science wire

Department of Energy grant backs development of Jonathan Ajo-Franklin's fiber-optic monitors Rice University geoscientists and their colleagues will develop sophisticated fiber-optic sensors and seis

Rapidly worsening drought and a mandate to bring aquifer withdrawals and deposits into balance by 2040 have ignited interest in replenishing California groundwater through managed aquifer recharge.

It's not easy to predict how rock will fracture when exposed to a blast hundreds of metres below the earth's surface, but a piece of experimental equipment will take away the guess work for The University of Queensland's blasting and fragmentation technology team. The unique chamber will allow the team, led by UQ's Associate Professor Italo Onederra and Dr Christopher Leonardi, to validate advanced modelling tools that will help them to develop safer mining techniques that are also better for the environment.

As the most-used building material on the planet and one of the world's largest industrial contributors to global warming, concrete has long been a target for reinvention.

Peak for 2021 nears 420 parts per million at Mauna Loa Observatory Atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at NOAA's Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked for 2021 in May at a monthly average of 419 parts per million (ppm) , the highest level since accurate measurements began 63 years ago, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego announced today.

A team of scientists including a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist is forecasting this summer's Gulf of Mexico hypoxic area or "dead zone,” an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish

A new model by UC Berkeley seismologists proposes that Earth's inner core grows faster on its east side (left) than on its west. Gravity equalizes the asymmetric growth by pushing iron crystals toward the north and south poles (arrows). This tends to align the long axis of iron crystals along the planet's rotation axis (dashed line), explaining the different travel times for seismic waves through the inner core.

Scientists at EPFL and the WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF have issued recommendations for what type of renewable energy should be produced in Switzerland's various regions, to help achieve the country's goals of carbon neutrality and energy self-sufficiency. According to a new study, the most effective way for Switzerland to become carbon-neutral and energy self-sufficient is to install a combination of wind turbines and solar panels in its Alpine regions.

It has long been known that very old rocks exist in the Bohemian Massif, which stretches into northern Austria with the Daube carving out its lower boundary.

Scholar remembered for disciplined thinking, contributions to fluid mechanics Prof. Emeritus Victor Barcilon, applied mathematician and geophysical scientist, died April 15, 2020.

Stanford scientists simulated the local risk of damaging or nuisance-level shaking caused by hydraulic fracturing across the Eagle Ford shale formation in Texas. The results could inform a new approach to managing human-caused earthquakes. Hydraulic fracturing to extract trapped fossil fuels can trigger earthquakes.

On September 28, 2018, an inexplicably large tsunami devastated the Indonesian coastal city of Palu and several others nearby.

An article published has highlighted the shocking under-representation of students from ethnic minority backgrounds in the Geosciences.

Researchers at Yale and Princeton say the scientific community sorely needs a new way to compare the cascading effects of ecosystem loss due to human-induced environmental change to major crises of the past. For too long, scientists have relied upon metrics that compare current rates of species loss with those characterizing mass extinctions in the distant past, according to Pincelli Hull , an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Yale, and Christopher Spalding, an astrophysicist at Princeton.

There are many different factors that play into models of COVID-19 transmission: How much viral load is present in a person's cough?

Using a new computer framework, scientists are able to project future floodwaters under a changing climate.

A fire in Central Park seems to appear as a smoke plume and a line of flames in a satellite image. Colorful lights on Diwali night in India, seen from space , seem to show widespread fireworks activity.

The most capable geotechnical research centrifuge in Europe is currently being built on the Hönggerberg campus.

Sydney's recent disastrous flood wasn't unprecedented but we can expect more major events within 10 years, says Associate Professor Thomas Hubble from the School of Geosciences.

The Perseverance rover has just landed on Mars. Meanwhile, its precursor Curiosity continues to explore the base of Mount Sharp (officially Aeolis Mons), a mountain several kilometres high at the centre of the Gale crater.

The results contradict a widely accepted assumption in climate models that biomass and soil carbon will increase in tandem in the coming decades and highlight the importance of grasslands in helping to draw down carbon. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fuels plant growth. As carbon levels rise, it's appealing to think of supercharged plant growth and massive tree-planting campaigns drawing down the CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning, agriculture and other human activities.

An artist's concept of the Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars, part of the Mars 2020 mission. The rover will collect rock and soil samples, seal them in tubes and drop the tubes on the surface for later pickup and return to Earth, potentially by 2031.

Ten years on from the earthquake which caused the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Dr Joanna Faure Walker (UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) discusses the need for using geological data to help predict where earthquakes may happen in the future.

A new simulation study shows that climate change risks significantly altering water temperature, ice cover and mixing of many Swiss lakes. Mid altitude lakes are especially under pressure, running the risk of completely losing ice cover and no longer fully mixing twice per year. Such a change would have fundamental consequences for the functioning of lake ecosystems.

Publication of the LGL-TPE in the journal Chemical Geology on November 5, 2021. CO2 degassing of mafic silicate melts is an important part of the terrestrial carbon cycle, at mid-ocean ridges, oceanic hot spots, or in the middle of continents.

Christoph von Hagke took on his professorship post in geology at the PLUS on 1st October 2020. His research focuses on the interactions between mountain formation processes and climate change of both past and present, including in the foothill of the Alps.

Researchers from EPFL and ETH Zurich have conducted an original scientific study that puts forth a plausible explanation for the mysterious 1959 death of nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in the former Soviet Union.

Researchers from EPFL and ETH Zürich have conducted an original scientific study that puts forth a plausible explanation for the mysterious 1959 death of nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in the former Soviet Union.