June 2014 on EARTH Magazine

Geologic Column: Beyond geology, field camps teach teamwork and inspire leadership

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 16:44:31 -0400

A tent camp in the Chisos Mountains in Texas offers a temporary home for students during a regional geology field course run by the College of William and Mary. Credit: Jessica Ball.

For undergraduate geology students, field camp is a rite of passage. And the importance of the experience, in terms of properly training and preparing geoscience students to become geoscience professionals, should not be underestimated. Over the years, the number of geoscience field camps has declined substantially. This is unfortunate, but we have reason to hope that more schools will again start offering field camps soon.

San Andreas Fault shook Bay Area three times in a century

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:52:53 -0400

Ashley Streig and her colleagues examined tree stumps among other proxies. Tree-ring dating indicates this tree was cut prior to the earthquake of 1838 on the San Andreas Fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Credit: University of Oregon.

“This project took a lot of footwork,” says Ashley Streig, a paleoseismologist at the University of Oregon and lead author of the new study, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. Using historical records, including written accounts of earthquake damage to Spanish-built missions in the area, Streig and colleagues identified and mapped the active fault trace through the Santa Cruz Mountains using both field reconnaissance and airborne Lidar.

Dinosaur feathers burst into color

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 15:40:33 -0400

Images of some of the 13 Jurassic and Cretacous pterosaur, dinosaur, turtle, bird and lizard fossils sampled for evidence of preserved melanosomes. Credit: Clarke et al., Nature, 2014.

Melanosomes are melanin-producing cells found in the feathers of all modern birds as well as a range of other animals. To study the origins of colorful feathers, lead author Julia Clarke of the University of Texas at Austin and colleagues compared melanosomes in 181 living species with those preserved in 13 different fossils. They found that maniraptors — the lineage of dinosaurs that evolved into birds — seemed to have undergone a rapid diversification of melanosome shapes and sizes not long after the origin of advanced pinnate feathers.

Arctic megafauna thrived on pollen-poor plants

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:43:10 -0400

The Arctic landscape during the Pleistocene has long been thought to have been dominated by pollen-producing graminoids. By analyzing more than 200 permafrost samples spanning 50,000 years from 21 sites around the Arctic, scientists led by Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, found that before about 10,000 years ago the Arctic landscape was also greened by protein-rich herbaceous plants, known as forbs, which don’t produce much pollen.

Cryptic creatures made for a spectacular hanging garden

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:32:27 -0400

The upside-down cryptic assemblage — so known because the creatures inhabited a hollowed-out cavity in the rock — is “exceptionally well preserved,” which allowed Michal Jakubowicz of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland and colleagues to identify what types of animals had lived in the roughly 390-million-year-old colony, and even particular species in some cases. They also determined a succession of colonization, reporting in Geology that cnidaria appeared to have been first on the scene but were eventually overtaken and overgrown by corals and crinoids.

Early Triassic fossil showed live birth in action

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 11:13:10 -0400

A young Chaohusaurus, a marine reptile that lived about 248 million years ago, is seen emerging headfirst from its mother in this portion of a remarkably preserved fossil. The head of a second juvenile, still inside the mother, is also visible to the left. Credit: ©Ryosuke Motani, CC-BY 3.0 US.

Not only does the fossil specimen preserve an example of live birth, or viviparity, in action, but the embryos are about 10 million years older than previously preserved embryos of Mesozoic marine reptiles, reported Ryosuke Motani of the University of California at Davis and his colleagues in PLOS ONE. Additionally, the headfirst birth posture — characteristic of births in most viviparous terrestrial animals — suggests that marine reptiles, which are known to have evolved from terrestrial reptiles, inherited viviparity from these land-dwelling ancestors, the researchers wrote. This contrasts with the conventional view that live birth evolved in marine reptiles as an adaptation to life in the sea, and further suggests that terrestrial reptiles evolved the trait much earlier than previously thought, they noted.

Did tidal zone trilobites lead the way onto land?

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 10:52:13 -0400

Artist's rendering of trilobites on an Early Cambrian tidal flat. Trilobites first appeared about 520 million years ago and thrived for 270 million years until the end-Permian extinction, making them one of the most successful lineages to ever live. Kathleen Cantner, AGI.

