June 19, 2018
Energy Notes: March 2011-2012
U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (millions of barrels per day) Oil and petroleum imports data are preliminary numbers taken from the American …
The EARTH archive
July 2012
Explore the archive by subject.
18 articles · Page 1 of 1
June 13, 2018
Mineral Resource of the Month: Aluminum
E. Lee Bray, a mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, compiled the following information about aluminum, an element that is …
June 5, 2018
Travels in Geology: Trapped by geology in Iceland with flights grounded by volcanic ash, one writer seeks out the island's geologic wonders
On a recent trip to Iceland, my wife and I learned a central fact of life while traveling around this isolated island country: We could never …
June 5, 2018
Getting There and Getting Around Iceland
Iceland Air is the main airline serving Iceland, but many major American and international carriers stop there. The airport is in Keflavik, about …
June 5, 2018
Off the beaten path in the north of Iceland
Although many of Iceland’s best-known geologic features are in the south — on the southwest Reykjanes peninsula, near Keflavik airport and the …
August 1, 2016
Benchmarks: July 1, 1912: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory officially becomes the first of its kind in U.S.
Living on the fringe of an active volcano in Hawaii is a precarious venture. Because Hawaii’s shield volcanoes aren’t prone to explosive …
January 13, 2015
Down to Earth With: Geomorphologist Gregory Tucker
As an undergraduate anthropology student, Gregory Tucker thought math was a boring subject with abstract rules that didn’t relate to his life. …
July 22, 2012
Bare Earth Elements: Welcome to the GEOlympics
A geological decathlon through Great Britain The games of the 30th Olympiad officially kick off today in London. Among the myriad events that …
July 20, 2012
How the school of rock came to be
In the late 1950s, a growing interest in better understanding the structure and composition of Earth resulted in the creation of the …
July 20, 2012
Trash-to-treasure: Turning nonrecycled waste into low-carbon fuel
Americans produce more than four pounds of trash per person per day, amounting to 20 percent of the world’s waste. Although recycling rates have …
July 20, 2012
School of rock: Educating educators at sea
Many things come to mind when you hear the words “School of Rock”: a bad Jack Black flick, the middle school band you were in, the guitar school …
July 20, 2012
2012: The end of the world or just another year of living in harm's way?
We live on a knife-edge, separated from an ocean of super-heated rock by a wafer-thin and perpetually rupturing crust, swinging our way through a …
July 9, 2012
Karakoram glaciers buck global, regional trends
When it comes to glaciers, stability represents a refreshing change of pace. In contrast to regional and global trends — which, scientists say, …
July 6, 2012
Bringing dinosaur biology into the 21st century
We may know a lot about dinosaurs, but there’s an awful lot we don’t know yet, especially about their biology. How heavy were the dinosaurs? Were …
July 4, 2012
Blogging on EARTH: Finding prehistoric souvenirs in Michigan
Around the Fourth of July, I usually visit my parents and participate in a geological family tradition that is pointless to the extreme and yet …
June 26, 2012
Five outstanding questions in earth science
Even 15 years after the release of “Good Will Hunting,” there remains something appealing about watching the title character, a mathematically …
June 20, 2012
Neutralizing the rain: After much success in the battle against acid rain, challenges remain
Every Tuesday at 9 a.m., Dave Warner collects water from a white plastic 3.5-gallon tub that sits on a strip of tall grass between two cornfields …
May 9, 2012
Sumatran strike-slip earthquakes challenge seismologists
Events may shed light on regional tectonics, alter stress on nearby megathrust Following the magnitude-8.6 earthquake that struck off the coast …