“While it has been known for many years that iron is the main element in the core, many questions have remained about just how iron behaves under the conditions found deep in the Earth. Now, a team led by mineral-physics researchers at Caltech has honed in on those behaviors by conducting extremely high-pressure experiments on the element.” Quote from the Caltech press release.
NASA has a new article that explains that over the past 20 million years magnetic reversals have occurred every 200,000 to 300,000 years but it has been more than twice that long since the last reversal.
The University of Washington, the University of California Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology have each received $2 million for developing an earthquake warning system for the Pacific Northwest.
Researchers at Michigan Tech, the University of Rochester and Yale University have determined that Earth’s core could be at least 1.2 billion years older than previously thought.
This isn’t geology but it is a very interesting science development. Researchers at MIT Lincoln Labs have developed a technology that enables them to image real-time human activity on the opposite site of a concrete wall. They believe that it has immediate effective use in urban warefare.
USGS has warned residents of the San Luis Valley in Colorado that a low-flying helicopter with a large boom extending from its nose will be making low-altitude traverses to collect geophysical data in a search for buried faults.
Researchers in Italy believe that they have clocked the speed of neutrinos at faster than the speed of light. If that is confirmed, Einstein’s theory of relativity is uncertain.
Archaeologists have discovered a “gladiator school” about 24 miles east of Vienna, Austria using ground-penetrating radar. This article describes the school and what it has revealed about the life of a gladiator.
The United States Geological Survey has a helicopter flying instruments at low altitude over Mount St. Helens. They are collecting moisture data that will be used to assess the potential for landslides.
“The geomagnetic field is used to explore the dynamics of Earth’s interior and its surrounding space environment, and geomagnetic data are used for geophysical mapping, mineral exploration, risk mitigation, and other practical applications. A global distribution of ground-based magnetic observatories supports those pursuits by providing accurate records of the magnetic-field direction and intensity at fixed locations and over long periods of time.” Quoted from the USGS publication citation.
“For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.” Quoted from the NASA news release.
“A documentary film highlighting recent and past USGS research in the Lake Tahoe Basin. It features USGS science activities conducted by hydrologists, geologists, geographers, computer modelers, and biologists, among others. The story is told through the use of narration, expert interviews, graphics, animations, incredible video imagery and time-lapse video. USGS science detailed in the story includes water quality monitoring, streamgaging, Lake Tahoe bathymetry, aerial LiDAR, historic use of aerial photography, and the Tahoe Land Use Simulation Model.” Quote from the USGS media release.
This NASA video gives an excellent introduction to solar flares and their potential impact on earth. Powerful flares can create long lasting radiation storms, damage satellites, disable communications systems, and confuse power grids.
After discovering six cannons believed to be part of Captain Henry Morgan’s pirate fleet, university and government researchers ran out of funds needed to sustain their marine archaeology work off the coast of Panama. However, Captain Morgan USA, the rum maker named after the 17th century pirate, kicked in enough money for a magnetometer survey and continued work.
“This report is a new compilation of the location and extent of folds and faults in Cook Inlet Basin, Alaska. [...] Most anticlines in and around the basin have at least shows of oil or gas, and some structures are considered to be seismically active. [...] This area lies adjacent to the subducting and buoyant Yakutat microplate slab.”
“Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth’s interior into space. Where does it come from?” Quoted from the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory news release.
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