Earth Sciences

The discharge of groundwater to coastal waters represents an important source of dissolved nutrients and contaminants that may affect chemical and biological processes in coastal ecosystems. In a journal article published in a recent issue of Limnology and Oceanography, URI Graduate School of Oceanography chemical oceanographers Roger P. Kelly and S. Bradley Moran describe how they used radium isotopes as tracers to determine seasonal changes in groundwater input to the Pettasquamscutt estuary from

Geologists may have to revise their ideas about what goes on in the Earth’s interior, following the publication today of new research in the journal ’Nature’. It appears that contrary to previous belief, part of the interior has remained undisturbed for at least two-and-a-half billion years, in spite of the massive forces at work inside the planet.

Like a saucepan of thick syrup being heated on the stove, huge convection currents within the Earth, generated by heat from the co

A new array of ocean robots has begun working deep in the Indian Ocean to help scientists understand Australia’s changing climate.

“This is a key region for the global climate system and installation of the robots will provide our best coverage to begin to understand how the Indian Ocean affects our climate,” says CSIRO’s Dr Gary Meyers.

Cycling between the surface and a depth of two kilometres every 10 days, the ocean robots are sampling conditions in a region thought to

Scientists at UCL have recreated earthquakes in the laboratory for the first time allowing them to better understand the origin of the largest and most violent earthquakes.

This is the first time scientists have been able to generate and observe deep and intermediate focus earthquakes in the laboratory, recreating the exact pressure and temperature conditions of the deep earth. Their results have helped elucidate the origin of some of the largest and most violent earthquakes to occur on ear

In October, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) completed the first measurement of the solar ultraviolet radiation spectrum over the duration of an 11 year solar cycle, a period marked by cyclical shifts in the Sun’s activity. This long measurement record by two instruments aboard UARS will give researchers better insight into how fluctuations in the Sun’s energy affect ozone and the Earth’s climate. In turn, the dataset gives scientists tools to document the influence of ma

Study by researchers from Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y., and Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., to be published in the Nov. 14 issue of Nature

El Niño, the pattern that can wreak havoc on climate conditions around the world, is like a beacon, pulsating through time on a 2,000 year cycle, according to a new study by scientists from Syracuse University, Syracuse, N.Y.; Union College, Schenectady, N.Y., and from the NOAA Paleoclimatology Program, Boulder, Colo., that is being publis