Earth Sciences

British researchers have launched urgent research programmes in order to learn lessons from the recent Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster. Such knowledge is relevant to both UK, and overseas disaster assessment and prevention programmes.

Funded by grants from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), teams from the University of Cambridge, the University of Newcastle, and University College London have looked at differing aspects of the tsunami’s effects. Their o

Since they began clearing valleys and slopes for agriculture more than 9,000 years ago, and continuing with the construction of roads, buildings and cities, people have been altering landscapes. UVM geologists explore the link between human actions and landscape–and reach some important conclusions–in the cover article of the April/May issue of GSA Today. Produced by the Geological Society of America, the prestigious monthly journal goes to more than 20,000 geologists and libraries worldwid

Envisat radar imagery confirms that the B-15A iceberg – the world’s largest floating object – is adrift once more after two months aground on a shallow seamount. This latest development poses a renewed threat to the nearby pier of land-attached ice known as the Drygalski ice tongue.

The sheer scale of B-15A is best appreciated from space. The bottle-shaped Antarctic iceberg is around 120 kilometres long, with an area exceeding 2500 square kilometres, making it about as larg

The stresses in the earth’s crust which have resulted from the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake have significantly increased the risk of another large earthquake in the already-devastated Indonesian island of Sumatra, according to new research findings by scientists from the University of Ulster’s School of Environmental Sciences.

According to their calculations, published in this week’s edition of leading scientific journal Nature, the Christmas 2004 earthquake which generated the m

Mars isn’t as sleepy as scientists suspected. An international research team, which includes Brown University planetary geologist James Head, has found evidence of recent glacial movement and volcanic eruptions in 3-D images from the Mars Express mission. The team’s latest work, laid out in three Nature papers, also includes evidence of a frozen sea close to the equator. These and other Mars Express findings are stoking debate about the possibility of life on the Red Planet.

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A different style of coastal barrier islands that forms under lower-energy conditions than classic ocean-facing barriers, such as North Carolina’s Outer Banks, has been identified by coastal geological researchers at Duke University and the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. The new style of islands is typically found in protected bays and lagoons.

“This is a major and important recognition,” said Orrin Pilkey, a geology professor emeritus at Duke’s Nicholas