Earth Sciences

In 2002-2003, three expeditions involving specialists of the Institutes of Geochemistry, of Solar-Terrestrial Geophysics, and of the Earth’s Crust, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (Irkutsk) looked for traces of meteoroid that had fallen down in the north-east of the Irkutsk Province, in the Mamsko-Chuisk region. None of the expeditions found either craters or meteoroid fragments. Only fallen trees and minor particles of meteorite substance mark the direction of celestial body fa

Scientists have concluded more energy is being absorbed from the sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth’s energy “out of balance” and warming the globe.

Scientists from NASA, Columbia University, New York, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, Calif. used satellites, data from buoys and computer models to study the Earth’s oceans. They confirmed the energy imbalance by using precise measurements of increasing ocean heat content over the past 10 yea

Layers of salty ocean water mix with layers of fresher water, creating a salty staircase or layering driven by small-scale convection known as salt fingers. Although scientists have known about salt fingers since 1960, when they were discovered at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, they have not understood their role in ocean mixing and the ability of the ocean to absorb heat, carbon dioxide and pollutants from the atmosphere. Results of a new experiment, sponsored by the National Sci

The final stretch of the Scott Dunn Polar Challenge is approaching: 44 competitors on 16 teams from all over Britain and Ireland are racing on skis, pulling sledges to the 500-kilometre-distant Magnetic North Pole. In this extreme environment, radar ice images from ESA’s Envisat help ensure competitors keep safe.

After a year in training, participants set up from Resolute Bay in Canada on Saturday 23 April – the start having been delayed a day by a blizzard. Expected to tak

Using satellites, data from buoys and computer models to study the Earth’s oceans, scientists have concluded that more energy is being absorbed from the Sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth’s energy “out of balance” and warming the planet.

Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (Washington, D.C.), The Earth Institute at Columbia University (New York), and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (California) have confi

A group of international researchers plans to use studies by land and by sea to determine the size and shape of an underground magma chamber beneath an active volcano, which will help improve the ability to assess hazards and forecast volcanic events.

“We can look at changes on the surface and infer what is happening at depth, but we don’t know the physical dimensions,” said Glen Mattioli, professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas.

Mattioli and colleagues fr