October 2015 on EARTH Magazine

Energy Notes: April 2014-2015

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:19:49 -0400

Credit: The American Geosciences Institute.

U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (million 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: Pumice and Pumicite

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 10:15:44 -0400

Robert D. Crangle, Jr., a mineral commodity specialist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Minerals Information Center, compiled the following information on pumice, an essential commodity for the construction, abrasives and horticultural industries.

Pumice is used as a chew toy for chinchillas. Credit: Emily Neef, CC BY-NC 2.0.

Pumice is an extrusive igneous volcanic rock formed through the rapid cooling of air-pocketed lava, which results in a low-density, high-porosity rock. Fine-grained pumice, or pumicite, is defined as minute grains, flakes, threads or shards of volcanic glass, with a size finer than 4 millimeters.

Flaring our way out of a water crisis

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:08:39 -0400

Natural gas is flared as oil is produced in North Dakota. Credit: Tim Evanson, CC BY-SA 2.0.

In the process of providing the energy we consume, oil and gas producers around the world use large quantities of clean water, generate massive amounts of wastewater, and purposefully set ablaze a portion of their natural gas production. The volume of water is tremendous, and enough energy is “flared” to power more than 50 million U.S. homes every year. In many places in the world, the freshwater needed for such operations is scarce; and natural gas flaring releases greenhouse gases and produces light pollution. Given the recent boom in oil and gas production in the U.S., it seems that these issues may not be going away anytime soon. However, with some clever engineering, we could pit these environmental liabilities — wastewater production, overuse of freshwater and gas flaring — against one another to solve all three at once.

Bare Earth Elements: In honor of 'Back to the Future Day,' a few things geoscientists might (or might not) have been thinking about in 1985

Wed, 21 Oct 2015 16:40:35 -0400

If you’ve been on the Internet in the last day or two, the odds are good you’ve heard that today, Oct. 21, 2015, is Back to the Future Day. (If not, just start typing ‘b’ … ‘a’ … ‘c’ … into your search bar and see how long it takes before something comes up.)

Down to Earth With: Geophysicist Julian Lozos

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 12:57:07 -0400

Julian Lozos at a bluegrass music festival in Parkfield, Calif., a town that sits atop the San Andreas Fault. Credit: Julian Lozos.

Julian Lozos, a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with both the U.S. Geological Survey and Stanford University, designs computer models that simulate earthquakes. As a graduate student at the University of California at Riverside (UC Riverside), Lozos discovered part of what makes the San Jacinto Fault — a major fault in Southern California underlying the homes of millions — tick. For this work, Lozos received the Outstanding Student Presentation award at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America three years in a row, an unprecedented accomplishment.

Geomedia: Film: Banff Mountain Film Festival is geologic showcase

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 12:48:03 -0400

Poster for the Banff Mountain Film Festival short film "Delta Dawn." Credit: Pete McBride.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour is a traveling collection of outdoor adventure films that feature the stories of climbers, alpine skiers, mountain bikers and other mountaineers, which are often set against geologically astounding backdrops.

Triceratops relative 'Wendi' sported a fantastic frill

Tue, 20 Oct 2015 12:36:02 -0400

An artist's drawing of the spectacularly adorned Wendiceratops. Credit: Danielle Dufault.

The discovery of a 79-million-year-old frilled and horned relative of Triceratops is shedding light on the early evolution of the ceratopsid’s distinctive look. The new specimen, discovered in a quarry in southern Alberta, Canada, and described recently in PLOS ONE, was named Wendiceratops pinhornensis after the famed fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, who discovered the site in 2010.

Santa Ana winds get a fiery boost from the stratosphere

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 10:52:22 -0400

Smoke from the Springs Fire, about 75 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles, is seen in this satellite image from May 2, 2013. Credit: NASA.

Southern California’s Santa Ana winds have long been implicated in the region’s dangerous and destructive wildfires. Now, a new study in Geophysical Research Letters points the finger at an accomplice: a phenomenon called stratospheric intrusions, which are natural atmospheric events that bring warm, dry air from the upper atmosphere down to the surface. These intrusions may exacerbate fires, as well as the region’s infamously bad air pollution.

