news 2020

Scientists have for the first time linked the deep Earth's water cycle to earthquakes and volcanic activity. Water, sulphur and carbon dioxide, which are cycled through the deep Earth, play a key role in the evolution of our planet - including in the formation of continents, the emergence of life, the concentration of mineral resources, and the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes.

The amount and location of available terrestrial water is changing worldwide. An international research team led by ETH Zurich has now proved for the first time that human-induced climate change is responsible for the changes observed in available terrestrial water. Water is the lifeblood of ecosystems and one of the most important natural resources for human beings.

Modelling of the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago shows it created a world largely unsuitable for dinosaurs to live in. The asteroid, which struck the Earth off the coast of Mexico at the end of the Cretaceous era 66 million years ago, has long been believed to be the cause of the demise of all dinosaur species except those that became birds.

How do rising temperatures and more hot days affect cities, especially the heat stress on public squares? And what needs to be done in response to climate change? A team of Heidelberg University geographers led by Dr Kathrin Foshag investigated these questions using locations in the Heidelberg urban area.

Water (H2O) and other volatiles (e.g. CO2 and sulphur) that are cycled through the deep Earth have played a key role in the evolution of our planet, including in the formation of continents, the onset of life, the concentration of mineral resources, and the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes.

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The first dinosaur eggs had a soft shell, say paleontologists from Yale and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The finding upends decades of conventional wisdom by the scientific community. For many years there was scant fossil evidence of dinosaur eggs, and all known examples were characterized by thick, calcified shells - leading paleontologists to speculate that all dinosaur eggs were hard-shelled, like those of modern crocodiles and birds.

MIT analysis uncovers the basis of the severe rainfall declines predicted by many models. Although global climate models vary in many ways, they agree on this: The Mediterranean region will be significantly drier in coming decades, potentially seeing 40 percent less precipitation during the winter rainy season.

New model answers longstanding question of how these sudden flows happen; may expand understanding of Antarctic ice sheets. About 10 percent of the Earth's land mass is covered in glaciers, most of which slip slowly across the land over years, carving fjords and trailing rivers in their wake. But about 1 percent of glaciers can suddenly surge, spilling over the land at 10 to 100 times their normal speed.

Not all sand is the same, but scientists have been using one model to measure how all sand flows. Geoscientists have now developed new mathematical equations that will help engineers manage coastline susceptible to the effects of climate change. Humans see sand as an infinite resource. We are astounded to discover there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on our beaches.

The Laurentian Great Lakes - Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario - are the most studied system in lake geochemistry and have well-preserved chronological profiles. Metals play numerous critical roles in natural and human-influenced characteristics of lake ecosystems, so patterns in the historical records of metals from sedimentary cores provide important information about environmental baselines and human impact.

Geoscientists show that it is not erosion but an equilibrium of forces in the Earth's crust that controls the "growth" of mountains / Study in "Nature" Which forces and mechanisms determine the height of mountains? Researchers at the University of Münster and the German Research Centre for Geoscience (GFZ) in Potsdam have now found a surprising answer: It is not erosion and weathering of rocks that determine the upper limit of mountain belts, but rather an equilibrium of forces in the Earth's crust.

Oxygen first accumulated in the Earth's atmosphere about 2.4 billion years ago, during the Great Oxidation Event. A long-standing puzzle has been that geologic clues suggest early bacteria were photosynthesizing and pumping out oxygen hundreds of millions of years before then. Where was it all going? Something was holding back oxygen's rise.

A research team from ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen counted over 136,000 rockfalls on the moon caused by asteroid impacts. Even billions of years old landscapes are still changing. In October 2015, a spectacular rockfall occurred in the Swiss Alps: in the late morning hours, a large, snow-covered block with a volume of more than 1500 cubic meters suddenly detached from the summit of Mel de la Niva.

Scientists from Cardiff University have discovered specific conditions that occur along the ocean floor where two tectonic plates are more likely to slowly creep past one another as opposed to drastically slipping and creating catastrophic earthquakes. The team have shown that where fractures lie on the ocean floor, at the junction of two tectonic plates, sufficient water is able to enter those fractures and trigger the formation of weak minerals which in turn helps the two tectonic plates to slowly slide past one another.

Andrea Dutton, examining rock samples at the University of Florida, says, "Earth science issues impact our daily lives in many different ways. So, when policies are developed, it's imperative they are at least informed and evidence-based so we can make good decisions about what to do” Photo by Erica Brouch On May 20, 2020, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine published a report that provides a framework for the next 10 years of research in the earth sciences.

New simulations from Imperial College London have revealed the asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs struck Earth at the -deadliest possible- angle. The simulations show that the asteroid hit Earth at an angle of about 60 degrees , which maximised the amount of climate-changing gases thrust into the upper atmosphere.

Yale geophysicists reported that Earth's ever-shifting, underground network of tectonic plates was firmly in place more than 4 billion years ago - at least a billion years earlier than scientists generally thought. Tectonic plates are large slabs of rock embedded in the Earth's crust and upper mantle, the next layer down.

Researchers have developed a deep-learning model that maps fuel moisture levels in fine detail across 12 western states, opening a door for better fire predictions. As California and the American West head into fire season amid the coronavirus pandemic, scientists are harnessing artificial intelligence and new satellite data to help predict blazes across the region.

Today, one third of the world's population obtains its drinking water and water for irrigation from groundwater reserves. Global population growth and water scarcity due to climate change mean that the pressure on this resource is continually increasing. However, many wells are contaminated with naturally occurring arsenic.