Earth Sciences

Some people think cities and nature don’t mix, but a new NASA-funded study finds that concrete jungles create warmer conditions that cause plants to stay green longer each year, compared to surrounding rural areas.

Urban areas with high concentrations of buildings, roads and other artificial surfaces retain heat, creating urban heat islands. Satellite data reveal that urban heat islands increase surface temperatures compared to rural surroundings.

Using information

Scientists have pinpointed the source of a meteorite from the moon for the first time. Their unique meteorite records four separate lunar impacts.

They are the first to precisely date Mare Imbrium, the youngest of the large meteorite craters on the moon. That date, 3.9 billion years ago, is a new key date for lunar and even terrestrial stratigraphy, the scientists say, because life on Earth would have evolved only after heavy meteorite bombardment ended.

Geologists who fou

A new study of California’s southern Sierra Nevada range by a University of Colorado at Boulder research team has located a massive body of rock that sank into Earth’s mantle some 3.5 million years ago, allowing the mountains to pop up.

Undertaken with a high-tech suite of instruments designed to probe the geology to roughly 125 miles below Earth’s surface, the study illustrated the mountain building process in the southern Sierras with unprecedented detail.

Robert L. Fisher, research geologist emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, has been awarded the inaugural Drake Medal by the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) organization. Fisher received the medal at a reception hosted by the Ocean Studies Board of the National Academies on July 7 in Woods Hole, Mass.

The Drake Medal was created specifically to honor Fisher and is a replica of the medal given to Sir Francis Drake by England’s Qu

BU team shows so-called urban heat island effect influences onset of ’greenup,’ dormancy

Summer can sometimes be a miserably hot time for city dwellers, but new research shows that an urban setting allows plants to bask in a hot-house environment that keeps them greener longer.

Recent NASA-sponsored research from a team of geographers in Boston University’s Center for Remote Sensing shows that the growing season for vegetation in about 70 urban areas in Nort

The next time the New Madrid fault zone produces a strong earthquake, buildings in the Midwest may see less damage if they use a new device developed by a researcher at the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Dr. Genda Chen, associate professor of civil engineering at UMR, has spent the past five years developing a “smart” damper that can adapt to external disturbances such as earthquakes and keep buildings from shaking as much. His most recent findings are included in an upcoming issue of the Jo