Peculiar shape of hair ice linked to fungus

Mon, 12 Oct 2015 14:46:27 -0400

Hair ice is named for its resemblance to tufts of fine silver hair. Its individual strands grow up to 10 centimeters long but are roughly just one one-hundredth of a millimeter thick. Credit: G. Preuss and C. Mätzler

If you have ever taken a morning hike through the woods and seen strange, silky-looking ice on fallen logs, you might have been observing a phenomenon that has puzzled hikers and scientists alike for at least a century. In a new study, researchers examining so-called hair ice have unraveled an explanation for these peculiar formations.

Rosetta spies cometary sinkholes

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 11:16:45 -0400

This and other pits on comet 67P may be sinkholes rather than craters. Credit: Vincent et al., Nature, 2015.

Large circular pits seen on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft may be sinkholes rather than craters left by explosive eruptions or impacts, according to scientists who analyzed images taken by Rosetta’s OSIRIS camera.

Tree of life reshaped

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 10:38:03 -0400

Researchers considered several possible scenarios depicting the relationship between eukaryotes and two groups of archaea: the TACK group and Euryarchaeota. Three variations of scenario 1 all indicate a common, but unknown, root for all three groups, with eukaryotes being a sister lineage to either or both the TACK archaea and Euryarchaeota. Scenario 2 depicts the TACK group as the root of Archaea, with the eukaryotes and Euryarchaeota as sisters. Scenario 3 — the most likely according to the new study — depicts Euryarchaeota as the root of Archaea, with the eukaryotes and the TACK archaea as sisters. Credit: K. Cantner, AGI, after Raymann et al., PNAS, 2015.

Since the 1970s, the classic “tree of life” taught in classrooms has portrayed three domains of life — Archaea, Bacteria and Eukaryota — all descending from an unknown common ancestor. But behind the scenes, this textbook picture has been shifting. Many scientists now think the tree’s deepest root lies within the bacteria; and, even more recently, some have begun suspecting that the Eukaryota — including all animals, plants, fungi, slime molds and other organisms whose cells have nuclei — are actually an offshoot from the Archaea, paring the tree from three to two domains. Now, a new study furthers that claim, and with the help of a novel technique for parsing phylogenetic data in greater detail than ever before, suggests a revised backstory for the Archaea — and, by extension, us.

Travertine buildup reflects ancient Rome's water usage

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 10:28:56 -0400

The Anio Novus aqueduct, which now lies in ruins, once supplied Rome with copious amounts of water. Credit: Duncan Keenan-Jones.

By the third century, Rome had 11 aqueducts — engineered rivers enclosed by masonry — that supplied water to more than a million people in the metropolis, as well as to the city’s many extravagant public baths and fountains. But just how much water was being sourced from distant rivers, lakes and mountain springs has long been a mystery. Now, scientists are putting some impressive numbers to ancient Rome’s water usage based on a study of travertine deposits that built up over time in the Anio Novus aqueduct as freshwater flowed through it to the city.

Owl pellets bridge ancient and modern ecosystems

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 11:37:48 -0400

Mammal bones are visible in this owl pellet, which is tangled in cheatgrass and buried in sediment. Credit: Rebecca Terry.

In Homestead Cave near Utah’s Great Salt Lake, owls have been regurgitating pellets containing the undigested bones and hair of prey — typically small mammals like rodents — at a relatively constant rate since the end of the Pleistocene glaciations about 13,000 years ago. Those pellets have stacked up and fossilized in the cave to present a near-continuous glimpse into how mammal communities in this part of the Great Basin region have changed over time. Now, paleontologists examining bones in the pellets have found that, although small mammals in the region have generally been able to adapt to shifting ecosystems in the past, today, in the face of landscape-altering human activity, the mammal population is changing in unprecedented ways.