During the Cambrian, when trilobites thrived in Earth’s early oceans, the continents were devoid of animal life. “The Cambrian explosion was an open marine event,” says Gabriela Mángano, a geologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and lead author of the new study, published in Geology. “The typical story is that colonization of the terrestrial settings didn’t happen until the middle of the Paleozoic with organisms moving from the sea, into brackish water, then freshwater and then onto land.”

Creationism comes to the county fair

Mon, 23 Jun 2014 10:24:00 -0400

You never know what you're going to find at the fair. Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Lokibaho.

County fairs are opportunities to bring in those handsome Holsteins competing for Best Bessie, to sample foods that don’t normally belong on sticks and definitely shouldn’t be deep-fried, and to enjoy carnival rides and games with unfavorable odds. They’re also opportunities to get the attention of a lot of people. Just ask the exhibitors who pay for space to hawk their wares.

Spanish cave reveals possible new Neanderthal ancestor

Thu, 19 Jun 2014 14:40:44 -0400

Skull 17 from the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain. Credit: ©Javier Trueba/Madrid Scientific Films.

A trove of thousands of hominin fossils unearthed from a prolific cave in northern Spain is proving a boon for paleoanthropologists studying human evolution and the early ancestors of Neanderthals. The fossils are proving difficult to categorize as a recognized species, however, raising the prospect of a new category of hominin for these Middle Pleistocene specimens.

Getting there and getting around Tajikistan

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 11:57:12 -0400

People in Tajikistan are very welcoming. The author and his travel companions were invited for tea and a meal at the home of their cab driver. Credit: Ondrej Kozel.

Exploring Tajikistan, and especially the Pamirs, is not for everybody, but if you’re up for an off-the-beaten-path adventure with some of the nicest people in the world, I highly encourage a visit. It’s not easy to get there; from the U.S., most flights go through Istanbul, Turkey. Once you arrive in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, you can either take a single-engine plane to Khorog or a shared van. Beware that flights to Khorog are canceled routinely due to inclement weather. Shared vans leave every day during the summer months from Dushanbe to Khorog. The typical price is 300 somoni, or about $60, one way, not bad for a 12-hour-plus drive. Getting around Khorog and the rest of the Pamirs is also best done by taxi or shared van.

Travels in Geology: Trekking the high terrain of Tajikistan

Fri, 13 Jun 2014 11:32:25 -0400

Credit: Ondrej Kozel

The author (center) and his Czech hiking companions (Vaclav Herda, left, and Vaclav Mulac, right) at the entrance to Tajik National Park. Credit: Ondrej Kozel.

There are moments in life when you need to catch some fresh air. For me, finishing my master’s degree and figuring out what to do next was such a moment. So, I set out to explore a land half a world away that I’d recently become familiar with, courtesy of a geotechnical engineering report about the world’s largest natural dam. Luckily, I speak Persian and am accustomed to backpacking in remote, high-altitude locations, so I was as prepared as I could be to travel to the backcountry of Tajikistan.

Rosetta: Off to decipher a comet's secrets

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 12:58:25 -0400

Artist's impression of Rosetta's signal being received on Earth after 31 months in silent, deep-space hibernation. Credit: ESA-J. Mai; opposite page: ESA, image by AOES Medialab

“Hello World.”

Geomedia: Books: A changing literary climate

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:16:26 -0400

Cli-fi is a new genre. Credit: Callan Bentley.

The book cover of “Odds Against Tomorrow” (2013) by Nathaniel Rich features a flooded Manhattan. In a 2013 NPR story, Rich’s publicist, Brian Gittis, recounted how he left his waterlogged New York City office during Hurricane Sandy and came home to sort through advance copies of books, coming across Rich’s timely cover. Gittis called it a “Twilight Zone moment.”

Magma mobilizes quickly beneath Mount Hood

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 13:16:20 -0400

New research looks at the eruptive potential of Mount Hood in Oregon. Credit: Kari Cooper.

The term “magma chamber” might evoke thoughts of a roiling mass beneath a volcano, ready to blow at any moment. But in a recent study in Nature, researchers found that magma beneath Oregon’s Mount Hood spends minimal time in this eruptible state. Instead, magma remobilization and eruption occur within a short time frame.

