Driftwood plays a key role in Arctic coastal ecosystems: it stores carbon, stabilises coastlines and provides a habitat for animals. At the same time, it can offer clues regarding climate change in the Arctic region, providing information on the likes of storm surges, coastal erosion and shifting fluvial dynamics. Despite the crucial role it plays, […]
A natural cooling mechanism has been shielding the world’s mountain glaciers from increasingly warm summer melt seasons, but new research by an international science team says the protective process will break down by mid-century. Glaciers at that time will be fully susceptible to the warming overlying atmosphere, though the timing and extent of that response […]
Mount Edgecumbe volcano in Southeast Alaska sits in a place where a volcano shouldn’t really be sitting. Research underway with new federal funding aims to solve that mystery, learn how magma forms beneath the reawakened volcano and reveal the structure of its upper plumbing system — the magma reservoirs, conduits and cracks in which magma […]
The Cassini space probe ended its mission in 2017 with a dramatic plunge into Saturn, yet it continues to fuel discoveries. In a new analysis of data from one of the probe’s instruments, an international team of researchers has identified new organic compounds within jets of icy water erupting from Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. The material […]