Finding and tracking conflict minerals in the heart of darkness

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 10:24:06 -0400

Millions of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) residents have been displaced by warring militias, funded by the minerals trade. Clockwise from top left: Refugees flee a refugee camp as gunfire erupts nearby. Children mine at the Kaji gold mine in South Kivu in the DRC. As Western consumers have become more aware of conflict minerals, they are stepping up pressure on electronics producers. Credit: clockwise from top left: Julien Harneis, CC BY-SA 2.0; Sasha Lezhnev, Enough Project, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0; Jonathan Hutson, Enough Project, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

fugee camp in Kitchanga, North Kivu. Credit: Sasha Lezhnev, Enough Project, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Deep within the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in a mountainous jungle that is home to volcanoes and silverback gorillas, lies a mining region like no other. The ore pulled from the ground here helped the U.S. build the atomic bomb and supplied the Western world’s technology revolution of the 1990s and 2000s, which brought consumers devices like the mobile phone and laptop computer.

A Cambrian-like explosion of mammals in the Mid-Jurassic

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 10:14:57 -0400

Mammals, such as the docodonts illustrated here, experienced a burst of rapid evolution in skeletal and dental features in the Middle Jurassic. Credit: April Neander.

Dinosaurs dominated the continents during the Mesozoic, and for a long time, paleontologists assumed our mammalian ancestors kept a low-profile in that era, existing only as small, ground-dwelling, nocturnal insect-eaters. But in the last decade, discoveries of an ever-increasing diversity of mammal fossils have forced a rethink: Mesozoic mammals were also gliders, climbers, diggers and swimmers. Now, scientists looking at mammalian rates of evolution during the time of the dinosaurs have found that this diversity peaked in the Mid-Jurassic, leading to new physical characteristics that would remain for millions of years.

Campi Flegrei makes its own concrete caprock

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 09:53:58 -0400

Stanford University researchers have discovered natural "concrete" that forms in the Campi Flegrei volcanic complex near Naples, Italy, which explains how, in the 1980s, the caldera withstood the most rapid uplift ever recorded. Credit: Stanford University.

In the 1980s, Tiziana Vanorio was a teenager living in the Italian port city of Pozzuoli west of Naples when the Campi Flegrei volcanic complex that underlies the town and its harbor began to stir. Between 1982 and 1984, the caldera swelled more than 2 meters — the most rapid volcanic uplift ever measured anywhere. The rising seafloor shallowed Pozzuoli’s harbor so that ships could no longer enter. The uplift was followed by a magnitude-4 earthquake and thousands of microquakes that prompted the evacuation of 40,000 residents. Thereafter, the seismicity waned and the residents returned home, but geologists were left with a puzzle: How did the caldera withstand such extreme strain and deformation for so long without rupturing?

Geomedia: Film: 'The Martian' puts the magnificence and messiness of science at the fore

Fri, 02 Oct 2015 13:48:06 -0400

Sweeping in low over rocky outcrops and rust-red sands, the monochrome landscape looks far more peaceful in the dim light of day than it had the evening before, when an unexpectedly vicious dust storm tore through the area. The camera view traces smoothly over the ground toward a faint beeping, which grows louder as we approach a small hummock in the soil ahead. The hummock, it turns out, is actually the motionless, mostly buried body of astronaut Mark Watney; the shrill noise, a siren in his helmet warning of dangerous oxygen levels. With a sudden gasp, Watney’s eyes open, darting around behind his faceplate as the first inklings of comprehension seep in.

Where on Earth? - October 2015

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 10:44:18 -0400

Scroll down for the answer

Clues for October 2015:

The pointed hoodoos of this national monument are formed from layers of pumice, tuff, ash and conglomerates that were originally deposited more than 300 meters deep in some places by Late Miocene volcanic eruptions.
Small weather-resistant boulders helped create the distinct shape (likely familiar to hikers) of the formations, which range in height from about a meter up to about 27 meters, as softer rock below the caprocks eroded.
Archaeological evidence suggests humans inhabited the area 4,000 years ago. The indigenous name for the area translates to “white cliffs,” likely a reference to ledges lining the steep-sided canyons also found in this area, which was designated a national monument in 2001.

Geologic Column: The 'impact factor' of potholes

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 10:11:43 -0400

A pothole and "ejecta" debris near the author's house in Silver Spring, Md. Credit: Edward R. Landa.

