Earth Sciences

Like thermometers in space, satellites are taking the temperature of the Earth’s surface or skin. According to scientists, the satellite data confirm the Earth has had an increasing “fever” for decades.

For the first time, satellites have been used to develop an 18- year record (1981-1998) of global land surface temperatures. The record provides additional proof that Earth’s snow-free land surfaces have, on average, warmed during this time period, according to a NASA study appearin

About 75,000 years ago, some scientists say, the last truly colossal volcanic eruption on Earth came close to wiping out all the primates, including humans. That eruption occurred when the Toba volcano in Indonesia exploded in an almost unbelievably shattering display.

Other people with a flare for the dramatic warn that a supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park could erupt in the not-so-distant future and push humanity to the verge of extinction. University of North Carolina at C

Glaciers reached Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the most recent ice age about 20,000 years ago. But much harsher ice ages hit the Earth in an ancient geological interval known as “the Cryogenian Period” between 750 and 600 million years ago. A team of geologists from China and the United States now report evidence of at least three ice ages during that ancient time.

“The Cryogenian Period is characterized by some of the worst glaciations in earth history. But the available age constraints are s

The Arctic Ocean receives about 10 percent of Earth’s river water and with it some 25 teragrams [28 million tons] per year of dissolved organic carbon that had been held in far northern bogs and other soils.

Now an international team of U.S. and German scientists, including some funded by the National Science Foundation, have used carbon-14 dating techniques to determine that most of that carbon is fairly young and not likely to affect the balance of global climate.

They report

Researchers have found perforated shells that appear to be beads dating back 76,000 years ago, causing the development of language and symbolic communication to be older than previously thought by 30,000 years.

The 41 tick shells, punctured with holes of roughly one centimetre across in the same place, were found at Blombos Cave site, 300 km east of Cape Town, South Africa, by Christopher Henshilwood, a professor at the Centre for Development Studies of the University of Bergen in Norway,

Dumping iron in the ocean is known to spur the growth of plankton that remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere, but a new study indicates iron fertilization may not be the quick fix to climate problems that some had hoped.

Scientists have quantified the transport of carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean in response to fertilizing the ocean with iron, an essential nutrient for marine plants, or phytoplankton. Prior work suggested that in some ocean regions