Earth

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The massive earthquake that struck under the Indian Ocean southwest of Sumatra on April 11, 2012, came as a surprise to seismologists and left them scrambling to figure out exactly what had happened. Analysis of the seismic waves generated during the event has now revealed a complicated faulting process unlike anything seen before.

This year's largest earthquake, a magnitude 8.6 temblor on April 11 centered in the East Indian Ocean off Sumatra, did little damage, but it triggered quakes around the world for at least a week, according to a new analysis by seismologists from the University of California, Berkeley, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The April 11 quake was unusually large – the tenth largest in the last 100 years and, similar to a few other recent large quakes, triggered small quakes during the three hours it took for seismic waves to travel through Earth's crust.

A warming climate and rising seas will enable salt marshes to more rapidly capture and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, possibly playing a role in slowing the rate of climate change, according to a new study led by a University of Virginia environmental scientist and published in the Sept. 27 issue of the journal Nature.

High biodiversity acts as an insurance policy for nature and society alike as it increases the likelihood that at least some species will be sufficiently resilient to sustain important functions such as water purification and crop pollination in a changing environment.

"It's the same principle as an investment portfolio – you'd be mad to put all your eggs in one basket," says researcher Johan Eklöf.

The most unambiguous data to date on the elusive 113th atomic element has been obtained by researchers at the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-based Science (RNC). A chain of six consecutive alpha decays, produced in experiments at the RIKEN Radioisotope Beam Factory (RIBF), conclusively identifies the element through connections to well-known daughter nuclides. The groundbreaking result, reported in the Journal of Physical Society of Japan, sets the stage for Japan to claim naming rights for the element.

For the first time in decades, researchers have conducted an extensive exploration for deep-sea corals and sponges in submarine canyons off the northeastern coast of the US. The survey revealed coral "hotspots," and found that a new coral habitat suitability model could help predict where corals are likely to occur. The model is being developed by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) and the National Ocean Service's Biogeography Branch.

Boulder, Colo., USA – The October issue of Lithosphere covers geology in Wyoming, USA; the California Coast Ranges, USA; the Alpine Fault, New Zealand; the South Atlantic seafloor; the central Himalaya in Nepal; and Sidekan, Kurdistan Region, Iraqi Zagros suture zone. Topics and methods include tectonics, orogeny, hazards, paleogeography, trigonometrics, multiple-point data analysis, LiDAR, oceanic isostasy, computer modeling, and spectroscopy.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2012 — A new episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS') popular Prized Science video series features insights into the effects of wind-blown dust on human health and climate from Vicki Grassian, Ph.D. She has jokingly been called "the Dust Queen" and is a noted authority on the tiny particles of sand and dirt, termed mineral dust, that are transported from areas as remote as the Sahara Desert.

ITHACA, N.Y. — Using an advanced 3-D time-lapse imaging system, a group of physicists and plant biologists from Cornell University and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research have discovered how certain plant roots exhibit powerful mechanical abilities while navigating their environment.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida State University chemist's work could lead to big improvements in our ability to detect and eliminate specific toxins in our environment.

Featured on the cover of the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Sourav Saha's specialized work to strip electrons from the toxic chemical known as fluoride is producing a variety of unique results.

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Glass is strong enough for so much: windshields, buildings and many other things that need to handle high stress without breaking. But scientists wholook at the structure of glass strictly by the numbers believe some of the latest methods from the microelectronics and nanotechnology industry could produceglass that's about twice as strong as the best available today.

The high elevation flat surfaces characteristic of the Norwegian landscape are in geologically terms young, according to a paper in Nature Geoscience.

In a paper recently published in Nature Geoscience, researchers from the University of Bergen (UiB) and ETH Zurich have demonstrated that ice sheets have extensively shaped the fjords of Norway for the last 2.8 million years.

There is evidence that some microbial life had migrated from the Earth's oceans to land by 2.75 billion years ago, though many scientists believe such land-based life was limited because the ozone layer that shields against ultraviolet radiation did not form until hundreds of millions years later.

But new research from the University of Washington suggests that early microbes might have been widespread on land, producing oxygen and weathering pyrite, an iron sulfide mineral, which released sulfur and molybdenum into the oceans.

The tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea during the pre-monsoon season (May – June) have intensified since 1997 compared to 1979 - 1997. This has been attributed to decreased vertical wind shear due to the dimming effects of increased anthropogenic black carbon and sulfate emissions in the region.