Earth Sciences

Leeds researchers are aiming to unlock the secrets of the British weather, bringing forecasters one step closer to that elusive holy grail: the ability to predict exactly where, when and how much rain is going to fall.

Dr Alan Blyth from the school of the environment explains: “There’s still a lot we don’t know about exactly how rain is formed, so it’s no surprise that the forecasting models don’t always get it right, particularly in relation to the quantity of rain that’s going to fall.”

Guided by Japanese writings from an era of shoguns, an international team of scientists today reported new evidence that an earthquake of magnitude 9 struck the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada three centuries ago. Their findings are likely to affect the region’s precautions against future earthquakes and tsunamis.

Writing in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth, published by the American Geophysical Union, scientists from Japan, Canada and the United State

Long before the dinosaurs ever lived, the planet experienced a mass extinction so severe it killed 90 percent of life on Earth, and researchers at the University of Rochester think they’ve identified the unlikely culprit.

“An ancient meteorite body, one from the days when the solar system was still forming, struck the Earth 251 million years ago,” says Asish Basu, professor of earth sciences in today’s issue of Science. The research is the latest volley in a decades-long debate ove

A new study by scientists at the University of Virginia (UVa) in Charlottesville and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, suggests that explosive volcanic eruptions in the tropics may increase the probability of an El Niño event occurring during the winter following the eruption. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant mode of interannual climate variability on the planet,

Back in the old days, when doctors looked for tumors, exploratory surgery was the only option. Today they use CAT scans, x-rays, ultrasound, and other non-intrusive methods for checking out what lies beneath the skin’s surface. But how do we determine what is beneath the Earth’s surface? Invasive surgery on the Earth is just as dated as doctors’ old methods of finding tumors, if you ask Eric Miller, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Northeastern University. If we humans ca

Scientists studying the formation of the sea floor thousands of feet below the surface have a new theory for why there are so many holes and collapsed pits on the ocean bottom. In a recent article in the journal Nature, the researchers say the holes and pits of various sizes are probably formed by lava erupting onto the seafloor so quickly it traps water beneath it, forming bubbles of steam that eventually collapse as the water cools. The hardened crust then breaks, forming pock marks and glassy bla