earth science

The Bizarre Reason Greenland Is Getting Darker Each Year

Greenland is one of the brightest spots on planet Earth, but ominously enough, its gleaming surface darkens with each passing year, thanks to a strange series of physical processes, one of which cannot be seen with the naked eye. According to a fascinating new study led by Columbia’s Earth Institute and published today the journal…

Tech News Maddie Stone Mar 3

This New App Turns Your Phone Into a Portable Seismic Station

Whoa, did you feel that earthquake? Even if you didn’t, your phone did, and a new app from seismologists aims to capture those vibrations in your very own pocket seismology lab. The University of California Berkeley’s Seismological Laboratory revealed the new app, which they’ve dubbed MyShake, at the AAAS meeting today and simultaneously released it…

Tech News Ria Misra Feb 12

New Evidence Suggests Human Beings Are a Geological Force of Nature

For years, the term “Anthropocene” has been used to informally describe the human era on Earth. But new evidence suggests there’s nothing informal about it. We’re a true force of nature — and there’s good reason to believe we’ve sparked a new and unprecedented geological epoch. A team of international geoscientists say the time has…

Climate Change George Dvorsky Jan 7

Earth Looks Downright Alien in This New Photo From the Space Station

This photograph, snapped by NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, looks like it may have been taken over some Martian canyon or Jovian moon, but it was captured as the International Space Station coasted far above strange rocky features in Africa. Kelly, who will be returning to Earth in March after spending an entire year in space,…

Space & Spaceflight George Dvorsky Jan 4

Here’s the Most Complete Ocean Floor Map Ever Made

What lies beneath the deep blue sea? So much more than you might think. The results that let this new, marvelously-detailed map of the seafloor from NASA’s Earth Observatory be made were actually first published last year as part of a paper in Science from researchers at NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They were…

Tech News Ria Misra Dec 29

NASA Maps Show Just How Crazy The Storm Season Was in the Pacific

It was an uncharacteristically quiet hurricane season in the Atlantic, but the same cannot be said for the eastern Pacific and central Pacific basins, which got absolutely hammered this year. New maps by NASA and Unisys Weather show the extent of this year’s storm season. The hurricane season in the Atlantic and the eastern and…

Tech News George Dvorsky Dec 7

This Is How the Ocean Makes Earth Livable

Seventy percent of Earth’s surface is ocean, and without it, the other 30 percent would barely be inhabitable. The ocean absorbs and distributes heat around the globe, and it acts as a planet-sized CO2 scrubber, saving us all from a runaway greenhouse effect like the one that turned Venus into a hell-world. But the ocean,…

Climate Change Kiona Smith-Strickland Dec 7

Earth’s Tropical Rainforests Could Look Completely Different By the End of the Century

In 2005, an intense heatwave struck a mountaintop rainforest in northeast Australia. Accounts of the event were rather apocalyptic: birds dropping dead out of the sky; entire patches of forest withering to a crisp. But the biggest casualty of all was a snow-white furball that scampered amongst the branches at the highest elevations. The white…

Climate Change Maddie Stone Dec 5

A Fossil Tropical Forest Is Helping Solve an Ancient Climate Mystery

A team of scientists has unearthed the fossil remnants of a tropical forest on the arctic island of Svalbard, and it could help explain one of the most dramatic climate shifts in Earth’s history. The fossil forest—stumps of lycopod trees that reached heights of about 13 feet—dates back to the late Devonian period some 380…

Tech News Maddie Stone Nov 21

No One Knows How Much Forest We Have Left Because No One Can Decide What a Forest Is

Is this a forest? That depends on what you mean. Historically, the definition of forests has been a lot like the definition of pornography: We know it when we see it. “Yes,” one might say to oneself as they stand in the middle of a patch of green, noting the presence of trees and wildlife,…

Tech News Ria Misra Nov 19

A New Study Challenges Assumptions About the Origins of Earth’s Water

Water, water everywhere, but how on Earth did it get here? Many scientists believe that Baby Earth formed dry and was later soaked by an onslaught of extraterrestrial impacts. But a new study challenges that view, arguing that our planet has had water from the start. In fact, we have have inherited it from the…

Tech News Maddie Stone Nov 14

Mount Saint Helens May Share Magma with an Entire Field of Volcanoes

It took 2,500 seismometers, 23 explosive blasts, and countless earthquakes, but researchers now have a much better idea of what the magma chambers look like deep below Mount Saint Helens. The weird bit? It looks like it shares a magma chamber with a whole field of local volcanoes. The iconic volcano of the Pacific Northwest…

