Earth Sciences

There’s nothing quite like going into the deep freeze to learn more about planet Earth.

That’s where Jihong Cole-Dai, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at South Dakota State University, and graduate students Drew Budner and Dave Ferris will find themselves when they head to Antarctica in December.

In a collaborative research project with the University of California-San Diego and funded by the National Science Foundation, they will collect ice cores from the

While the Earth is moistened by rainfall, scientists believe that the water in soil can, in turn, influence rainfall both regionally and globally. Forecasters, water resource managers and farmers may benefit once this connection is better understood.

A NASA researcher led an effort that used a dozen computer models to locate “hot spots” around the world where soil moisture may strongly affect rainfall during northern hemisphere summertime. The results appear in the August 20 issue

NASA, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientists have assembled in the Arabian Desert to study tiny airborne particles called aerosols and their effect on weather and climate. The scientists are collaborating with researchers from the United Arab Emirates Department of Water Resources Studies and 20 other U.S., European and South African research laboratories to decipher the complex processes controlling the area’s climate.

The United Arab Emirates Un

Ents, orcs and hobbits may have trod upon New Zealand soils, but beneath the Southern Island lies a giant earthquake fault that may help seismologists understand how the Earth moves and bends, according to a Penn State seismologist.

“One of the issues that makes the Alpine fault interesting is that while it is a strike slip fault for most of its length, it begins in a transition from a subduction zone to a strike slip fault,” says Dr. Kevin Furlong, professor of geosciences. “Most o

A team of international researchers working on the North Greenland Ice Core Project recently recovered what appear to be plant remnants nearly two miles below the surface between the bottom of the glacial ice and the bedrock.

Researchers from the project, known as NGRIP, said particles found in clumps of reddish material recovered from the frozen, muddy ice in late July look like pine needles, bark or blades of grass. Thought to date to several million years ago before the last i

These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, show the Dao Valles and Niger Valles, a system of outflow channels on Mars.

The images were taken during orbit 528 in June 2004, and show the Dao Valles and Niger Valles areas at a point where the north-eastern Hellas impact crater basin and the Hesperia Planum volcanic region meet.

The images are centred at Mars longitude 93° East and latitude 32° South. The image re