Magnetic fields frozen into meteorite grains tell a shocking tale of solar system birth

Magnetic field lines (green) weave through the cloud of dusty gas surrounding the newborn Sun. In the foreground are asteroids and chondrules, the building blocks of chondritic meteorites. While solar magnetic fields dominate the region near the Sun, out where the asteroids orbit, chondrules preserve a record of varying local magnetic fields. Credit: Science The most accurate laboratory measu

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Kilauea, 1790 and today

The Island of Hawai'i, USA. Scores of people were killed by an explosive eruption of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai'i, in 1790. Research presented in GSA Bulletin by D.A. Swanson of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and colleagues suggests that most of the fatalities were caused by hot, rapidly moving surges of volcanic debris and steam that engulfed the victims. Deposits of such surges occur on the s

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Protect the world's deltas, experts urge

The Atchafalaya River delta meets the Gulf of Mexico. The view is upriver to the northwest. Credit: Photo courtesy A. Belala/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Extensive areas of the world's deltas -- which accommodate major cities such as Shanghai, Dhaka and Bangkok -- will be drowned in the next century by rising sea levels, according to a Comment piece in this week's Nature. In the article, Dr.

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Protect the world's deltas, experts urge

A catastrophic landslide, one of the largest known on the surface of the Earth, took place within minutes in southwestern Utah more than 21 million years ago. Credit: Image courtesy of Kent State University A catastrophic landslide, one of the largest known on the surface of the Earth, took place within minutes in southwestern Utah more than 21 million years ago, reports a Kent State Universi

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Sun's rotating 'magnet' pulls lightning towards UK

Big Ben and Houses of Parliament, London, UK. The Sun may be playing a part in the generation of lightning strikes on Earth by temporarily 'bending' the Earth's magnetic field and allowing a shower of energetic particles to enter the upper atmosphere. Credit: © TTstudio / Fotolia The Sun may be playing a part in the generation of lightning strikes on Earth by temporarily 'bending' the Earth's

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Invisible shield found thousands of miles above Earth blocks 'killer electrons'

Scientists have discovered an invisible shield roughly 7,200 miles above Earth. Credit: Andy Kale, University of Alberta A team led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered an invisible shield some 7,200 miles above Earth that blocks so-called "killer electrons," which whip around the planet at near-light speed and have been known to threaten astronauts, fry satellites and degrade

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Subtle shifts in the Earth could forecast earthquakes, tsunamis

University of South Florida graduate student Denis Voytenko prepares a GPS unit for a high-precision geodetic measurement. Credit: Jacob Richardson Earthquakes and tsunamis can be giant disasters no one sees coming, but now an international team of scientists led by a University of South Florida professor has found that subtle shifts in Earth's offshore plates can be a harbinger of the size o

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Geologists discover ancient buried canyon in South Tibet

This photo shows the Yarlung Tsangpo Valley close to the Tsangpo Gorge, where it is rather narrow and underlain by only about 250 meters of sediments. The mountains in the upper left corner belong to the Namche Barwa massif. Previously, scientists had suspected that the debris deposited by a glacier in the foreground was responsible for the formation of the steep Tsangpo Gorge -- the new disco

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Exploring a large, restless volcanic field in Chile

Laguna del Maule, Chile, is at the center of a volcanic field that has erupted 36 times during the last 25,000 years, and is now experiencing significant uplift due to magma intrusion. Credit: David Tenenbaum If Brad Singer knew for sure what was happening three miles under an odd-shaped lake in the Andes, he might be less eager to spend a good part of his career investigating a volcanic fiel

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Re-thinking Southern California earthquake scenarios in Coachella Valley, San Andreas Fault

New 3D numerical modeling that captures more geometric complexity of an active fault segment in southern California than any other suggests that the overall earthquake hazard for towns on the west side of the Coachella Valley such as Palm Springs may be slightly lower than previously believed. Credit: Courtesy Google Earth and UMass Amherst New three-dimensional (3D) numerical modeling that c

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Colorado's Front Range fire severity not much different than past

A new study indicates present-day forest fires on Colorado's Front Range are not significantly more intense than historical fires. Credit: Glenn Asakawa, University of Colorado The perception that Colorado's Front Range wildfires are becoming increasingly severe does not hold much water scientifically, according to a massive new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder and Humboldt Sta

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Mountain pine beetles get bad rap for wildfires, study says

Following wildfires in 2011, a UW-Madison research team studied lodgepole pine trees in the Northern Rocky Mountains to examine whether earlier outbreaks of mountain pine beetles changed the ecological impact of the wildfires. Credit: Turner Lab Mountain pine beetles get a bad rap, and understandably so. The grain-of-rice-sized insects are responsible for killing pine trees over tens of milli

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Climate change not responsible for altering forest tree composition, experts say

Eastern US forest canopy. Credit: Mary Ann Fajvan, West Virginia University, Bugwood.org Change in disturbance regimes -- rather than a change in climate -- is largely responsible for altering the composition of Eastern forests, according to a researcher in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. Forests in the Eastern United States remain in a state of "disequilibrium" stemming fr

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