New UF study shows early North Americans lived with extinct giant beasts
A new University of Florida study that determined the age of skeletal remains provides evidence humans reached the Western Hemisphere during the last ice age and lived alongside giant extinct mammals. View More (2012-05-04)
Data from MESSENGER spacecraft reveals new insights on planet Mercury
Thanks to the MESSENGER spacecraft, and a mission that took more than 10 years to complete, scientists now have a good picture of the solar system's innermost planet. View More (2012-03-22)
Hazy shades of life on early Earth
A 'see-sawing' atmosphere over 2.5 billion years ago preceded the oxygenation of our planet and the development of complex life on Earth, a new study has shown. View More (2012-03-19)
Nationwide Radium Testing of Groundwater Shows Most Susceptible Regions are Central U.S. and East Coast
Groundwater in aquifers on the East Coast and in the Central U.S. has the highest risk of contamination from radium, a naturally occurring radioactive element and known carcinogen. View More (2012-02-16)
Lava Fingerprinting Reveals Differences Between Hawaii's Twin Volcanoes
Hawaii's main volcano chains--the Loa and Kea trends--have distinct sources of magma and unique plumbing systems connecting them to the Earth's deep mantle, according to UBC research published this week in Nature Geoscience, in conjunction with researchers at the universities of Hawaii and Massachusetts. View More (2011-11-30)
Caltech-led team debunks theory on end of 'Snowball Earth' ice age
There's a theory about how the Marinoan ice age-also known as the "Snowball Earth" ice age because of its extreme low temperatures-came to an abrupt end some 600 million years ago. View More (2011-05-26)
New American Chemical Society podcast: Fast test to diagnose MRSA infections
The latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning podcast series, "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions," focuses on new blood test that can quickly tell whether patients are infected with an antibiotic-resistant bacterium that's become a global threat, significantly improving treatment. View More (2011-05-25)
Water, water, everywhere... but is it safe to drink?
Over the last couple of generations, there has been a huge amount of groundwater pollution worldwide, and this has had a negative impact on our drinking water supply," says Barbara Sherwood Lollar, Canada Research Chair in Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth and the Environment at the University of Toronto. View More (2011-02-22)
Natural dissolved organic matter plays dual role in cycling of mercury
Nature has a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde relationship with mercury, but researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have made a discovery that ultimately could help explain the split personality. View More (2011-01-13)
A river flipped: Humans trump nature on Texas river
A new study by geochemists at Rice University finds that damming and other human activity has completely obscured the natural carbon dioxide cycle in Texas' longest river, the Brazos. View More (2010-08-17)
Caltech team finds evidence of water in moon minerals
That dry, dusty moon overhead? Seems it isn't quite as dry as it's long been thought to be. Although you won't find oceans, lakes, or even a shallow puddle on its surface, a team of geologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), working with colleagues at the University of Tennessee, has found structurally bound hydroxyl groups (i.e., water) in a mineral in a lunar rock returned... View More (2010-07-22)
Geochemist raises questions about carbon sequestration at Goldschmidt Conference
As carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, policy makers and scientists are looking at new ways to tackle the problems associated with the greenhouse gas. View More (2010-06-16)
Organic solids in soil may speed up bacterial breathing
The "mineral-breathing" bacteria found in many oxygen-free environments may be "carbon-breathing" as well. View More (2010-05-24)
A different kind of mine disaster
The world's largest antimony mine has become the world's largest laboratory for studying the environmental consequences of escaped antimony -- an element whose environmental and biological properties are still largely a mystery. View More (2010-04-13)
Seamounts Reach a Pinnacle in Upcoming Issue of Oceanography
Lying beneath the ocean is spectacular terrain ranging from endless chains of mountains and isolated peaks to fiery volcanoes and black smokers exploding with magma and other minerals from below Earth's surface. View More (2010-02-23)
Is iron the culprit in algae blooms? Study probes link
Australia's own distinctive red soils could play a part in the formation of the stinking swathes of blue-green algae often shovelled off east coast beaches in summer. View More (2010-01-29)
Snail fossils suggest semiarid eastern Canary Islands were wetter 50,000 years ago
Fossil land snail shells found in ancient soils on the subtropical eastern Canary Islands show that the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa has become progressively drier over the past 50,000 years. View More (2009-10-28)
Ethiopia 27 million years ago had higher rainfall, warmer soil
Thirty million years ago, before Ethiopia's mountainous highlands split and the Great Rift Valley formed, the tropical zone had warmer soil temperatures, higher rainfall and different atmospheric circulation patterns than it does today, according to new research of fossil soils found in the central African nation. View More (2009-10-23)
Arctic lake sediments show warming, unique ecological changes in recent decades
An analysis of sediment cores indicates that biological and chemical changes occurring at a remote Arctic lake are unprecedented over the past 200,000 years and likely are the result of human-caused climate change, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. View More (2009-10-20)
MESSENGER discovers an unusual impact basin on Mercury
A previously unknown, large impact basin has been discovered by the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft during its second flyby of Mercury in October 2008. View More (2009-05-01)
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