Earth Sciences

Over 35 million could be affected

The potential for devastating tsunamis in the northern Caribbean is high, say marine scientists, based on their analysis of historical data since the arrival of Columbus. Several natural phenomena could trigger giant tsunamis, they say, with effects felt in the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and along the east and Gulf coasts of the United States.

Nancy Grindlay and Meghan Hearne of the University of North Carolina Wilmingto

The highest levels of silver contamination ever observed in the open ocean turned up in samples collected during a survey of the North Pacific in 2002. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, measured silver concentrations 50 times greater than the natural background level. Though still well below levels that would be toxic to marine life, this contamination of what had been considered relatively pristine waters highlights the increasingly global impact of industrial emission

A recent international scientific study on Russian soils raises concerns that acid rain may have serious implications for forest growth in the U.S., particularly in eastern areas such as the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“We’ve known that acid rain acidifies surface waters, but this is the first time we’ve been able to compare and track tree growth in forests that include soil changes due to acid rain,” said USGS s

Acquired from orbit 800 kilometres away, this Envisat image shows two volcanoes erupting simultaneously on Russia’s snowy Kamchatka Peninsula this week.

Located in the Russian Far East, the Kamchatka Peninsula is a landscape covered with volcanoes, part of the Pacific ’Ring of Fire’. Two stratovolcanoes, Kliuchevskoi and Shiveluch are currently erupting simultaneously.

The more southerly 4835-metre-high Kliuchevskoi volcano began its latest eruption on 17 January 2005.

Seismologists have long relied on earthquakes or expensive tools like explosives to help create images of Earth’s interior, but a new method created by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers will produce quicker, cheaper and clearer images.

Rather than waiting for earthquakes, the researchers have now recovered surface wave information from ambient seismic noise that is constantly produced by fluctuations in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Measuring surface wa

Frees seismologists from ’tyranny’ of waiting for earthquakes

Seismologists have long relied on earthquakes or expensive tools like explosives to help create images of Earth’s interior, but a new method created by University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) researchers will produce quicker, cheaper and clearer images.
Rather than waiting for earthquakes, the researchers have recovered surface-wave information from normal seismic noise that is constantly produc