December 9, 2015
Comment: GSW: A celebrated society celebrates its 1,500th meeting
I tucked in my shirt as I walked up the front steps of the stately mansion that houses the Cosmos Club on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, …
The EARTH archive
January 2015
Explore the archive by subject.
50 articles · Page 1 of 3
January 29, 2015
Asbestos found in Nevada and Arizona: Roadblock and potential health hazard?
In 2011, Brenda Buck, a medical geologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), was studying the human health effects of mineral dusts …
January 14, 2015
Did three convicts survive their escape from Alcatraz? Modern modeling adds to a decades-old mystery
Twenty-first century science is shedding new light on a 53-year-old mystery involving one of the country’s most notorious prisons: Did three …
January 9, 2015
Getting there and getting around Bermuda
Several major airlines serve Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport, located on St. David’s Island about 30 minutes from Bermuda’s capital and …
January 5, 2015
North American terranes not so exotic after all
The cordillera of western North America is a patchwork of various landmasses, or terranes, that assembled through collision and accretion to the …
January 5, 2015
Mantle plume alternative explains Australian volcanism
Magma often finds its way to the surface along Earth’s crustal boundaries as tectonic plates crash together, rift apart or grind past each other. …
January 5, 2015
Scientists complete a global inventory of lakes
How many lakes are there in the world? Until recently, the exact number was anybody’s guess. Now, a new global inventory conducted using …
January 5, 2015
Secondary aerosols a primary cause of Chinese smog
Images of Chinese skylines and streetscapes blurred by pollution-fueled hazes have become increasingly common in recent years amid ongoing …
January 5, 2015
Icebergs were the original Florida snowbirds
A new study shows that between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, icebergs drifted southward off the coasts of South Carolina and Florida. Using …
January 5, 2015
Comment: Supersites: Sharing geoscience data for science and society
When major geologic hazards strike, they gain global attention. Disaster responders and scientists want remote sensing and in-situ observations …
January 5, 2015
Energy Notes: August 2013-2014
U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (million of barrels per day) Oil and petroleum imports data are preliminary numbers taken from the American …
January 5, 2015
Mineral Resource of the Month: Antimony
David Guberman, the antimony commodity specialist for the National Minerals Information Center at the U.S. Geological Survey, compiled the …
January 4, 2015
Down to Earth With: Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson
As a child growing up in Gassaway, W.Va., Lonnie Thompson was poor. When his father died while Thompson was a senior in high school, he realized …
January 4, 2015
Geomedia: Books: A brief history of our cosmic origins
In the 1980 television show “Cosmos,” astronomer Carl Sagan famously noted: “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our …
January 4, 2015
Travels in Geology: Navigating the rocks, reefs and waters of Bermuda
The Bermuda Triangle is not an actual scientific phenomenon. But if a family were looking for a place to disappear to for a week or so, Bermuda …
December 30, 2014
New tracers can identify fracking fluids
Hydraulic fracturing to harvest natural gas has been controversial due in large part to the potential for contamination of ground and surface …
December 30, 2014
California: A profusion of drought restrictions with varying results
With 100 percent of California experiencing moderate to exceptional drought conditions last year, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Gov. …
December 29, 2014
The amazing minerals of the Larsemann Hills
Four minerals were discovered on Stornes Peninsula in the Larsemann Hills of East Antarctica based on fieldwork there from 2003 to 2004. In part …
December 29, 2014
Protecting the mineral treasures of Antarctica's Larsemann Hills
It was late November 2003 and not quite summer in Antarctica. As the Squirrel helicopter lifted off after delivering its last load, we set about …
December 9, 2014
Red Planet Roundup: January 2015
As two rovers patrol the surface of Mars, five spacecraft orbit above and scientists back here on Earth study the Red Planet from afar, new …
December 9, 2014
Modeling a big mess from Yellowstone
In the event of another super-eruption at Yellowstone National Park, few places in the U.S. would be ash-free, according to a new modeling study. …
December 9, 2014
New species of titanosaurus discovered in Tanzania
The Cretaceous landscape was dominated by huge herbivorous sauropods, the largest land animals ever to walk the planet. Fossils from many of …
December 9, 2014
Marine mammals blamed for first New World tuberculosis
When Europeans arrived in the Americas they introduced an array of new infectious diseases that decimated the native populations. Now, a new …
December 9, 2014
Golden Gate ghost ships rediscovered
Just beyond San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is a shipwreck graveyard where as many as 300 vessels lie in silty underwater repose. A team of …