Environment

In 2005, a gigantic, 35-mile-long rift broke open the desert ground in Ethiopia. At the time, some geologists believed the rift was the beginning of a new ocean as two parts of the African continent pulled apart, but the claim was controversial.
Now, scientists from several countries have confirmed that the volcanic processes at work beneath [...]

New technologies and policies that save energy, remove atmospheric carbon and limit greenhouse gas emissions are needed to fight global climate change — but face daunting technological, economic and political hurdles, a Michigan State University scientist said.
The good news: Basic actions taken by everyday people can yield fast savings at low cost, according to MSU [...]

The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published today.
The research reveals that sediments retrieved by University at Buffalo geologists from a remote Arctic lake are unlike those seen [...]

Some time soon, a powerful earthquake will trigger a massive tsunami that will flood the Pacific Northwest, destroying homes and threatening the lives of tens of thousands of people, says Yumei Wang, a geotechnical engineer at the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries in Portland.
The region’s geology makes an earthquake-triggered tsunami inevitable and imminent [...]

Tree leaves may be powerful tools for monitoring air quality and planning biking routes and walking paths, suggests a new study by scientists at Western Washington University in Bellingham. The research will be presented at this month’s Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.
Leaves along bus routes were up to 10 [...]

Starting this month, a giant NASA DC-8 aircraft loaded with geophysical instruments and scientists will buzz at low level over the coasts of West Antarctica, where ice sheets are collapsing at a pace far beyond what scientists expected a few years ago. The flights, dubbed Operation Ice Bridge, are an effort by NASA in cooperation [...]

Ancient soil-inhabiting creatures decreased in body size by nearly half in response to a period of boosted carbon dioxide levels and higher temperatures, scientists have discovered.
The researchers’ findings were published in the October 5, 2009, online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Jon Smith, a scientist at the Kansas Geological [...]

Aggressive African bees were accidentally released in Brazil in 1957. As “killer bees” spread northward, David Roubik, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, began a 17-year study that revealed that Africanized bees caused less damage to native bees than changes in the weather and may have increased the availability of their food plants.
Scientists [...]

Mercury pollution is a persistent problem in the environment. Human activity has lead to increasingly large accumulations of the toxic chemical, especially in waterways, where fish and shellfish tend to act as sponges for the heavy metal.
It’s that persistent and toxic nature that has flummoxed scientists for years in the quest to find ways to [...]

The catastrophic decline around the world of “apex” predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller “mesopredators” that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.
The findings, published today in the journal Bioscience, found that in North America all of the largest terrestrial predators [...]

Human activities have already pushed the Earth system beyond three of the planet’s biophysical thresholds, with consequences that are detrimental or even catastrophic for large parts of the world; six others may well be crossed in the next decades, conclude 29 European, Australian and U.S. scientists in an article in the Sept. 24 issue of [...]

By merging more than a decade of atmospheric data from European satellites, scientists have compiled a homogeneous long-term ozone record that allows them to monitor total ozone trends on a global scale – and the findings look promising.
Scientists merged monthly total ozone data derived from the vertically downward-looking measurements of the GOME instrument on ESA’s [...]

Researchers at North Carolina State University are working to demonstrate that trees can be used to degrade or capture fuels that leak into soil and ground water. Through a process called phytoremediation — literally a “green” technology — plants and trees remove pollutants from the environment or render them harmless.
Through a partnership with state and [...]

Scientists in Pennsylvania report that boosting production of crops used to make biofuels could make a difficult task to shrink a vast, oxygen-depleted “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico more difficult. The zone, which reached the size of Massachusetts in 2008, forms in summer and threatens marine life and jobs in the region. Their [...]

The world faces a compounding series of crises driven by human activity, which existing governments and institutions are increasingly powerless to cope with, a group of eminent environmental scientists and economists has warned.
In today’s issue of the leading international journal Science, the researchers say that nations alone are unable to resolve the sorts of planet-wide [...]

Aquaculture, once a fledgling industry, now accounts for 50 percent of the fish consumed globally, according to a new report by an international team of researchers. And while the industry is more efficient than ever, it is also putting a significant strain on marine resources by consuming large amounts of feed made from wild fish [...]

Microbiologists from the University of Essex, UK have used microbes to break down and remove toxic compounds from crude oil and tar sands. These acidic compounds persist in the environment, taking up to 10 years to break down. Mr Richard Johnson, presenting his PhD research to the Society for General Microbiology’s meeting at Heriot-Watt University, [...]

A new study indicates that Arctic temperatures suddenly increased during the last 50 years of the period from 1 AD to the year 2000. Because this warming occurred abruptly during the 20th Century while atmospheric greenhouse gases were accumulating, these findings provide additional evidence that humans are influencing climate.
Incorporating geologic records, biologic records and computer [...]

In the first study to look at what happens over the years to the billions of pounds of plastic waste floating in the world’s oceans, scientists are reporting that plastics — reputed to be virtually indestructible — decompose with surprising speed and release potentially toxic substances into the water.
Reporting at the 238th National Meeting of [...]

Burning candles made from paraffin wax –– the most common kind used to infuse rooms with romantic ambiance, warmth, light, and fragrance –– is an unrecognized source of exposure to indoor air pollution, including the known human carcinogens, scientists have reported. Levels can build up in closed rooms, and be reduced by ventilation, they indicated [...]