Search Results for: ocean

The second Duke University-led expedition since 1999 to a deep underwater canyon will take geologists to another place in the eastern Pacific Ocean where new sea floor was forged out of volcanic lava within the past several million years.

The Pito Deep trough, positioned as deep as 19,600 feet below the ocean’s surface just west of Easter Island, will offer scientists a rare chance to study the internal geology of such ocean floor crust making processes.

The internal g

Cornell University researchers have created a video simulation of the deadly Dec. 26 Indian Ocean tsunami that shows in graphic detail how the massive wave system spread outward from the epicenter of an undersea earthquake northwest of Sumatra, Indonesia.

The simulation makes it clear how the tsunami struck the coastlines of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India with such devastating force, then continued as far as East Africa.

The video, about 7 MB, can be seen o

Albatrosses are the world’s most threatened family of birds. New research offers the first hope of identifying migration and feeding patterns to reduce their unnecessary slaughter by long-line fisheries. The study is reported in the journal Science, and outlines, for the first time, the year-round habitat of the grey-headed albatross.

Leading author Professor John Croxall from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said, “By understanding where these birds go when they’re not breeding,

As big fish eat little fish in the Earth’s vast oceans, so too do supermassive black holes gorge on smaller black holes and neutron stars, making themselves more massive in the process. Using sophisticated computer modeling, Penn State scientists have calculated the rate of this black-hole snacking, called “extreme-mass-ratio inspirals.” They expect to see several events per year with the Laser Interferometer Space Antennae (LISA), a joint NASA – European Space Agency mission now in develop

Feasibility Study Shows Access Could Be Given Without Delay

EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites, will make access to its satellite that covers the Indian Ocean available to the international community for use in constructing a tsunami warning system in the region.

EUMETSAT operates the Meteosat-5 satellite at 63°East as part of its Indian Ocean Data Coverage (IODC) Service.

In a special meeting this week, EUMETS

The January issue of GEOLOGY covers a wide variety of potentially newsworthy subjects. Topics include: new insights into conditions during the Neoproterozoic and Cryogenian; evidence challenging a widely used method for dating rocks; mathematical descriptions of sand ripples that may aid understanding of water flow on planetary surfaces; and evidence questioning whether Akilia Island’s metamorphic rocks really contain Earth’s earliest signs of life. GSA TODAY’s science article focuses