The world’s oceans could harbor an unpleasant surprise for global warming, based on new research that shows how naturally occurring carbon gases trapped in reservoirs atop the seafloor escaped to superheat the planet in prehistory. Scientists say events that began on the ocean bottom thousands of years ago so disrupted the Earth’s atmosphere that it …
Curtin researchers believe that ancient supercontinents formed and then fell apart through alternating cycles spanning hundreds of millions of years that involved superoceans being swallowed and the restructuring of the Earth’s mantle. The research, published in science journal Precambrian Research, found the supercontinents assembled and broke up through alternating processes of ‘introversion’ and ‘extroversion.’ The …
In an ongoing effort to discover the ideal conditions to grow alternative biofuels that offer more environmental benefits, University of Minnesota scientists applied their research on native prairies in the Upper Midwest to understand marginal lands—particularly abandoned and degraded agricultural fields. “Native, perennial grasses and abandoned fields have been proposed as a way to increase …
Antibiotic-Resistant Genes (ARGs) that were first detected in urban India have been found 8,000 miles away in one of the last ‘pristine’ places on earth, a new study has shown. Soil samples taken in the Kongsfjorden region of Svalbard have now confirmed the spread of blaNDM-1 into the High Arctic—an ARG originally found in Indian …
The way humanity produces and eats food must radically change to avoid millions of deaths and “catastrophic” damage to the planet, according to a landmark study published Thursday. The key to both goals is a dramatic shift in the global diet—roughly half as much sugar and red meat, and twice as many vegetables, fruits and …
A pioneering new report has devised a seven-point plan to help policymakers devise new, coherent and collaborative strategies to tackle the greatest global environmental threats. A team of international researchers, including experts from the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy (LEEP) Institute at the University of Exeter, has examined how politicians and legislators can develop a …
Up to 15 million hectares of tropical rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon could lose protection and be clear-cut because of an article in the country’s new Forest Code. The warning comes from Brazilian researchers at the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP) and Swedish researchers at KTH Royal Institute of …
The Greenland Ice Sheet emits tons of methane according to a new study, showing that subglacial biological activity impacts the atmosphere far more than previously thought. An international team of researchers led by the University of Bristol camped for three months next to the Greenland Ice Sheet, sampling the meltwater that runs off a large …
Trash, particularly plastic, in the ocean and along the shoreline is an economic, environmental, human health, and aesthetic problem causing serious challenges to coastal communities around the world, including the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve teamed up for a two-year study to document …
Tree rings tell the story of what’s happening physiologically as fire suppression makes forests more dense and less tolerant of drought, pests and wildfires, new research shows. Scientists at Oregon State University and Utah State University studied 2,800 hectares of mixed-conifer forest in central Oregon, with many of the ponderosa pines in the study area …