Southeastern caves shuttered to slow the spread of bat-killing disease

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 22:27:07 -0400

Little brown bat with White Nose Syndrome. Credit: Moriarty Marvin, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Since White Nose Syndrome was first identified in dead bats recovered from a cave in New York state in 2006, the mysterious fungal disease has wiped out more than 5 million bats in the eastern U.S., and efforts to halt its southern and western spread have become increasingly desperate.

Getting there and getting around Croatia

Fri, 16 May 2014 11:26:23 -0400

Although there are no direct flights between the U.S. and Croatia, the capital, Zagreb, is connected year-round to most major European cities, and the Dalmatian Coast airports of Split and Dubrovnik are well connected during the summer. All three offer numerous car rental options; an online consolidator such as Auto Europe can help you efficiently find the best price. One-way rentals are generally only available to other locations in Croatia and Slovenia.

Travels in Geology: Croatia: Land of limestone

Fri, 16 May 2014 10:56:02 -0400

Lying at the crossroads of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the Republic of Croatia could be called a “land of limestone.” Whether you choose to circumnavigate the fortified walls of one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval cities, lounge on a white cobble beach by the azure Adriatic Sea, or hike past aquamarine pools and countless waterfalls in the country’s largest national park, Croatia’s nearly ubiquitous limestone bedrock produces a majestic and unforgettable landscape.

New burgess shale fossil site found in Canada's Kootenay National Park

Fri, 16 May 2014 09:55:32 -0400

With its plethora of ancient and exquisitely preserved soft-bodied fossils, the Burgess Shale in Canada’s Yoho National Park is one of the world’s most famous fossil sites. Now a sister site has been discovered just 40 kilometers away in Kootenay National Park, and the new find may prove even richer than the original.

Down to Earth With: Steven Stanley

Thu, 15 May 2014 12:32:58 -0400

Paleontologist Steven Stanley. Credit: Steven Stanley

It’s no wonder Steven Stanley says he can’t imagine having pursued any career other than research and teaching in geology and paleontology. After studying under eminent scientists like Alfred Fischer, Colin Pittendrigh and Harry Hess while a student at Princeton and then Yale in the 1960s, Stanley went on to add many of his own paradigm-shifting contributions to our understanding of fossils, evolution and Earth’s environmental history. He has also authored several popular textbooks and has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Mary Clark Thompson Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 2006 and, most recently in 2013, the Geological Society of America’s (GSA) highest honor, the Penrose Medal.

Geomedia: Books: Science in fiction

Thu, 15 May 2014 12:21:35 -0400

As a science magazine, EARTH usually reviews nonfiction. This month, however, we are bringing you reviews of three recent novels with scientific themes that might make nice additions to your summer reading list. The three novels fall neatly into classic genres — the murder mystery, the high-stakes thriller and the science-infused fantasy — so hopefully there is a little something for everyone. Warning: spoilers follow.

By the numbers: Women in space

Thu, 15 May 2014 11:22:20 -0400

Twenty-two female astronauts and Johnson Space Center's first female director met in September 2012 to honor the late astronaut Sally Ride and her legacy. Credit: NASA/JSC.

The first two women in space — Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya — were from the Soviet Union. Since their pioneering space flights, 58 other women have also flown in space:

Benchmarks: June 16, 1963 & June 18, 1983: Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride become first and third women in space

Thu, 15 May 2014 10:33:49 -0400

Credit: Copyright Shutterstock.com/peresanz.

On June 16, 1963, during the height of the Cold War, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space. It would be 19 years before another woman would fly in space — Soviet Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982 — and 20 years before the first American woman, Sally Ride, made it into space on June 18, 1983. These pioneers inspired the generations of women astronauts who followed. In the three decades since Ride’s foray into outer space, 57 other women have also taken flight (see sidebar) and, last year, half of NASA’s new class of astronauts were women.

Subarctic lakes belch more methane on brighter days

Thu, 15 May 2014 10:14:36 -0400

An aerial view of some of the subarctic lakes in Sweden studied by Martin Wik and his team. Credit: Jo Uhlbäck

Each summer, frozen ground in Arctic and subarctic regions, called permafrost, thaws and releases accumulated methane. For years, scientists have searched for a clear-cut way to estimate the amount of this potent greenhouse gas that these areas contribute to the atmosphere and the changing climate. Now, they have come one step closer to solving part of the problem.