Last winter was truly severe in the northeastern U.S. Snowfall records were blown away in cities like Boston, which finally saw its last snow pile melt away in mid-July. Even though last season’s snow is gone, residents spent months dealing with the recovery — especially in the form of fixing roads left with gaping roadway potholes. Hard-hit Massachusetts established a “Winter Recovery Assistance Program,” providing $30 million to help cities and towns fill potholes. But until they were filled, in Massachusetts and elsewhere, drivers had to endure seemingly endless bone-jarring shocks as their car tires dropped into the enormous and abundant potholes. Bumpily driving along one day last spring left me pondering potholes — from a geologic perspective.

Geomedia: Documentaries: Bearded ladies doing paleontology

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 08:52:30 -0400

The Bearded Lady Project director of photography Eliana Álvarez Martinez sets up for a field interview with paleontologist Isabel Hong, a doctoral student at Rutgers, in a salt marsh on the coast of Washington in May. Credit: ©2015 Kelsey Vance.

A paleontologist at a dig site wipes sweat from her brow, drinks from a water bottle and scratches her beard before peeling it off to expose her bare face to the cool air. If that sounds odd to you, it is meant to be. This is the Bearded Lady Project (BLP), a new documentary film project headed by filmmaker Lexi Jamieson Marsh and University of Wyoming paleontologist Ellen Currano. BLP, which launched in summer 2014 with funding from Currano’s National Science Foundation early career development grant, aims to highlight geoscience gender stereotypes, which include bearded men in plaid shirts doing dangerous fieldwork that women cannot or should not do, the filmmakers say.

Sauropod skull mystery

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 13:05:08 -0400

It is rare for sauropod skeletons to be found with the skull also preserved; it was only recently that the first complete North American Cretaceous-aged sauropod skull was described. The skull Douglass discovered, while associated with the Apatosaurus skeletons, was thought at the time to belong to Diplodocus. Douglass realized, though, that no skull identified as belonging to Diplodocus had ever actually been found associated with a Diplodocus skeleton — an observation that moved Holland to proclaim that the skull found in the Carnegie Quarry belonged to Apatosaurus. The skull, however, was not immediately installed on the Apatosaurus on display at the Carnegie Museum. First, the skeleton was affixed with a Camarasaurus skull, and it was not until 1979, after an in-depth study by paleontologists, that the skeleton was fitted with the proper skull.

Benchmarks: October 4, 1915: Dinosaur National Monument Founded

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:47:14 -0400

The view of Split Mountain at Dinosaur National Monument. Credit: Lucas Joel.

While moving across the country from California to Michigan two years ago, I stopped at Dinosaur National Monument, or “Dinosaur,” which today covers 85,000 hectares and straddles the northern portion of the border between Colorado and Utah. I camped at the Green River Campground on the Utah side, and from there, Split Mountain, on the western margin of the east-west-trending Uinta Mountains, glowed violet-pink in the sunset light.

Ice (Re)Cap: October 2015

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:15:05 -0400

The hydro-fracture scarp and exposed lake bed of Greenland's North Lake following a rapid drainage event in 2011 are seen here. Credit: Ian Joughin.

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.

First fossilized bird of another feather found in Brazil

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 12:05:05 -0400

The oldest bird from Brazil, found in Cretaceous rocks dating to 115 million ago. Credit: Ismar de Souza Carvalho.

Delicate bird bones and feathers aren’t easily preserved as fossils, and most known examples of Cretaceous birds and feathers come from a few sites in northeastern China. An exquisitely feathered bird fossil found recently in the Araripe Basin of Brazil is the first to be discovered in South America, putting the ancient southern supercontinent Gondwana on the map of early avian evolutionary history.

Kennewick Man related to modern Native Americans

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:41:42 -0400

Cast and facial reconstruction of Kennewick Man. Previous morphometric analyses suggested he was related to the Ainu people of Japan, but a new genomic analysis shows he is more closely related to modern Native Americans. Credit: Chip Clark, Smithsonian.

