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Dr Yan Li and co-authors followed the journey of water through the Tarim Basin from the rivers at the edge of the valley to the desert aquifers under the basin. They found that as water moved through irrigated fields, the water gathered dissolved carbon and moved it deep underground. Image credit: Yan Li.

Desert Aquifers Could Hold More Carbon Dioxide than All Earth’s Plants

Jul 29, 2015 by News Staff

According to a new study published online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, massive aquifers underneath deserts contain approximately one trillion...

Schematic illustration of Earth's magnetic field. Image credit: Peter Reid / University of Edinburgh.

Earth’s Core Region beneath Southern Africa May Be Trigger for Magnetic Pole Reversals

Jul 29, 2015 by News Staff

A group of scientists – led by Dr John Tarduno from the University of Rochester, NY – has recovered a magnetic field record from minerals for Iron...

Helheim Glacier. Image credit: Nick Selmes / Swansea University.

Scientists Determine What Causes Glacial Earthquakes

Jun 26, 2015 by News Staff

A group of geoscientists led by Dr Tavi Murray of Swansea University, UK, has shown that during the glacier edge breaking process, known as calving, the...

An artist’s impression of plasma tubes in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Image credit: Mats Bjorkland / ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics.

Scientists Detect Plasma Tubes in Earth’s Magnetosphere

Jun 5, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists using the Murchison Widefield Array in the Western Australian desert have confirmed the existence of tubular plasma structures between the plasmasphere...

Thousands of supraglacial lakes form each spring and summer on top of the Greenland Ice Sheet. When they drain, they send torrents of water to the base of the ice sheet, lubricating the interface between rock and ice. That allows the ice sheet to flow faster to the ocean and discharge ice into ocean, which causes sea levels to rise faster. Image credit: Laura Stevens / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

New Study Explains What Triggers Sudden Drainages of Greenland Supraglacial Lakes

Jun 4, 2015 by News Staff

Many glacial lakes atop the Greenland Ice Sheet disappear completely within hours when large cracks form below them, draining the lakes and sending torrents...

This map shows the California Borderland and its major tectonic features, as well as the locations of earthquakes greater than magnitude 5.5. The dashed box shows the area of the new study. Large arrows show relative plate motion for the Pacific-North America fault boundary. Image credit: Mark Legg.

Researchers Map Active Fault Zones off Southern California Coast

Jun 1, 2015 by News Staff

According to a group of scientists headed by Dr Mark Legg of Legg Geophysical in Huntington Beach, residents of coastal Southern California could be surprised...

Kelvin-Helmholtz instability clouds. Image credit: Astronautilus, rodjonesphotography.co.uk / CC BY 2.0.

Kelvin-Helmholtz Waves Perturb Earth’s Magnetosphere, New Study Shows

May 12, 2015 by News Staff

According to a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, the underlying physical process that creates ‘breaking wave’ cloud patterns...

Lion Geyser and Heart Spring in Yellowstone National Park. Image credit: Brocken Inaglory / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Scientists Discover Gigantic Magma Reservoir beneath Yellowstone Supervolcano

Apr 24, 2015 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Dr Hsin-Hua Huang of California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and the University of Utah has discovered a reservoir of...

Dr Martin Vollmer and his colleagues detected a rapid accumulation of anesthetic gases isoflurane, desflurane, and sevoflurane, in the global atmosphere. Image credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Anesthetic Gases Contribute to Climate Change, Say Atmospheric Chemists

Apr 9, 2015 by News Staff

Desflurane, isoflurane, sevoflurane and halothane – clinically used inhalation anesthetic agents – are accumulating in the atmosphere of our...

Earth. Image credit: Kelvin Song / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Planetary Scientists Shed New Light on Earth’s Core Formation

Mar 3, 2015 by News Staff

Violent collisions between the infant Earth and other objects in our Solar System generated significant amounts of iron vapor, says a group of researchers...

Fly Geyser, a man-made small geothermal geyser located in Washoe County, Nevada. Image credit: Jeremy C. Munns.

Study Provides New Understanding of Geyser Mechanics

Feb 26, 2015 by News Staff

Geysers erupt periodically because of loops or side-chambers in their underground plumbing, says a team of volcanologists from the United States and Japan. Fly...

These graphs show carbon dioxide’s increasing greenhouse effect at two locations on the Earth’s surface, in Oklahoma and on the North Slope of Alaska; as the atmospheric concentration of CO2 (blue) increased from 2000 to the end of 2010, so did surface radiative forcing due to CO2 (orange), and both quantities have upward trends; this means the Earth absorbed more energy from solar radiation than it emitted as heat back to space. Image credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Researchers Observe CO2’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect

Feb 26, 2015 by News Staff

Using spectroscopic instruments operated by the U.S. DoE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility, scientists have directly observed...

NASA’s CALIPSO satellite has quantified in three dimensions how much dust makes the trans-Atlantic journey from the Sahara desert to the Amazon rain forest; among this dust is phosphorus, an essential nutrient that acts like a fertilizer, which the Amazon depends on in order to flourish. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Phosphorus-Rich Dust from Sahara Desert Keeps Amazon Soils Fertile

Feb 24, 2015 by News Staff

Every year, millions of tons of dust from the Sahara desert cross the Atlantic Ocean, bringing vital phosphorus and other fertilizers to depleted Amazon...

Temperature and salinity measurements (averaged between 2010 and 2014) from several satellites, including ESA’s SMOS mission, have been used to map ocean alkalinity, the ability of a solution to neutralize acids and thus resist to changes in pH. Image credit: Ifremer / ESA / CNES.

New Satellite Maps Reveal Global Ocean Alkalinity

Feb 18, 2015 by News Staff

Innovative techniques that use satellites to monitor ocean acidification are set to revolutionize the way that scientists study the Earth’s oceans....

Eruption of a deep-sea volcano. Image credit: University of Washington.

Underwater Volcanoes Play Role in Long-Term Climate

Feb 7, 2015 by News Staff

Cyclical variations in Earth’s tilt and orbit – occurring at 23,000-, 41,000- and 100,000-year intervals – are known to strongly influence...

Scientists have discovered a crater, shown here, which had once been the site of a sub-glacial lake. Image credit: Ian Howat / DigitalGlobe Inc / Sci-News.com.

Two Sub-Glacial Lakes in Greenland Surprise Scientists

Jan 22, 2015 by News Staff

Scientists have found direct evidence of concentrated, long-term storage and sudden release of meltwater within sub-glacial lakes in Greenland. Scientists...

This image shows the change in the surface elevation of the Greenland ice sheet between 2003 and 2012; thinning near coastal regions is shown in green, blue and purple; blue/white flows indicate the direction and speed of the ice movement. Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Greenland Ice Sheet Yielding its Secrets

Dec 16, 2014 by News Staff

Since the late 1970’s, NASA has been monitoring changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet. An analysis of seven years of surface elevation readings from...

An iceberg is seen out the window of a research aircraft as it flies above the Amundsen Sea in West Antarctica on October 21, 2009. Image credit: NASA / Jane Peterson.

West Antarctica Losing Mt. Everest of Ice Every Two Years – Study

Dec 3, 2014 by News Staff

According to a new NASA-led study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the melt rate of glaciers in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West...

The ocean currents and their speeds, in cm/s, derived from GOCE data. Image credit: ESA / CNES / CLS.

Scientists Produce New Map of Ocean Currents

Nov 27, 2014 by News Staff

An international group of scientists using data from ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) has created the most accurate...