Tech News Mika McKinnon Nov 10

Life May Have Gotten Started On Earth Almost Immediately

The ancient Earth was a pretty miserable place. But from this eruptive, radiation-blasted, asteroid-pummeled wasteland, life did arise. Now, scientists have uncovered a tantalizing clue that Earth’s first hardy colonizers appeared much earlier than we thought. A team of geochemists has uncovered a piece of what appears to be biogenic graphite — carbon produced by…

Tech News Maddie Stone Oct 20

We’ve Had Some Amazing Trips to Venus and It’s Time to Go Back

After decades of neglect, Venus might just be making a comeback. Late last month, NASA announced five finalists for the next low-cost space probes; two of them are missions to Venus. Venus has captivated our imaginations for centuries, and Cold War-era exploration of the planet brought about a lot of firsts in the history of…

Space & Spaceflight Maddie Stone Oct 19

An Ancient Volcanic Collapse Triggered an 800 Foot Tsunami Wave

Scientists have just uncovered one of the largest tsunami events in the geologic record, and naturally, it started with an epic splash. 73,000 years ago, the eastern flank of Cape Verde’s Fogo volcano collapsed into the sea, kicking up an 800-foot wave. Think about that for a sec. That’s two thirds the height of the…

Tech News Maddie Stone Oct 3

Climate Change Killed Earth’s Crocodilians, and It Could Bring Them Back, Too

A diverse clan of fearsome crocodilians once roamed the entire planet. Today, only 23 species remain in a handful of locales worldwide. We’ve all heard tales of the giant asteroid that did in the dinosaurs, but the demise of the crocodilians was far less dramatic. The crocs were picked off quietly, as our planet cooled…

Climate Change Maddie Stone Sep 25

Meet the Preppers Who Are Ready for the Next Massive Solar Storm

Hurricanes and blizzards are petty trifles compared with the weather phenomenon that troubles apocalypse preppers: They’re worried about a giant electromagnetic storm wiping out all technology. It’s an unlikely scenario — a massive solar storm strikes only about once every 500 years — but if the Earth was hit by one, power grids across the…

Tech News Maddie Stone Sep 15

First Oxygen Appeared On Earth Way Earlier Than We Realized

If you hopped in the Tardis and traveled back four billion years, you’d find yourself on a hot, miserable wasteland of a planet with nary an oxygen molecule to breathe. Earth used to be an asphyxiating hellscape, but over the eons, tiny green microbes filled the air with oxygen. New research finds they’ve been at…

Tech News Maddie Stone Sep 8

Glowing Antineutrino Map Shows How Radioactive the Earth Is

It’s often said that we know less about Earth’s deep interior than we do about the surface of Mars (or at this point, maybe even Pluto). A new global map of subatomic particles called antineutrinos is helping to change that. It’s showing scientists just how radioactive our little Blue Marble is. The neutrino and its…

Physics & Chemistry Maddie Stone Sep 4

It Only Takes 70,000 Dancers at Burning Man to Make an Earthquake

Hordes of party-minded hipsters are heading out to Black Rock City this weekend for the annual Burning Man festival — possibly as many as 70,000, if past growth trends hold. And according to British seismologist Paul Denton, that’s enough frenzied dancing feet to generate a small earthquake measuring about 0.5 on the Richter scale. That…

Tech News Jennifer Ouellette Sep 4

The Bizarre Reason Greenland Is Getting Darker Each Year

This New App Turns Your Phone Into a Portable Seismic Station

New Evidence Suggests Human Beings Are a Geological Force of Nature

Earth Looks Downright Alien in This New Photo From the Space Station

Here’s the Most Complete Ocean Floor Map Ever Made

NASA Maps Show Just How Crazy The Storm Season Was in the Pacific

This Is How the Ocean Makes Earth Livable

Earth’s Tropical Rainforests Could Look Completely Different By the End of the Century

A Fossil Tropical Forest Is Helping Solve an Ancient Climate Mystery

No One Knows How Much Forest We Have Left Because No One Can Decide What a Forest Is

A New Study Challenges Assumptions About the Origins of Earth’s Water

Mount Saint Helens May Share Magma with an Entire Field of Volcanoes

Life May Have Gotten Started On Earth Almost Immediately

We’ve Had Some Amazing Trips to Venus and It’s Time to Go Back

An Ancient Volcanic Collapse Triggered an 800 Foot Tsunami Wave

Climate Change Killed Earth’s Crocodilians, and It Could Bring Them Back, Too

Meet the Preppers Who Are Ready for the Next Massive Solar Storm

First Oxygen Appeared On Earth Way Earlier Than We Realized

Glowing Antineutrino Map Shows How Radioactive the Earth Is

It Only Takes 70,000 Dancers at Burning Man to Make an Earthquake

Amazon Is Sticking With ‘Rings of Power’ to the End

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See the Early Stages of How ‘Project Hail Mary’ Brought Rocky to Life

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