After two decades of controversy surrounding the origins of Kennewick Man — a 9,000-year-old skeleton found on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington state — a genomic analysis has revealed that he was, in fact, related to modern Native Americans. The 1996 discovery of the well-preserved skeleton led to a protracted legal battle among scientists, Native American tribes and the federal government over the disposition of the remains, and sparked a scientific debate about the origins of the first Americans.

Ancient asteroids boiled Earth's oceans

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:28:06 -0400

Donald Lowe and Gary Byerly examine Archean rocks that preserve evidence of impacts in South Africa. Credit: Donald Lowe.

The asteroid that wiped out the remaining dinosaurs — save for the avian variety — 66 million years ago was roughly 10 kilometers wide. Long before that, however, early Earth was bombarded by many larger impactors, which pulverized Earth’s surface time and again. Now, a new study published in Geology suggests that two asteroids, dating to Archean times and estimated to be 50 to 100 kilometers in diameter, released enough energy to boil the oceans and reduce sea level by as much as 100 meters or more.

Source of Red Sea's mysterious cannon earthquakes revealed

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 11:16:00 -0400

Cannon-like blasts sometimes accompany small earthquakes in the Abu Dabbab region of Egypt along the coast of the Red Sea. Credit: Marc Ryckaert, CC BY 3.0.

For decades, people living along Egypt’s Red Sea coast have reported hearing loud blasts accompanying the small earthquakes that regularly jolt the Abu Dabbab region. And there is evidence the sounds have been occurring for much longer: Abu Dabbab means “the Father of Knock” in Arabic, hinting at a tectonic mystery at least as ancient as the name of the long-inhabited coastal region. Now, scientists are offering a novel explanation for the uniquely noisy seismic events, and their discovery is revealing new information about the underlying structure of the Red Sea region.

Aerosols help mitigate ill effects of Amazon fires

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:54:42 -0400

Taken by NASA's Aqua satellite, this image shows deforested areas and active forest fires (red dots) in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso on Aug. 12, 2007. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Jesse Allen.

Forest fires across the Amazon Basin — many of which are set intentionally to clear land for human use — burn thousands of square kilometers each year, releasing roughly 240 billion kilograms of stored carbon to the atmosphere. According to a new study, however, the vast amounts of black carbon and other aerosolized particles also sent into the skies by such fires offset much of this carbon loss by stimulating increased photosynthesis.

Dinosaurs used the same nests repeatedly

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 10:43:37 -0400

Troodon dinosaur eggs from China. Credit: David Varricchio.

Fossil dinosaur eggs and nests offer clues about dinosaur development and behavior: Based on past work, for example, scientists have thought that some dinosaurs, like oviraptors, brooded, or sat on their eggs, much like modern birds do. Now, the results of a new study describing two fossil egg nests suggest that some dinosaurs used the same nesting sites again and again.

Energy Notes: March 2014-2015

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 10:25:05 -0400

Credit: The American Geosciences Institute.

U.S. Oil & Petroleum Imports (million 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: Iodine

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 10:19:58 -0400

Emily K. Schnebele, a mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, compiled the following information on iodine, which is primarily used in X-ray contrast media, pharmaceuticals, disinfectants and LCD screens.

Iodine-depleted soils underlie some of the world's most populated areas, leaving many at risk of iodine deficiency. Its consequences, including goiter, are combated with salt iodization programs like this one sponsored by the U.N. World Food Program in Senegal in West Africa. Credit: WFP/Isabelle Dia.

Iodine is a bluish-black lustrous solid (violet-colored in its gaseous state) found primarily in seaweed, underground brines associated with petroleum deposits and caliche ore deposits.

Step one: Soil testing

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 10:23:56 -0400

Several gardening practices can be used to remediate soils to lower lead contamination. Credit: Center for Urban Health.

The first step in planning a community or backyard garden should always be to get the soil tested, getting a read on not only pH and nutrient levels, but possible contaminants like lead and arsenic. “Some cities have public health programs to help residents get their gardens tested for low or no cost, but it’s kind of hit or miss,” says Gabriel Filippelli, a biogeochemist at Indiana University in Indianapolis. Some cities such as Philadelphia have also held one-day “soil kitchen” workshops where people can bring in samples of soil for immediate testing with an X-ray fluorescence instrument.

