September 2015 on EARTH Magazine

Subducted seawater the source of fluid-rich diamonds

Tue, 29 Sep 2015 16:56:28 -0400

The cloudy outer coating surrounding this gem-quality diamond core contains tiny inclusions encasing fluids trapped when the coating formed at a depth of about 200 kilometers. Credit: Anetta Banas

Subducting oceanic plates that dive hundreds of kilometers beneath Earth’s surface carry with them cargoes of sediment and seawater. As the plate heats up the deeper it sinks, this seawater not only initiates melting in the rock above it, but can also trigger diamond formation, suggest the authors of a new study in Nature.

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.

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.

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.

Where on Earth? - September 2015

Sun, 30 Aug 2015 18:22:51 -0400

Scroll down for the answer

Clues for September 2015:

This cave, along with three others, was carved in the sixth and seventh centuries into fine-grained, horizontally stratified red sandstone dating to the latter Proterozoic, when it was deposited in an intracratonic basin.
All of the caves, which feature ornate carvings and a distinctive architecture, including verandas, halls and sancta — all lined with large, intricate pillars — are dedicated to either of two gods or to a spiritual leader.
Today, the caves and other nearby temples comprise a tourist site in a southwestern state of the world’s second-most-populous country. But from the sixth through the eighth centuries, the area was the ruling seat of a dynasty that controlled most of what is now the southern portion of the modern country.

Red Planet Roundup: September 2015

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 11:14:12 -0400

Areas shaded green in this image show where signs of impact glass were identified near the central peak of Alga Crater in Mars' southern hemisphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHUAPL/Univ. of Arizona.

The InSight lander undergoes testing in a facility at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Colo., in April. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin.

With two rovers patrolling the surface of Mars, five spacecraft orbiting above it, and scientists here on Earth studying the Red Planet from afar, new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

Benchmarks: September 26, 1991: Crew sealed inside Biosphere 2

Tue, 25 Aug 2015 11:03:51 -0400

The Biosphere 2 facility was operated as a closed-ecosystem experiment from 1991 to 1993. Various universities have since used it as a research facility, including the University of Arizona, which now maintains it and offers public tours. Credit: ©Omar Bárcena, CC BY-NC 2.0.

It takes about an hour to drive from Tucson, Ariz., to the Biosphere 2 research facility, perched atop a plateau in the Santa Catalina Mountains. Through its glittering glass walls, you can still see the shadowy silhouette of the Brazilian rainforest that grows inside. Indeed, the facility once enclosed numerous small-scale experimental ecosystems — from a swath of swaying savanna to a 700,000-gallon ocean complete with its own coral reef. And, beginning on Sept. 26, 1991, Biosphere 2 enclosed a crew of four men and four women who would call the bubble home for two years.

Getting there and getting around the Whitsundays

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 11:26:55 -0400

Visitors to the Whitsundays often come through Cairns, which is also a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott.

The gateway airports to the Whitsundays are on Hamilton Island and near Proserpine on the mainland. Neither hosts direct flights from the U.S., but both connect to Sydney and Brisbane, Australia’s primary international arrival points, as well as Cairns, the most popular access point to the Great Barrier Reef. From Proserpine, Whitsunday Transit can transport you to accommodations throughout the region.

Travels in Geology: Australia's Whitsunday Islands: Sun, sand and silicic volcanism

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 11:07:06 -0400

Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island is perennially voted one of the top 10 beaches in the world. Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Shane_Pedersen.

Whitehaven Beach is the only beach within all the Whitsunday Islands that has sand that is 99 percent pure quartz. Credit: Terri Cook and Lon Abbott.

In 2009, Tourism Queensland launched a campaign soliciting applications for what they billed as “the Best Job in the World”: “caretaker” of Australia’s Whitsunday Islands for six months. Benefits included transportation to Hamilton Island, the isles’ commercial hub, accommodation in a multimillion-dollar mansion and an extravagant salary. What responsibilities did the job entail? Mostly, it involved exploring the tropical paradise that is the Whitsunday Islands and documenting these explorations through photo diaries, blogs and web videos. Applications were only accepted by web video.

MESSENGER mission ends with a bang, and more data

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:42:44 -0400

Artist's impression of MESSENGER passing over Mercury's Hokusai Crater. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington.

After 11 years in space and more than 4,100 laps around Mercury since entering orbit in 2011, NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft was decommissioned in heroic fashion on April 30, slamming into the planet’s surface at more 14,000 kilometers per hour after it had run out of propellant. Fittingly, it gouged a 16-meter-wide crater of its own amid the myriad others it observed there.

