August 4, 2014
Energy Notes: March 2013-2014
U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (million of barrels per day) ' Oil and petroleum imports data are preliminary numbers taken from the American …
The EARTH archive
August 2014
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65 articles · Page 2 of 3
August 4, 2014
Mineral Resource of the Month: Arsenic
George Bedinger, mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, prepared the following information on arsenic. Arsenic is a gray …
August 4, 2014
Geologic Column: How T. rex got its street cred back
You wake up hungry in the middle of the night and remember that chunk of Spam in the refrigerator. You sneak down, ease open the fridge door and …
August 4, 2014
Comment: Energy 360: Let science speak, not agendas
Ideally, science is objective and without bias. But realistically, some bias, in the form of predetermined inclination, is unavoidable. …
July 31, 2014
Comment: The search for clarity on climate change
Straightforward scientific conclusions about climate change often fail to reach policymakers and the broader society. Climate scientists need to …
July 29, 2014
Energy Notes: February 2013-2014
U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (million of barrels per day) ' Oil and petroleum imports data are preliminary numbers taken from the American …
July 29, 2014
Mineral Resource of the Month: Peat
Lori E. Apodaca, mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, prepared the following information on peat, which is used primarily …
July 28, 2014
Mars Monthly
Thousands of kilometers across and bulging to elevations of almost 10 kilometers, the Tharsis region on Mars hosts several massive volcanoes and …
July 28, 2014
A real rift in the midcontinent
But now, Carol Stein of the University of Illinois at Chicago and her colleagues have offered a new possibility. Stein and colleagues suggest the …
July 28, 2014
Augustine Volcano's earthquakes and explosive eruption caused by a clogged conduit
Located 280 kilometers southwest of Anchorage, Augustine is one of the most active volcanoes in the volcanically active state, erupting every 10 …
July 28, 2014
Books: The once and future San Andreas Fault
One of the most famous pictures of the San Andreas Fault — taken by G.K. Gilbert, the pioneering geologist whose late-19th century insights into …
July 21, 2014
Geologic Column: By train or pipeline: That is the question
My wife and I (and our 49-year marriage) recently survived a 48-hour train trip from Chicago to Portland aboard Amtrak’s aptly-named “Empire …
July 21, 2014
Are slow-slip earthquakes under Tokyo stressing faults?
To study plate movements under Tokyo, Shinzaburo Ozawa of the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan in Tsukuba used GPS sensors to track the …
July 21, 2014
Rings not just for planets anymore
Reporting their findings in Nature, an international team of more than 60 astronomers recently announced the detection of two rings — an inner …
July 21, 2014
For toothed whales, ecolocation is an ancient art
Echolocation is a distinctive feature of toothed whales, but little is known about how and when this complex behavior and its underlying anatomy …
July 18, 2014
Ocean waves explain which La Niña events will linger
Many La Niña events last just one season, but historical records reveal that nearly half linger for two years or more, a phenomenon scientists …
July 18, 2014
Pompeii-like eruption fossilized dinosaurs in death poses
The Yixian and Jiufotang formations are famous for preserving fine details such as hair, skin and feathers from a diverse array of animals, …
July 18, 2014
Ancient seawater found in Chesapeake Bay impact crater
When the bolide struck in the Late Eocene, it shattered the bedrock, truncated aquifers and left a crater roughly twice the size of Rhode Island …
July 10, 2014
Striped pyrites link earthquakes to gold deposition
Pyrite, or “fool’s gold,” is an iron sulfide mineral commonly found in hydrothermal ore deposits. In such deposits, gold atoms can substitute for …
July 10, 2014
Desert dust influences monsoon rains
A team led by V. Vinoj of the Indian Institute of Technology in Bhubaneswar and Philip Rasch of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in …
July 10, 2014
Hell Creek Formation reveals a 'chicken from hell'
Anzu belongs to a mysterious group of theropods called Caenagnathidae, which were only known previously by a handful of fossils found in the …
July 10, 2014
People's earthquake reports influenced more by locomotion than location
Intensity scales like the Modified Mercalli scale, used in the U.S., and the European Macroseismic scale measure the strength of shaking produced …
July 10, 2014
A watery surprise from Earth's depths: Mineral provides first direct evidence for water in mantle's transition zone
Studies of seismic waves traveling through Earth have long suggested that the mantle is like a layer cake, with regions of differing composition. …
July 10, 2014
Ancient food web shows modern structure
Located in a former shale quarry near Frankfurt, Germany, the Messel deposit is so fossil-rich it has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. …