Earth Sciences

An earthquake shook the South-West Pacific islands of Ambrym and Pentecost on 26 November 1999. It was the strongest thrust event ever recorded in central Vanuatu. Offshore and onshore data gathered by IRD researchers yielded clues as to the tectonic movements involved in the earthquake. A resulting model of the rupture mechanism showed that in this area of Vanuatu, slipping motions of the Australian oceanic plate under the Pacific plate are blocked to the West, which generates strong stresses to the

The first solid evidence of human use of fire in Eurasia as early as 790,000 years ago has been found in excavations in Israel conducted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology.

The discovery was made in excavations, which have been conducted over seven seasons, at the Benot Ya’aqov bridge site along the Dead Sea rift in the Hula Valley of northern Israel. According to Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar, head of the Institute of Archaeology and director of the Benot Ya’aqov exc

“Regime shifts” are infrequent, large changes in oceanic conditions that spread through the food web. Depending on dynamics of the ecosystem, the response of a biological organism to some external forcing can be smooth, abrupt, or discontinuous.

In a paper published in the current issue of Progress in Oceanography, Dr. Jeremy Collie, University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography, Dr. Katherine Richardson, University of Arhus, Denmark, and Dr. John Steele, Woods Hole Oceanograph

Scientists at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) in Huntsville, Ala., are using information gleaned from NASA satellites, aircraft and field research to better understand dynamics behind tornadoes, lightning, hurricanes and other destructive forces of nature.

“A better understanding of severe weather can help people year-round,” said Dr. Tim Miller of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) in Huntsville. “The Center is conducting a variety of unique research pr

The ornate map, seemingly crude by today’s standards, depicts sea monsters off the coast of Scotland, sinking galleons, sea snakes, and wolves urinating against trees.

When oceanographers from Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the University of Rhode Island compared a large group of swirls, shown on the chart off the east coast of Iceland, with thermal images from an Earth observation satellite they found the swirls corresponded almost perfectly with the Iceland-Faroes Front – where the Gulf

Shipboard marine scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, will release a nontoxic red dye into the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey during the week of May 2 to help reveal the contents and fate of Hudson River water after it joins the Atlantic.
The dye release is the first of three experiments in Rutgers’ ongoing study of the Hudson River Plume – the mix of river water and substances that flow into the ocean at a rate of 500 billion gallons per day. Preliminary studies indi