rocks have overturned scientific theory about the birth of the tallest mountains on Earth. A team of researchers who examined the content of metamorphic rocks that were caught up in the collision between the Asian and Indian landmasses. They examined thin sections of rocks known as eclogites finding they contained garnet. The garnets held chemical evidence of majorite, which is formed only under extreme pressure at depths of 185 to 200 kilometers. more at physorg.com

The Secret of Life May Be As Simple As What Happens Between the Sheets--Mica Sheets

Aug 5 - That age-old question, "where did life on Earth start?" now has a new answer. If the life between the mica sheets hypothesis is correct, life would have originated between sheets of mica that were layered like the pages in a book. According to the "life between the sheets" mica hypothesis, structured compartments that commonly form between layers of mica may have sheltered molecules that were the progenitors to cells. Provided with the right physical and chemical environment in the structured compartments to survive and evolve, the molecules eventually reorganized into cells, while still sheltered between mica sheets. more at nsf.gov

Moon Water Dreams Evaporate

Aug 5 - The inside of the moon might not be all wet after all. A new study suggests that, contrary to recent work, the lunar interior is as bone-dry as scientists thought 40 years ago, when NASA astronauts lugged home the first moon rocks. New analyses of chlorine in those rocks, published Aug. 5 in Science, indicate that the moon contains just one–ten-thousandth to one–hundred-thousandth the water that the Earth’s interior does. more at wired.com

Ancient Hawaiian glaciers reveal clues to global climate impacts

Aug 5 - Boulders deposited by an ancient glacier that once covered the summit of Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii have provided more evidence of the extraordinary power and reach of global change, particularly the slowdown of a North Atlantic Ocean current system that could happen again. more at msnbc.msn.com