Sun shapes Titan's atmospheric makeup

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:30:19 -0400

Titan in ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, as imaged by the Cassini spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere composed of 98 percent nitrogen and about 1.4 percent methane, as well as small amounts of other gases. In a new study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, astronomers have identified fluctuations in methane levels in Titan’s thermosphere that appear to be in tune with the 11-year solar cycle.

Earliest stone tools pre-date Homo

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:26:18 -0400

Sonia Harmand examines a primitive stone tool found in Kenya. Credit: MPK-West Turkana Archaeological Project.

Tool making is thought to be one of the defining characteristics of the transition from apes to early man. Now, the discovery of a set of stone tools dating to 3.3 million years ago is pushing back this critical stage of early human development by more than half a million years, and, according to one researcher involved, disproving “the long-standing assumption that Homo habilis was the first tool maker.”

Ultraviolet lights the way for rare earth recycling

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:21:03 -0400

Landfills represent a massive source of rare earth materials. Credit: ©Geoff Livingston, CC BY-NC-SA-2.0.

The 17 rare earth elements, widely used in everyday devices from cellphones to magnets and fluorescent lights, aren’t all that rare. They are just finely dispersed in small quantities around the world, making them difficult to mine in substantial quantities. Recycling rare earths is an attractive means to supplement freshly mined stocks, but it remains technically and logistically difficult. Now, a team has developed a more efficient method of recycling two rare earth elements — europium and yttrium — using ultraviolet (UV) light instead of traditional methods involving chemical solvents.

Snake forebear had two back legs but no front legs

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 12:32:06 -0400

This artist's rendering of the common ancestor of modern snakes shows it with two small hind legs. Credit: Julius T. Csotonyi.

The more than 3,400 species of snakes alive today may have descended from one ancestor that lacked forelimbs, but which had small vestigial hind limbs complete with ankle bones and toes, according to a new study published in BMC Evolutionary Biology.

Sea-level rise accelerating

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 12:16:47 -0400

Sea-level rise has been accelerating around the planet, which has been more precisely measured by correcting for vertical land movement. Credit: ©Andjam79, CC BY 2.0.

Studies tracking sea-level rise over the past few decades have been all over the map, with reports variously indicating that the rate of rise has accelerated, stayed constant or declined. Now, a new GPS-based study published in Nature Climate Change indicates that sea-level rise has indeed been accelerating over the last decade.

Ocean 'sneezes' spread algae-infecting virus

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:56:13 -0400

A scanning electron micrograph of the common coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi. Credit: Elena Kartvelishvily and Daniella Schatz.

Microscopic phytoplankton, or microalgae, permeate ocean surfaces, sometimes forming huge blooms visible from space. Nutrient concentrations in seawater are known to regulate such blooms, which play a major role in oceanic food chains and carbon cycling, and occasionally prove harmful to other marine life as well as humans. Less understood are the other factors that influence a bloom’s onset and demise. New research sheds light on one such influence, demonstrating that an algae-infecting virus can become airborne and travel long distances, potentially infecting and eradicating parts of a bloom hundreds of kilometers away.

Seismometers listen for falling rocks

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:48:06 -0400

Fresh debris lines part of Yosemite Valley after a rockfall. Credit: National Park Service.

Scores of natural rockfalls occur in California’s Yosemite Valley every year, often with little or no advance warning, posing hazards to people and infrastructure. In 1980, for example, a fall near Yosemite Falls killed three people and injured 19. Efforts to record and document rockfalls are rudimentary, relying only on eyewitness accounts and after-the-fact observations of fresh talus piles, which means many events are likely going unreported. In a new study, however, researchers interested in whether there’s a better way to monitor these events propose that seismic and infrasound sensors can help keep tabs on the granite slabs dropping from Yosemite’s cliffs.

Oldest birds unearthed in China

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:39:12 -0400

Two specimens of the oldest- known ornithuromorph yet discovered, Archaeornithura meemannae, thought to have been a wading bird, were recently found in China. Credit: Zongda Zhang.

The discovery of two well-preserved fossils in the Sichakou Basin of northeastern China has pushed back the known evolutionary record of birds by as much as 6 million years, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.

Ancient marine reptiles born alive and ready to hunt

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:36:28 -0400

An artist's interpretation of an adult mosasaur giving birth to live young. Credit: Julius T. Csotonyi.

Mosasaurs, giant marine reptiles found in all the world’s oceans during the Late Cretaceous, may have reached up to 18 meters in length, and they were fearsome predators. Little is known, however, about newborn, or neonate, mosasaurs because very few have been found. Now, new research describing a rare fossil find from Kansas reveals that mosasaurs likely gave birth to live young that were born swimming and able to survive alongside the adults.

