April 28, 2016
Geomedia: Film: 'A Beautiful Planet' inspires with vivid views of life on and off Earth
An endless sea of bright dots surrounds you amid the otherwise darkened expanse as you slowly approach a swirling, recognizable cloud of glowing …
The EARTH archive
April 2016
Explore the archive by subject.
43 articles · Page 1 of 2
April 21, 2016
Geologic Column: May: Nature's forces in collision
May is named for Maia, the Greek goddess of fertility, and eldest of the seven Pleiades sisters. Orion, the hunter, after meeting the sisters, …
April 21, 2016
Turtle finds lower Altiplano elevation estimate
Rare turtle fossils uncovered in Bolivia suggest that, about 13 million years ago, the southern portion of South America’s Altiplano — the arid, …
April 21, 2016
Mercury levels support volcanic role in end-Cretaceous extinction
The end-Cretaceous extinction, known for finishing off the last dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, often evokes scenes of a large asteroid …
April 21, 2016
First all-digital geologic map of Alaska released
When it comes to natural beauty, Alaska’s rugged, massive landscape is an embarrassment of riches, with towering mountains and lush forests, …
April 19, 2016
Reading the ridges: Are climate and the seafloor connected?
At the bottom of every ocean basin lies a chain of submarine mountains. Blanketed in black, pillowy basalt, they tower more than a thousand …
April 19, 2016
Comment: GAVRT: Learning science by doing science
Science education is very much a part of the lexicon of K-12 education these days, and numerous STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and …
April 19, 2016
Magnesium part of Earth's magnetic field engine
Earth’s magnetic field, which arises from convective flows in the planet’s core, known as the geodynamo, has existed for at least 3.4 billion …
April 19, 2016
Model targets better understanding of recurring Indian-Pacific storm systems
Scientists have known for decades that the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) — a massive gathering of thunderstorms that forms intermittently over …
April 19, 2016
Humans evolved early to be more efficient sleepers
We humans spend about a third of our lives asleep. While that might sound like a lot, we require less sleep than most mammals. In a new study, …
April 19, 2016
The softer side of hydrothermal vents
Seafloor chimneys belching dark plumes of superheated, acidic fluids into the ocean, called “black smokers,” are the most common kind of …
April 19, 2016
Fossil leaves provide clues to ancient Australian habitat
Researchers have long thought that the scrublands of Australia developed over the last 25 million to 30 million years as part of a global trend …
April 19, 2016
Medieval earthquakes in Nepal may help reveal the region's tectonic future
The magnitude-7.8 Gorkha earthquake in Nepal in April 2015 triggered landslides and damage that killed more than 8,500 people and injured at …
April 18, 2016
China's Red Deer Cave people may have survived until the last ice age
In the 1980s, a collection of bones from very small hominids was excavated from a cave in southwestern China, alongside a number of bones from a …
April 18, 2016
Museums and exhibits in the Dinosaur Diamond
Price’s Prehistoric Museum The Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah, the western point of the Dinosaur Diamond, now affiliated with Utah State …
April 18, 2016
Making tracks through the Dinosaur Diamond
For more than a century, the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains where the mountains descend across the Colorado-Utah border onto the Colorado …
April 13, 2016
Benchmarks: April 22, 1995: GLOBE is launched
Studying the global environment requires collecting numerous detailed observations. And although it may seem today like we’re awash in such data, …
April 13, 2016
Down to Earth With: Tectonicist Eldridge Moores
“When Eldridge Moores was 10 years old, his family lived in Crown King, Ariz., a tiny, remote mining settlement high in the rugged Yavapai …
April 13, 2016
Geologic Column: At the end of the Earth
When you think of Spain, what images come to mind? The impoverished sailor from Genoa who was bankrolled by Queen Isabella to sail westward …
April 13, 2016
Ice (Re)Cap: April 2016
From Antarctica to the Arctic; from polar caps, permafrost and glaciers to ocean-rafted sea ice; and from burly bears to cold-loving microbes, …
April 7, 2016
Comment: How long have humans been altering Earth's climate?
Throughout the 20th century the paleoclimate science community regarded the warmth of the current (Holocene) interglaciation — prior to the major …
April 1, 2016
Bat signals
Bats, the only true-flight mammals, first appeared during the Early Eocene after a period of acute global warming known as the Paleocene-Eocene …
April 1, 2016
Crippling heat stress projected by midcentury in densely populated regions
Extreme heat events, defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as periods of summer weather that are substantially hotter and/or more …
April 1, 2016
An absentee note for ancient blueschist: Lack of metamorphic rock does not date onset of plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a defining characteristic of our 4.5-billion-year-old home planet, responsible for earthquakes, mountain building, and much of …