Geology

6 Million Years? Age Estimates Of Grand Canyon Way Off, Says Study

The Grand Canyon is spectacular to look at but figuring out how old it is can be frustrating. A new paper says that conventional models and estimates of the last 150 years are way off- it is far older than the 5 to 6 million years old commonly thought. &q ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 30 2012 - 4:30am

Bendable Ice, Gaping Crevasses Affect Stability Of Antarctic Ice Shelf

Giant crevasses that penetrate upward from the bottom of the   Larsen C Ice Shelf, the largest remaining ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula, make it more susceptible to collapse, according to researchers who spent the last four Southern Hemisphere summe ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 7 2012 - 6:05pm

Doomsday: Climate Change Makes Volcanic Eruptions More Severe

In 1991, the Pinatubo volcano eruption was a disaster for the Philippines and the effects were noticed across the world- it threw tons of ash and other particles into the atmosphere, which caused less sunlight to reach the Earth's surface. Global tem ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 30 2012 - 9:09pm

Clays Force A Rethink Of The Water History Of Mars

A new study indicates that clay minerals, formed when water is present for long periods of time, cover a larger portion of Mars than previously thought. Clays were in some of the rocks studied by Opportunity when it landed at Eagle crater in 2004. The rov ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2012 - 2:03am

Creeping Fault Behavior And Dynamic Weakening In Earthquakes

During an earthquake, waves emitted when the two sides of a fault move—or slip—rapidly past each other, create ground motion, with an average relative speed of about three feet per second. Not all fault segments move so quickly. Some slip slowly, through ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 9 2013 - 7:15pm

The Earth's Core: Now With More Oxygen

The Earth's core formed under more oxidizing condition's than previously believed, researchers have discovered through of series of laser-heated diamond anvil cell experiments at high pressure- 350,000 to 700,000 atmospheres of pressure- and tem ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 11 2013 - 4:30am

Algeria- 'Land Of Terror'

All men and women to the atlases! ...

Article - Bente Lilja Bye - Jan 19 2013 - 1:37pm

Conduits: Did Water Flow Beneath The Surface Of Mars?

Ridges spidering through impact craters on Mars appear to be the fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed, according to a new analysis in Geophysical Research Letters. The finding lends credence to the idea that the subsur ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 29 2013 - 6:07pm

8.0 Earthquake Generated A Tsunami Between Santa Cruz Islands And Solomon Islands

Puh! Another big one. Earthquakes of magnitude 8.0 are big to put it mildly. Luckily it happened deeper in the crust than first anticipated and thus the resulting tsunami wasn't as devastating as it very well could have been. While writing this 5 peop ...

Article - Bente Lilja Bye - Feb 6 2013 - 2:45pm

Thermochemical Piles And Cataclysmic Volcanic Eruptions In A Mega Ultra Low Velocity Zone

A new study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters analyzed seismic waves that bombarded Earth's core and indicates that two or more continent-sized chunks of rock are colliding as they move at the bottom of Earth's thick mantle, atop the thicke ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 7 2013 - 10:30am