Down to Earth With: Glaciologist Erin Pettit

Thu, 17 Sep 2015 10:17:25 -0400

Glaciologist Erin Pettit is an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Credit: Ted Scambos.

Pettit mentors participants in the Girls on Ice program as they learn mountaineering and science skills. Credit: Girls on Ice/Erin Pettit.

If it has to do with frozen water, Erin Pettit has probably studied it. As an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Pettit investigates all things ice. Her research spans vast spatial scales, from the behavior of entire glaciers down to the structure of individual ice crystals. And it has taken her from Alaska to Greenland to Antarctica, and to many of the mountain ranges in between.

Toxic Gardens: The long legacy of urban lead

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 11:49:09 -0400

Community gardens (such as the one above in Indianapolis) and playgrounds are common places where children can come into contact with lead-contaminated soils in the urban environment. Remediation at the playground above was funded by the Greater New Orleans Foundation and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Credit: top: Gabriel Filippelli/Indiana University; bottom: Howard Mielke/Tulane.

From a toxicological point of view, soaring lead levels in the home environment represented one of America’s lowest points — but efforts to improve the situation also led to one of our greatest success stories. After leaded gasoline and lead paints were identified as the culprits behind alarmingly high blood lead levels in children in the late 1970s, the federal government passed legislation banning the metal from these products, and many wide-reaching programs educated the public on how to reduce exposure to lead. By the 1990s, average blood lead levels in children exposed to lead in the home had dropped from 15 micrograms per deciliter of blood to just two.

Sculpting the Alps

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 11:25:06 -0400

Above about 1,800 meters, the steepness of mountain slopes in the vicinity of the Mont Blanc Massif near Chamonix, France, tends to decrease with elevation. Credit: Lucas Joel.

Mountains typically get steeper the higher you climb. The European Alps are an exception: Beginning at altitudes between about 1,500 and 2,000 meters, most slopes in the range tend to become less steep with increased elevation. This is largely caused by ancient glaciers, which scoured away much of the rock from the tops of the Alps. However, the steepness of alpine slopes also decreases in areas beyond the reach of glaciers, although the reasons why have remained elusive. New research is revealing how tectonic and fluvial forces have also helped shape the Alps’ unusual topography.

Declining U.S. water use a challenge for models

Fri, 04 Sep 2015 10:56:58 -0400

In 2013, the desert city of Tucson, Ariz., delivered the same amount of water to its customers as it did in 1989, when the population was roughly 30 percent lower, thanks in part to the increasing popularity of xeriscaping and smaller pools and lawns. Credit: sonorangardensinc.com/xeriscapes-tucson.

Americans are using less water today than they have at any time since 1970, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which has tracked water use since 1950 and issues reports every five years.

Vital seconds: The journey toward earthquake early warning for all

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 13:38:52 -0400

A mock-up of an earthquake early warning (EEW) alert on a cellphone. An EEW system is under development but not yet available to the public. Credit: K. Cantner, AGI, after Jennifer Strauss.

A ShakeAlert message like this would alert users to how many seconds they have before shaking waves arrive at their location and to the expected intensity of shaking. A shaking intensity of VI, as shown here, would mean the shaking would be strongly felt, people would find it difficult to stand, and structures could suffer damage. The warning message also displays a map with the location of the epicenter, the magnitude of the quake, and the current position of the P and S waves. Credit: USGS.

It is a cool foggy morning in San Mateo, Calif. A small ray of light has just peeked through my window. I listen to the birds chirping as I relish the final moments before my alarm calls for the start of a new day. It’s 6:15 a.m. Fifteen more minutes of a sleeping child.

Getting there and getting around Hells Canyon

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 12:57:23 -0400

Rafting trips begin below the 100-metertall Hells Canyon Dam. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton.

The Snake River is still plentiful in smallmouth bass. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton.

The closest major airports to Hells Canyon are Missoula, Mont., Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Wash. If you book a multiday trip with a reputable rafting company, the company will likely help you arrange shuttles to the beginning and end of the canyon, or you may need to rent a car. Most Hells Canyon river trips end in Lewiston, Idaho, which also has a small airport with regularly scheduled flights to Salt Lake City, Seattle and Boise.