Dueling dinosaurs hit the auction block

Thu, 15 May 2014 09:51:34 -0400

The "Dueling Dinosaurs" specimen identified as Nanotyrannus (shown here) has 16 to 18 tooth sockets in its upper jaw, whereas Tyrannosaurus rex has only 11 to 12 sockets. Credit: Raphael Rosen

In 2006, fossil collector Clayton Phipps (a Montana rancher known as the “Dinosaur Cowboy”) and his crew discovered a rare fossil on private land in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation: the bones of two fully articulated dinosaurs that appeared to have died together, locked in battle. The fossil duo — a small, pony-sized carnivorous tyrannosaurid and a slightly larger herbivorous ceratopsian, both now preserved in plaster — became known as the “Montana Dueling Dinosaurs.”

Longmenshan fault zone in the spotlight after two major quakes in five years

Thu, 15 May 2014 09:46:06 -0400

Credit: David Wald, USGS

In May 2008, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake struck near Wenchuan, China, killing more than 80,000 people in the country’s biggest quake since 1950. Then, in April 2013, the magnitude-6.6 Lushan earthquake hit just 90 kilometers to the south — also within China’s Longmenshan Fault Zone, which separates the Tibetan Plateau to the west from the Sichuan Basin to the east — and caused another 200 deaths. Now, scientists have found that a roughly 60-kilometer segment of the fault zone between the epicenters of the two big temblors could be the next to rupture, although no one knows when or how big it might be.

Ionospheric charge could forewarn of earthquakes

Thu, 15 May 2014 08:53:13 -0400

Credit: Copyright Shutterstock.com/Prometheus72.

On Jan. 12, 2010, a magnitude-7 earthquake rocked Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, destroying much of the city and killing more than 200,000 people. Satellite records of atmospheric electron activity high above the island reveal an unusual pattern of behavior in the ionosphere in the months leading up to the quake — information that could be used in the future to forewarn of major earthquakes.

Staking a claim: Deep-sea mining nears fruition

Wed, 14 May 2014 10:51:02 -0400

Credit: Kathleen Cantner, AGI.

In the late 1970s, geologists in a deep-sea submersible several kilometers below the waves on the Galapagos Rift discovered a previously unknown world: hydrothermal vent systems supporting an array of exotic life that thrived in the absence of sunlight, subsisting instead on metals and minerals leached from the seafloor. Such hydrothermal vent systems are now recognized features of mid-ocean ridges.

Comment: Preparing for the death of Earth

Wed, 14 May 2014 10:03:55 -0400

Credit: Kathleen Cantner, AGI

About 5 billion years from now, Earth will meet its end in a fiery blaze as it is swallowed by the expanding sun. What happens between now and then, in large part, is up to us and our ability to prepare for the distant future.

Reading the walls

Tue, 13 May 2014 13:52:11 -0400

What distinguishes a New England stone wall from a pile of stones? Noted stone wall expert Robert M. Thorson, a geologist at the University of Connecticut, considers a stone wall to be “any continuous row of large stones or stack of smaller ones that is more than four times as long as it is wide.” Anything shorter, he says, “is a cluster or pile of stones, not a wall.”

The history, science and poetry of New England's stone walls

Tue, 13 May 2014 11:24:52 -0400

In 2007, I returned to eastern Connecticut, where I grew up. Driving north on Interstate 395 past towns like Norwich and Griswold, I was struck by the many old gray stone walls tumbling off into the forests along the highway. Realizing that the trees in those forests weren’t particularly old, I surmised that those forests had once been cleared farm lands.

Social sciences improve tornado warnings

Wed, 02 Apr 2014 14:36:02 -0400

A tornado strikes near Osceola, Neb., in 2011. Credit: Greg Dumas/NOAA.

In 2013, 55 people in seven states were killed by tornadoes. Now, scientists behind a new report analyzing the effectiveness of tornado-warning processes are hoping to help reduce tornado fatalities in the 2014 storm season by combining the latest storm-tracking technology with a better understanding of how communities and people respond to tornado warnings.