Earth-like atmosphere enough to set some exoplanets spinning

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 11:30:21 -0400

An illustration of Kepler-62f, an exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of its local star, Kepler-62, which is thought to be about 70 percent as massive as our sun. Credit: NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech.

Earth is “Exhibit A” in showing that planetary rotation — which moderates global climate, keeps a lot of water in liquid form and generally makes the place more livable — is a plus when it comes to sustaining life. But scientists have thought that many of the rocky, Earth-like exoplanets discovered recently, which might otherwise be considered potentially hospitable to life, aren’t so fortunate. On these unlucky worlds, unable to rotate because they’re held too tightly by their parent stars’ gravity, one half of the planet is perpetually roasted by stellar radiation while the other is left frigid and dark. Now, however, a new study suggests that a little atmosphere can go a long way toward helping exoplanets rotate.

Map shows where lightning zaps most

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 09:14:55 -0400

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/ Joshua Stevens.

Lightning strikes far more often over land than sea and is more concentrated closer to the equator — both testaments to the greater atmospheric instability over those parts of the planet. These are just two observations evident from a global map of lightning strikes produced recently by NASA based on nearly two decades of data from the OrbView-1/Microlab satellite and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite. The new map color-codes Earth by the average number of lightning flashes seen annually per square kilometer — brighter colors mean more lightning — and refines earlier efforts based on fewer data. So where on Earth does lightning strike most? That would be in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which is struck roughly 150 times per square kilometer each year, followed by the area near Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. If you look closely, you can also see the contributions of certain orographic features like the Himalayas and the Rockies on lightning-strike patterns.

De-evolving the bird beak

Fri, 21 Aug 2015 09:07:16 -0400

An illustration highlighting the premaxillary and palatine bones in the nonavian dinosaur Anchiornis (rear) and a modern tinamou, which belongs to one of the most ancient living orders of birds. Credit: John Conway.

The transition from dinosaurs with snouts to birds with beaks was a pivotal change in the evolution of dinosaurs into birds during the Late Mesozoic. Now, biologists have partially reversed this process by transforming chicken embryos into specimens with snout and palate configurations similar to those of small dinosaurs like Velociraptor and Archaeopteryx.

Comment: Exoplanets: Life on the Terminator

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:31:19 -0400

Credit: Callan Bentley.

Small, cool, red dwarf stars are the most abundant type of star in the universe and compose most of our stellar neighborhoods. Red dwarfs also have the longest lifetime of any stellar type. Compared to larger, yellow dwarf stars like our sun, which typically have adult lifetimes of about 10 billion years, red dwarfs can sustain themselves for up to 100 billion years or longer, making them excellent candidates for hosting life-bearing exoplanets. On many of the exoplanets where we’d be looking for life, the habitable zone lies on the line between sunlight and shadow, which, ironically, is called “the terminator.”

Energy Notes: February 2014-2015

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:05:31 -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: Bromine

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 13:02:28 -0400

Emily K. Schnebele, mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Geological Survey, compiled the following information on bromine, which is primarily used in flame retardants, well drilling and water treatment.

The Phoenicians mixed secretions from Murex sea snails, which bind bromine atoms in seawater, with the plant dye indigo to form Tyrian purple, an expensive and highly prized dye that did not easily fade. The silk burial shroud of Charlemagne — the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who was buried in Germany in 814 and repeatedly exhumed and reburied — remains a vibrant purple today. Credit: French National Museum of the Middle Ages.

Bromine, along with mercury, is one of only two elements that are liquid at room temperature. Bromine is a highly volatile and corrosive reddish-brown liquid that evaporates easily and converts to a metal at extreme pressures — above about 540,000 times atmospheric pressure. Bromine occurs in seawater, evaporitic (salt) lakes and underground brines associated with petroleum deposits.

Geologic Column: September 26, 1774: The man, the myth, the legend of Johnny Appleseed is born

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 12:45:54 -0400

Drawing of Jonathan Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed from 1862. Credit: Public Domain.

You’ve probably heard about Johnny Appleseed, who, according to story and song, spread his apple seeds across America’s Midwest. But, unlike other figures from American folklore such as Paul Bunyan, Rip Van Winkle and Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed was a real man with a life far richer and more interesting than the legend.

Down to Earth With: Engineer Jeffrey Bielicki

Thu, 20 Aug 2015 12:02:32 -0400

Jeffrey Bielicki is an assistant professor of energy policy at Ohio State University. Credit: Ohio State University.