Damming the salmon

Thu, 03 Sep 2015 12:53:34 -0400

Salmon used to be plentiful in the Snake River; today, wild salmon populations are less than 10 percent of their pre-European settlement numbers. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton.

In the 1940s, the state of Idaho decided that the Salmon River would be left to flow freely while the Snake would be developed for hydroelectric power to become Idaho’s workhorse river. To date, a total of 15 dams have been built along the Snake for a variety of purposes, from irrigation to flood control to hydroelectricity. Hells Canyon is home to three hydroelectric impoundments: the Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon dams, built in 1959, 1961 and 1967, respectively. Together they have a maximum capacity of 391 megawatts of power production.

Travels in Geology: Rafting the Pacific Northwest's heavenly Hells Canyon

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 15:07:19 -0400

Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge in North America, is challenging to get to, but it's great to raft or boat. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton.

Hells Canyon forms part of the Oregon-Idaho border. Credit: both: K. Cantner, AGI.

Why would you ever visit a place called Hells Canyon? Especially given how hard it is to get there: Few roads and only steep, difficult trails run down into the 2,400-meter-deep gorge — the deepest canyon in North America — which forms part of the border between Oregon and Idaho. Despite its remote and rugged challenges, however, Hells Canyon has attracted visitors for thousands of years, from the Clovis people and Native Americans to turn-of-the-century gold miners, sheep ranchers and homesteaders.

Jelly volcano reveals eruption trigger

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 12:13:58 -0400

The remnants of numerous sills of solidified magma radiate from West Spanish Peak in Colorado. New research suggests that the formation of new sills underground may play a role in triggering volcanic eruptions. Credit: Mary Caperton Morton.

What makes a volcano erupt? Over the years, scientists have proposed a litany of potential triggers, but there’s always room for one more. With help from dyed water, a laser and a tank of clear jelly, researchers have proposed a new mechanism that might push loaded volcanoes toward eruption.

Injection experiment offers new view of fluid-filled faults

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 11:52:36 -0400

Researchers deployed a new sensor to study the influence of fluid injection on a fault from a tunnel that is part of an underground research facility in southeastern France. Credit: Yves Guglielmi.

Scientists have known since the late 1960s that injecting fluids underground can cause earthquakes if those fluids find their way into slip-prone fault zones. Evidence of fluid-induced quakes has continued mounting in recent years with observations of abnormally high levels of seismicity in the central U.S., coincident with increased injections of wastewater into the ground — mostly related to oil- and gas-mining operations. But understanding the inner workings of fluid-filled faults is challenging because researchers have been limited by how close they can get to study them. Now, a new study is offering a glimpse into the future of induced-seismicity studies by monitoring fault motions on the spot and in real time.

Gender equity in dino bones

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 11:42:44 -0400

A new study of 29 Protoceratops specimens suggests that males and females cannot be distinguished based on their skulls. Credit: Karen, CC BY 2.0.

Modern birds like cardinals and peacocks offer some of the most dramatic examples of sexual dimorphism on Earth, with males and females varying in size and/or displaying different plumage, among other differences. But whether the two sexes of birds’ dinosaur ancestors also possessed different physical characteristics has long been debated. Now, in a new study, scientists using state-of-the-art measuring techniques to look at Protoceratops — a frilled, horned relative of Triceratops that’s found abundantly in the fossil record — are questioning past notions about whether the sex of specimens can be distinguished based on their fossils.

Ancient floods degassed Lake Kivu

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 11:27:55 -0400

A turbid sediment plume in Lake Kivu in East Africa following a rainfall event. The discovery of ancient megaturbidites in the lake that had been instigated by floods revealed a new trigger for degassing the "killer lake." Credit: Christopher Scholz.

The deep, cold waters of Lake Kivu — a stratified volcanic lake in the East African Rift Valley on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo — hold 300 cubic kilometers of carbon dioxide gas and 60 cubic kilometers of methane, which seep from magmatic sources below the lake. An overturning of the thermally stratified waters could release those deadly gases onto a population of nearly 2 million.