February 2013 on EARTH Magazine

Energy Notes: October 2011-2012

Mon, 18 Jun 2018 17:13:49 -0400

Credit: The American Geosciences Institute

U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (millions of barrels per day)

Oil and petroleum imports data are preliminary numbers taken from the American Petroleum Institute’s Monthly Statistical Report. For more information visit www.api.org.

Mineral Resource of the Month: Beryllium

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 13:34:46 -0400

Brian W. Jaskula, a mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, compiled the following information on beryllium, which is used in many commercial and military applications.

A NASA engineer looks on as six of the 18 gold-coated beryllium mirrors going on the James Webb Space Telescope are prepped for testing. Credit: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham

Beryllium is a lightweight, gray-colored metal. Its physical and mechanical properties — high stiffness-to-weight and strength-to-weight ratios, one of the highest melting points of all light metals, excellent thermal conductivity, outstanding dimensional stability over a wide range of temperatures, reflectivity and transparency to X-rays — make it useful for many applications.

Travels in Geology: Abode of the clouds: A journey to Meghalaya, India

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 16:25:09 -0400

The high Meghalaya Plateau in northeastern India was named for the mist that often blankets its hills and forests. Meghalaya means Abode of the Clouds. Credit: Jordan Clary

While most of India swelters through the hot monsoon season, which runs from approximately June through September, the picturesque town of Shillong, on the Meghalaya Plateau in northeastern India, offers a welcome respite from the heat. Meghalaya, which translates to Abode of the Clouds, was aptly named for the mist that often hovers over the region, and the climate is salubrious, with the warmest months averaging 20 to 22 degrees Celsius. For the geo-traveler, Meghalaya offers abundant opportunities to explore some of the oldest geological formations on the planet and a glimpse of a unique area of southern Asia that travelers to India often overlook.

Getting There and Getting Around India

Fri, 01 Jun 2018 16:12:23 -0400

Most of the roads in Shillong were built during the period of British colonial rule. Credit: Jordan Clary

Shillong is connected to the rest of India by regular flights from Kolkata (Calcutta) that fly into Gopinath Bordoloi Airport in Guwahati, roughly 100 kilometers from Shillong. There is also a small airport at Umroi about 40 kilometers from Shillong with flights from Kolkata on certain days of the week. The nearest railway station is in Guwahati, which is well connected to all the major cities of India. Travel by bus is also an option.

Benchmarks: February 3, 1953: Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" is published, opening a window on the underwater world for millions

Fri, 25 Sep 2015 08:44:36 -0400

The Silent World. Credit: Captain J.Y. Cousteau with Frederic Dumas.

Few names are as evocative as Jacques Cousteau. The sunlight-infused blue glow of the marine subsurface, the endless array of otherworldly creatures that populate the ocean, and masked divers stealthily easing through the sea — trailed, of course, by glittering streams of bubbles emanating from Cousteau’s famed contraption — are morsels of the vivid imagery that his name often brings to mind. And with good reason: After all, he’s the one who introduced us to the real world below the waves, long before Bob Ballard found the Titanic or the Discovery Channel showed us what it’s like to swim with the sharks.

Down to Earth With: Terry Plank

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 10:29:03 -0500

Terry Plank, a geochemist and volcanologist at Columbia University, is a recipient of a 2012 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant." Credit: Courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

“You’re a genius! Now here’s half a million dollars to use however you please.”

Sahara dust brings rain and snow to California

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 19:10:41 -0500

Researchers flying over the Sierra Nevada during winter storms in 2009, 2010 and 2011 collected data on the chemical composition of particles suspended in the air from a plane and on the ground, and then combined those data with cloud and particle data from satellites. Courtesy of Kimberly Prather

Ready for takeoff. Scientists flew through storms to measure aerosols to determine if and how aerosols affect winter precipitation in California. Courtesy of Kimberly Prather

One of the field sites in the Sierra Nevadas where researchers sampled winter precipitation. Courtesy of Kimberly Prather

What triggers the mountain rain and snow that are vital to California’s water and energy needs? The answer, according to new research, is blowing in the wind: dust and bacteria from as far away as Africa’s Sahara Desert.

Setting sail on unknown seas: The past, present and future of species rafting

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 09:23:37 -0500

This map portrays a few examples of modern animals whose ancestors dispersed by voyaging on natural rafts across open water, including lemurs, which rafted from Africa to Madagascar, and chameleons, which rafted from Madagascar to islands in the Indian Ocean. Rafting routes are delineated by the green arrows. Kathleen Cantner, AGI

Removal of the dock at Agate Beach was a public process; people were very interested in its progress. Courtesy of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department

A section of the dock will be preserved in Newport, Ore., as a memorial to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Courtesy of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department

Examining the dock that washed up on the coast of Washington in December posed quite a challenge: Researchers had to ford deep, cold streams, hike through forests and across logs and use a rope line to descend to the beach. Courtesy of the National Park Service and the Washington Department of Ecology

On June 5, 2012, several thousand castaways rode a massive boxcar-sized dock to landfall on Oregon’s Agate Beach, just north of Newport. A plaque on the side, written in Japanese, revealed an unprecedented journey: The dock had been unmoored from the Japanese coastal city of Misawa during the catastrophic tsunami on March 11, 2011.

