Earlier water on Earth? Oldest rock suggests hospitable young planet
...surface. "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...Science's Top 10: genome sequencing named top scientific advance of 2000
...ernal magnetic field and its cracked and stretched crust strengthened the case for a salty, global ocean lurking beneath the moon's icy shell. Since many researchers believe that water is essential for the existence of life, these discoveries have piqued interest in the possibility of finding life within o...Huge new hydrothermal vent system found on seafloor
...e, because they rest on one-million-year-old ocean crust formed tens of kilometers beneath the seafloor, and because of their incredible size. Dense macrofaunal communities such as clams, shrimps, mussels, and tube worms, which typify most other mid-ocean ridge hydrothermal environments, appear to be abse...November GEOLOGY and GSA TODAY highlights
... fraction of Earths surface covered by continental crust through time could explain the observed differences. Los Angeles: The most differentiated basaltic martian meteorite. Alan E. Rubin et al. Los Angeles is a new martian meteorite. It is a type of igneous rock called basaltic shergottite, formed f...Grasslands, deserts, mountains and fire
...be a factor that contributes to soil erosion. Soil crust adds to soil fertility by contributing newly fixed carbon and nitrogen and by trapping dust and stabilizing soil. When dust is added to the soil in an area, all of the necessary nutrients in the soil are increased. Dust may even be essential for pla...June 'Geology' and 'GSA Today' highlights
...l., p. 507 What happens to pieces of the oceanic crust in subduction zones, places where plates collide a...ive theory suggests that in some areas the oceanic crust is hot enough to melt, and the products of this melting form peculiar volcanic lavas called adakites...Asteroid devastation possibly worse than feared
... impact, oddly enough, hit a portion of the Earths crust that was rich in anhydrite rocks. This produced a 12-year sulfate haze that blocked much of the ultraviolet radiation. But it was a lucky shot - that type of rock covers less than 1 percent of the Earths surface. So when the next "big one" comes, the...Tube worms in deep sea discovered to have record long life spans
...he ocean floor where fluids rising fromthe Earth's crust are breaking through and mixing with the seawater. Buthydrothermal vents have a wide range of shifting environments including"black-smoker" chimneys belching out material as hot as 400 degreesCelsius, whereas seeps release the hydrocarbon fluid slow...Bacteria may thrive in Antarctic lake
...und evidence that liquid water exists under an icy crust on the Jovian moon. "Similar to ice above Lake Vostok, this ice may retain evidence for any life, if present, in the Europan ocean," he writes. Evidence from radar mapping and other sources indicates that under several thousand meters of...Fall Meeting: updated press conferences and special events
...ction between the presumed water ocean and the ice crust that covers it provides conditions that are deemed essential for the generation of life. Panel: Richard Greenberg, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, ArizonaRocco L. Mancinelli, SETI, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Fie...Gold Finds Life, Energy, Controversy In Earth
...e ideas come crowding in: Deep within the Earth's crust is avast ecosystem of primitive bacteria nurtured by a reservoir of hydrocarbons ofunimaginable size, much of it untapped. Even more: The microbes predate all ofthe planet's other life forms, existing even before photosynthesis became thepreferred ...ASU Scientists Join NASA Astrobiology Institute
...ect of an ocean beneath the icy mantle of Europa's crust has focusedNASA's attention on developing a new mission there in 2003. With the prospectof a record of past life on Mars and living organisms on Europa, missions to Marsand Europa will provide ample opportunities to apply the lessons learned from the...Limits Of Life On Earth: Are They The Key To Life On Other Planets?
...ife, but is it preserved as liquid beneath the icy crust of Charon, Pluto's moon? Until now, researchers have believed that water may be maintained on planetary surfaces through radiative heating from nearby stars. Douglas Lin from the University of California and coworkers will examine whether a layer ...Fossils Show British Columbia Was Once 2,000 Miles South
...ctonics to have movedmassive chunks of the Earth's crust northward along a gigantic faultline. Now UWpaleon...outh. But there is a catch. As the Earth's crust is heated, particularly byvolcanic upheavals, the mineral crystals in the rocks can become remagneti...Antarctic Science Season Gears Up With Searches for Meteorites, Neutrinos, and New Life Forms
...above a geologic rift -- an area where the earth's crust is pulling apart, possibly with profound effects on the ice streams' behavior, and hence on the ice sheet's overall stability. An aerogeophysical survey headed by Donald Blankenship of the University of Texas at Austin and Robin Bell of Lamont-Doher...