Cosmic impacts implicated in both the rise and fall of dinosaurs
...es to detect layers of "space dust" in the earth's crust are building geological evidence that comets or asteroids colliding with earth not only helped wipe out the dinosaurs, but may have originally helped bring them to prominence about 200 million years ago. Dennis V. Kent, Rutgers geology professor, was...Research highights from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
...ermine if they are detecting a shift in the earths crust or the results of a nuclear test detonation....Iron-rich soil can help remove lead; manganese also important
...the most common of the heavy metals in the earth's crust and therefore a common pollutant. But it can bind to several minerals, effectively reducing its availability to plants and animals. S. Erin O'Reilly, a doctoral student in geological sciences at Virginia Tech is examining the lead sorption efficie...April GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY media highlights
...an accretionary prism forms when pieces of oceanic crust and overlying sediments are scraped off a subducti...ay be a primary pathway of alteration of the upper crust of the earth in arid lands. Cathodoluminescence petrography of K-metasomatized ash-flow tuffs quick...Common microbes survive pressures equal to those found at 50 kilometers inside the Earths crust
...uivalent to about 50 kilometers beneath the Earths crust or 160 kilometers in a hypothetical sea. This finding may expand the habitable zone for life within the solar system and it opens new doors for looking for life much deeper inside planetary bodies than previously considered. According to Dr. Anurag S...February media highlights - GSA Bulletin
...fault zone consist of several thrust faults, where crust to the south has moved up relative to crust northward. The Seattle fault zone was responsible for a magnitude 7 earthquake 1100 years ago, and a......emical analysis of the atmosphere and the planet's crust - tasks that are currently impractical for humans. University of Melbourne zoologist, Professor David Macmillan and associates in his Melbourne laboratory and collaborating laboratories overseas are using the Yabby (Cherax destructor) to help advance...Ancient supernova may have triggered eco-catastrophe
... unusual isotope of iron in samples of the Earths crust drilled from the deep ocean bottom. Knie had proposed that the iron isotope was debris from a recent supernova explosion that took place close to Earth. But astronomers had no plausible candidates for such a nearby explosion until Maz-Apellnizs work ...January media highlights-GSA Bulletin
...bean, and insights into the composition of oceanic crust based on a global survey of Precambrian ophiolites...-snake, and lithos--rock) are fragments of oceanic crust and mantle formed at spreading centers and preserved on land. Ophiolite studies provide crucial insi...January media highlights: GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY
...elevation considering their crustal thickness (the crust there is almost as thick as the crust of the Alps but the elevation is less than one-half that of the Alps). The author proposes that alth...Healy researchers make a series of striking discoveries about Arctic Ocean
...the global mid-ocean ridge system, where new ocean crust is continuously created as seafloor spreading takes place through volcanic activity. Many theories about seafloor spreading can be tested only on a slow-spreading ridge like the Gakkel. Geologists, oceanographers and biologists on both ships recover...Deep-ocean research program office established at Penn State
...t disciplines necessary for the study of the ocean crust and its actions, complex ecosystems, and hydrothermal vents. Those disciplines include: biology, chemistry, geology, and physics. The RIDGE 2000 program will focus on the integration of research across a wide range of disciplines, emphasizing the i...Arsenic and old telomerase: Hopkins researchers unravel effects of arsenic on human cells
...lly occurring element found throughout the earth's crust and also in water, air, plants and animals. It is released into the environment through natural geological processes such as volcanism, erosion of rocks, forest fires, and through human industrial activity....Researchers find glass-eating microbes at the rock bottom of the food chain
... lead to chemical interactions between the oceanic crust and seawater, influencing important chemical cycles on the earth, including the carbon cycle that is important to the earths climate. Staudigel says the microbes may tunnel their way into rock to derive chemical energy from the glass and to find prot...Research season will feature use of sophisticated technologies to map Antarctica
...irborne radar, measure the movement of the Earth's crust beneath the ice with Global Positioning System tra... The ability to measure the motions of the Earth's crust in the bedrock surrounding and underlying the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is critical to understanding ...August media highlights GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY
... describes evidence for a 20 x 50 km region in the crust beneath the Southern Alps of New Zealand where exc...in the collision zone. When fluid pressures in the crust approach the weight per unit area of the overlying rock (this is called lithostatic pressure), the o...July media highlights: GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY
...y high temperatures of dry melting so close to the crust indicate a transitory condition of the mantle. Hypersulfidic deep biosphere indicates extreme sulfur isotope fractionation during single-step microbial sulfate reduction. Ulrich G. Wortmann, GEOMAR Research Center for Marine Geosciences, Kiel, German..."Microbes deep within South African gold mines" subject of NSF lecture
... water circulating through fissures in the earth's crust more than three kilometers deep. At the bottom of... deep-living microbes in continental (non-oceanic) crust exist, however, because coring is expensive. The gold mines of South Africa provide a unique opport...February media highlights: Geology and GSA today
...y creating very large confining stresses as older crust subsides and heats up and expands - causing thrust...e unstable and lead to breakup and tilting of this crust and thus towering mountains. This helps explain why concentrations of mountains are seen on Io tha...... planet into space. "This is the first evidence of crust as old as 4.4 billion years, and indicates the development of continental-type crust during intense meteorite bombardment of the early Earth," Valley says. "It is possible that the wate...