Bare Earth Elements: Voices from GSA 2012

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:58:13 -0500

Dressed in 1880s period costumes to celebrate GSA's 125th anniversary, Lon Abbott, Samantha Richards and Vincent Matthews pose at GSA's 2012 meeting in Charlotte, N.C., with the Big Blue Bear, the mascot of the Denver Convention Center, where the next conference will be held this fall. Timothy Oleson

Glimpsing the lighter side of a conference

Moon could have formed from Earth after all: Reviving and revising the giant impact theory

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:16:26 -0500

New models indicate that the moon could have indeed been born from Earth following a giant collision. Kathleen Cantner, AGI

Two new models show how a moon compositionally similar to Earth could have formed from a giant impact. Kathleen Cantner, AGI

Scientists are revisiting the age-old question of how Earth’s moon formed. New models indicate that it could have been born from the Earth following a giant collision after all.

Drinking toilet water: The science (and psychology) of wastewater recycling

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:33:59 -0500

Would you drink water out of a toilet, even if the toilet was never used? That's the question asked at this display at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, Calif. It's also a question on the minds of those working on wastewater recycling plans. Kathleen Canter, with permission of the Exploratorium

A wastewater settling tank removes sediments and oils as part of a wastewater recycling system. Hasan Zulic, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

The NEWater Visitor Centre in Singapore. courtesy of the NEWater Visitor Centre, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

Bottles of "NEWater" or recycled wastewater are offered to visitors to the NEWater Visitor Centre in Singapore. The country has been promoting recycled water as a means to lessen the impact of its limited freshwater supply. Tristan Schmurr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

Recycled water flows beneath visitors' feet. courtesy of the NEWater Visitor Centre, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

Visitors learn how water is recycled at the NEWater Visitor Centre. courtesy of the NEWater Visitor Centre, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic

An aeration pool uses microbes to digest organic materials in wastewater as part of wastewater treatment. Kristian Bjornard, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Would you drink water that came from a toilet? The imagery isn’t appealing. Even knowing that the water, once treated, may be cleaner than what comes out of most faucets, many people are disgusted by the idea. But in places like Singapore and Namibia, limited supplies of freshwater are being augmented by adding highly treated wastewater to their drinking water. As climate change and population growth strain freshwater resources, such strategies are likely to become more common around the world, and in the United States.

How strong was the Carrington Event?

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:37:06 -0500

NASA has described the magnetic field of the coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the 1859 Carrington Event, the largest solar storm ever detected, as “extremely intense” relative to other CMEs. The amount of plasma it ejected is difficult to estimate, but more important in determining its strength is how fast it arrived.

The dangers of solar storms: That which gives power can also take it away

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 11:27:11 -0500

A powerful solar flare recorded on July 14, 2000, by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite. The bright spot near the center is a flare, which was classified an X-5, among the most powerful. X-class flares, the largest class, can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. SOHO (ESA & NASA)

Kathleen Cantner, AGI

Orange outlines highlight the areas in the U.S. that are most vulnerable to electrical outages due to a severe geomagnetic storm, according to a 2008 report from the National Research Council. Kathleen Cantner, AGI

The transmission of radio signals between Earth and GPS satellites, which are vital for transportation, can be disrupted by the ionizing effects of X-rays and extreme ultraviolet light emitted by solar flares. Kathleen Cantner, AGI

This image, taken Jan. 8, 2002, by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's (SOHO's) LASCO C2 instrument, shows a widely spreading coronal mass ejection blasting more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour, with a superimposed image of the sun from SOHO's Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope. SOHO (ESA & NASA)

Global projections of ground-level magnetic field disturbances during the May 1921 (top) and March 1989 (bottom) geomagnetic storms. The 1989 event left 6 million people in Quebec without power. Courtesy of Storm Analysis Consultants

In last month’s issue of EARTH, we explored what is known about solar activity, the sun and its interaction with Earth. This month, we examine the possible effects of solar activity and the vulnerability of power grids and satellites, as well as what is being done to reduce that vulnerability.

Two NASA spacecraft reveal ancient underground cracks from moon's formation

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:45:47 -0500

This graphic shows the density of the lunar highlands on the near and far sides of the moon as generated using gravity data from NASA's GRAIL mission and topography data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Red corresponds to higher than average densities and blue to lower than average densities; white corresponds to basalt.

SAN FRANCISCO: The face of the moon has always enchanted humankind, but new data from a NASA mission have given scientists a glimpse of what lies beneath the surface. A new, highly detailed map of the moon’s gravity has revealed evidence of underground cracks created by its hot, molten center as it came into shape billions of years ago, a team of scientists announced today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.