With degrees in mechanical engineering, business administration and public administration from a variety of prestigious universities, one might get the impression that Jeffrey Bielicki is an inveterate academic with his head buried in books. And, indeed, Bielicki has spent most of his career in research, looking into solutions for problems in engineering, energy and policy. But far from narrowing his focus, Bielicki’s schooling in multiple disciplines has given him the desire and ability to see issues from a range of perspectives, thus informing and broadening his approaches to solving them.

Geomedia: Toys: LEGO® geoscientists break through the brick ceiling

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 10:50:10 -0400

Ellen Kooijman, a Dutch geochemist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, won a LEGO Group design contest with her kits featuring female scientists — a first for the toy company — including an astronomer, a paleontologist and a chemist. Credit: Ellen Kooijman/LEGO Ideas.

Many adults probably remember the childhood fun of LEGO® toys, the plastic bricks from which you could build forts, cars, houses, planes, cities and even whole universes. The few simple shapes and colors encouraged unlimited creativity, limited only by the number of LEGO pieces you had, which could total in the thousands.

Closing a gap in the tetrapod fossil record

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 10:42:16 -0400

Nova Scotia's Blue Beach preserves one of the richest concentrations of tetrapod fossils from the base of "Romer's Gap." Credit: Jason Anderson.

A few fossils at Blue Beach have been found in situ, especially in two horizons informally dubbed the "Theta Layer" and "Lighthouse Sandstone." Credit: Jason S. Anderson et al., PLOS ONE, 2015.

The story of how fish evolved into four-legged land animals called tetrapods has long been left incomplete by a 15-million-year gap in the fossil record, known as Romer’s Gap, which stretches from the end of the Devonian Period into the Carboniferous. Whether the gap is due to the actual absence of tetrapod fossils from this interval, or whether such fossils exist but have not been found yet has long remained unclear. A new study, however, shows tetrapod fossils from the base of the gap, adding to a growing list of discoveries that appear to be closing the gap.

Fate of atolls not necessarily tied to sea-level rise

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 10:31:06 -0400

The island of Funagogo on the eastern side of Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu. Credit: Paul Kench.

The western Pacific Ocean is home to many atolls: rings of low-lying islands built from calcite sands and the erosional remnants of coral reefs. This region is also home to some of the highest rates of sea-level rise in recent decades — an unsettling fact for the atolls’ inhabitants and others worried that rising waters will eat away at the islands and evict residents for good. But according to a new study documenting long-term change at one Pacific atoll, the future for such islands might not be so bleak.

Thorny plant marks West African diamond deposits

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 10:24:56 -0400

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Oct. 9, 2015, to fix an error in the size of the kimberlite pipe. West Africa is famous for diamonds, brought up from the depths of Earth’s mantle eons ago during explosive volcanic eruptions. On the surface, the eroded remains of these eruptions, known as kimberlite pipes, are infamously hard to find under the thick jungles of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and only a few of the deep, narrow pipes contain profitable diamonds. Now, a researcher has identified an unusual feature that might point the way toward such pipes, and possibly revolutionize the search for diamond-rich deposits: a tall, thorny palm-like plant that seems to only grow atop kimberlites.

Trip-planning resources

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 10:17:30 -0400

Shannon Falls can be seen from the Sea-to-Sky Highway, along which many of the field trip stops were located. Credit: International Association for Geoscience Diversity.

If you are thinking of making one or more of your field trips accessible, the International Association for Geoscience Diversity (IAGD), an organization charged with advocating for students and geoscientists with disabilities, can help. The IAGD is establishing a consortium of accessible field courses, specifically developed to accommodate students with disabilities who are working to complete the field-based learning requirements of an undergraduate geoscience degree program. The IAGD can connect you with experienced students and faculty who can help you plan your accessible field course, design a new course or retrofit an existing one based on the diverse physical needs of your students. If you are interested in learning more about modifying or developing an accessible field course, or in promoting an accessible geoscience field course through the consortium, contact the IAGD at info@theiagd.org.

Geology for everyone: Making the field accessible

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 09:43:35 -0400

The design of this field trip at last year's Geological Society of America meeting in British Columbia created the opportunity for all participants to engage in the field activities that best suited their abilities. Credit: International Association for Geoscience Diversity.

On Oct. 18, 2014, at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA) in Vancouver, British Columbia, the society hosted, for the first time, a field trip that was fully accessible to geoscience students and faculty with disabilities. The trip, which we led, is bringing attention to an often-ignored issue in the geosciences. Many students with sensory, physical or intellectual disabilities may be potentially discouraged from pursuing geoscience degrees when faced with course requirements that involve physically rigorous field-based learning.