GEOLOGY

geology

Jerusalem tower facelift reveals it's 1,000 years younger

Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back to at least 2400 B.C. Downhill from the heart of the city is Gihon Spring, a year-round natural fount that was likely the primary water source for the ancient city. Defensive fortifications built around the spring, known as the Spring Tower, were originally dated to the Middle Bronze Age, around 1700 B.C., but a new study reveals the tower could be as much as 1,000 years younger.

19 Sep 2017

Glass shards reveal a fiery history in Ethiopia

Chains of volcanoes and a lava lake pepper the landscape of the Afar Triangle in northeastern Ethiopia, where eruptions and earthquakes are byproducts of the rifting that is literally ripping Africa apart, but recent eruptions have been docile. Now, scientists studying ash deposits from the last 40,000 years are showing that dangerous, explosive eruptions present an ongoing hazard, striking the region every 1,000 years on average.

18 Sep 2017

Travels in Geology: Sky-high adventure on Bolivia's Altiplano

Nestled between two ranges of the rugged Andes Mountains, the Altiplano is a vast, windswept plateau that stretches from southern Peru to northern Argentina, offering stunning, vividly colored vistas — from the snow-white crystals of the world’s largest salt flats and flocks of pink flamingos in a brick-red lake to the startlingly azure waters of Lake Titicaca.
13 Sep 2017

Getting There and Getting Around Bolivia's Antiplano

Bolivia’s main gateway, El Alto International Airport (LPB), is located 13 kilometers southwest of the country’s capital, La Paz. It hosts regular, year-round flights to and from major destinations in South America, including Lima and Cuzco, Peru, Santiago, Chile, and Buenos Aires, Argentina, as well as connecting flights to Miami on American Airlines and Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. (Dulles) and Orlando, Fla., on Avianca. Several regional airlines, including Boliviana de Aviación (BoA) and Amaszonas, offer multiple flights daily from La Paz to Uyuni. The hour-long flight typically costs about $150 one way. We found the South American carriers to be extremely efficient; it’s important to arrive at the airport two hours in advance because the flights often depart early!

13 Sep 2017

Ice (Re)Cap: September 2017

From Antarctica to the Arctic; from polar caps, permafrost and glaciers to ocean-rafted sea ice; and from burly bears to cold-loving microbes, fascinating science is found in every nook and crevasse of Earth’s cryosphere, and new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

12 Sep 2017

Geologic Column: Musings on the autumn equinox

Friday, Sept. 22, is the autumn equinox, an astronomical event all about balance that heralds changes in weather and attitudes.
11 Sep 2017

Dehydrated sediment layer made Sumatra quake stronger

Subduction zones are notorious for unleashing great earthquakes and tsunamis, such as the 2004 magnitude-9.1 Sumatra quake that caused shaking and inundations that killed more than 250,000 people and left millions more homeless. However, despite the dangerous reputations of subduction zones, their hazards are still often underestimated. New research reveals how sediments in the Sumatra Trench may have contributed to producing an even bigger earthquake and tsunami than hazard forecasts had estimated.

07 Sep 2017

Comment: A pitch to study BREW: The beer-renewable energy-water nexus

The food-energy-water nexus has become trendy for multidisciplinary research. The author proposes another such multidisciplinary field thirsting for study.

06 Sep 2017

Down to Earth With: Paleontologist Lisa D. White

As a college student at San Francisco State University, Lisa D. White’s first choice of major was photography. She was drawn to landscapes, and dreamed of becoming “the black female Ansel Adams,” she tells me, surrounded by fossils. We’re in a lab at the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP) in Berkeley, where she is assistant director of Education and Public Programs. She is also a micropaleontologist, and from 1990 until joining UCMP in 2012, she was professor of geology and later associate dean at San Francisco State University.

01 Sep 2017

Reconstructing ancient oxidant levels and their climatic effects

Oxidants in the troposphere, such as ozone and hydroxyl radicals, influence the life spans of other atmospheric components, including pollutants and greenhouse gases like carbon monoxide and methane. But how the abundance of tropospheric oxidants varies as climate changes is poorly understood. Part of the challenge is that these oxidants are too reactive to be preserved in paleo-records, such as ice cores.

29 Aug 2017

Pages