A true-color image of the Central Andes and surrounding landscape acquired by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), flying aboard NASA’s Terra spacecraft. Credit: Image courtesy of NASA Seismologists investigating how Earth forms new continental crust have compiled more than...
Scientists combing through databases of earthquakes since the early 1990s have discovered a possible defining moment 10-15 seconds into an event that could signal a magnitude 7 or larger megaquake. Likewise, that moment—gleaned from GPS data on the peak rate...
A sub-alpine forest in Colorado. Forests in the southwestern US are expected to be among the hardest-hit, according to the projections resulting from the study.Credit: Sydne Record Forests take up 25 -- 30 percent of human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide...
What happens when lava and water meet? Explosive experiments with manmade lava are helping to answer this important question. By cooking up 10-gallon batches of molten rock and injecting them with water, scientists are shedding light on the basic physics...
Around 120 million years ago, the earth experienced an extreme environmental disruption that choked oxygen from its oceans. Known as oceanic anoxic event (OAE) 1a, the oxygen-deprived water led to a minor -- but significant -- mass extinction that affected...
As scientists work to determine why some of the latest climate models suggest the future could be warmer than previously thought, a new study indicates the reason is likely related to challenges simulating the formation and evolution of clouds. The...
Artist's rendering of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO)-2, one of five new NASA Earth science missions set to launch in 2014, and one of three managed by JPL. Credit: NASA-JPL/Caltech NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to measuring carbon dioxide levels in Earth's...
As palm oil production expands from Southeast Asia into tropical regions of the Americas and Africa, vulnerable forests and species on four continents face increased risk of loss, a new Duke University-led study finds. The largest areas of vulnerable forest...
This is a cast of a P. boisei skull, used for teaching at Cambridge University Credit: Louise Walsh Two herpes simplex viruses infect primates from unknown evolutionary depths. In modern humans these viruses manifest as cold sores (HSV1) and genital herpes...
Tiny particles fuel powerful storms and influence weather much more than has been appreciated, according to a study in the Jan. 26 issue of the journal Science. The research focuses on the power of minute airborne particles known as aerosols, which...
A new Columbia Engineering study indicates that the world will experience more frequent and more extreme drought and aridity than currently experienced in the coming century, exacerbated by both climate change and land-atmosphere processes. The researchers demonstrate that concurrent...