Earth Sciences

One of the most common groups of minerals on earth is the iron oxides, found in soils, rusting iron, and the dust of Mars.

Due to their importance in the environment, iron oxide minerals have been widely studied, providing insight into their properties and reactivities. But when the size of minerals decreases to 1 to 10 nanometers (billionths of a meter), many of their properties change. Andrew Madden of Blacksburg, a Ph.D. student in geosciences at Virginia Tech, will report on the

Under the right conditions, nanoparticles can form spontaneously in the air. Atmospheric nanoparticles are an important missing factor in understanding global climate change, because they could influence cloud formation and change how the Earth reflects or retains heat, said Anthony Wexler, professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at UC Davis.

They may also have health effects. Wexler’s laboratory uses and develops equipment to detect these extremely small particles. On the

CSIRO has measured above average growth in carbon dioxide levels in the global atmosphere, despite global attempts to reduce these emissions. The source of the increase is most likely from the burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas.

“The results are concerning because carbon dioxide is the main driver of climate change,” says CSIRO Atmospheric Division chief research scientist Dr Paul Fraser. “I am a little bit surprised that the level is so high without input from forest wildfires.”

The French explorer, Gilles Elkaïm, who left North Cape (Norway) in May 2000, has almost completed the seventh and final stage of his 12,000 km solo trek along the rim of the Arctic Ocean, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on foot, kayak, skis, by sled pulled by himself or by dogs… with help from ESA.

The “Arktika” expedition is nearing its conclusion. Gilles Elkaïm and his twelve sled dogs, who, last May, set up summer camp in a disused military base, close to Cape Shelagskiy (the most n

Russian scientists have discovered territories in the North that will run the greatest risk in the course of permafrost thawing, they have also calculated degree of risk for towns, industrial facilities and main lines.

Global climate warming makes attacks on permafrost. Accurate forecast is very important as the permafrost ground status would drive the future of all northern towns and industrial facilities. Researchers of the State Hydrological Institute (St. Petersburg) have undertaken such

The body size of ancient creatures, bivalves and brachiopods, could tell geoscientists a lot about the creatures’ life history and about the ecology of the times in which they lived. However, traveling the world to measure these creatures’ fossils would take several life-times and more travel funds than scientists usually have.

Since the same creatures have also become abundant in scientific literature since the mid 1800s, a team of Virginia Tech researchers is determining whether measurin