Seismic station A19K, it’s called, and it’s now at the edge of an abandoned airstrip far above the Arctic Circle. The nearest population center is 127 miles northeast in Utqiaġvik (formerly known as Barrow), the northernmost city in the United States. What a way to celebrate Earth Science Week, Oct. 8-14, 2017. The seismic station […]
Scientists have long wondered what the earliest dinosaur relatives looked like. Most assumed they would resemble miniature dinosaurs, about the size of chickens, and walk on two legs. The discovery of Teleocrater rhadinus, however, has forced scientists to reassess their ideas. Based on a fossil unearthed in southern Tanzania, these early relatives were carnivorous animals […]
The cataclysmic 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines masked the full impact of greenhouse gases on accelerating sea level rise, according to a new study. “These scientists have disentangled the major role played by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo on trends in global mean sea level,” said Anjuli Bamzai, program director in […]
A new study has found a link between abrupt ocean warming at the end of the last ice age and the sudden onset of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions that led to vast marine dead zones. Results of the research, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), are published today in the journalNature. “This […]
For centuries, cod were the backbone of New England’s fisheries and a key species in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. Today, cod stocks are on the verge of collapse, hovering at 3-4 percent of sustainable levels. Even painful cuts to the fishery have failed to slow this rapid decline, surprising both fishers and fisheries managers. Now […]
For more than 30 million years after dinosaurs first appeared, they remained inexplicably rare near the equator, where only a few small-bodied meat-eating dinosaurs made a living. The long absence at low latitudes has been one of the great, unanswered questions about the rise of the dinosaurs. Now the mystery has a solution, according to […]
The mortality of larval Pacific oysters in Northwest hatcheries has been linked to ocean acidification. Yet the rate of increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the decrease of pH in near-shore waters have been questioned as being severe enough to cause the die-offs. Now, a new study of Pacific oyster and Mediterranean mussel […]
Paleontologists have discovered an almost complete skull of a previously unknown mammal that likely resembled a large modern-day groundhog and lived alongside dinosaurs. The species, found on Madagascar, is shaking up theories of early mammal evolution and diversity. Stony Brook University paleontologist David Krause led the research team, which reports its findings in today’s issue […]
Scientists have developed new geochemical tracers that can identify hydraulic fracturing flowback fluids that have been spilled or released into the environment. The tracers have been field-tested at a spill site in West Virginia and downstream from an oil and gas brine wastewater treatment plant in Pennsylvania. “By characterizing the isotopic and geochemical fingerprints of […]