News by Subject Earth Science

Scientists have used fibre-optic sensing to obtain the most detailed measurements of ice properties ever taken on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Their findings will be used to make more accurate models of the future movement of the world's second-largest ice sheet, as the effects of climate change continue to accelerate.

The Antarctic ice sheet was even more unstable in the past than previously thought, and at times possibly came close to collapse, new research suggests.

Geoscientists at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Istanbul Technical University have discovered a new process in plate tectonics which shows that tremendous damage occurs to areas of Earth's crust long before it should be geologically altered by known plate-boundary processes, highlighting the need to amend current understandings of the planet's tectonic cycle.

A Flinders University researcher has finally fathomed why large numbers of killer whales gather at a single main location off the Western Australian southern coastline every summer. In a new paper published in Deep Sea Research, physical oceanographer Associate Professor Jochen Kampf describes the conditions which have produced this ecological natural wonder of orcas migrating to the continental slope near Bremer Bay in the western Great Australian Bight from late austral spring to early autumn (January-April).

A geoscientific research team led by scientists from the University of Cologne has come a decisive step closer to determining the oxygen levels in the early Earth's history by analysing the composition of tungsten isotopes / publication in PNAS

Paleontologists working in museum collections in Italy, Switzerland, and Germany have identified five additional specimens of a 240-million-year-old ichthyosaur, named Besanosaurus leptorhynchus, which was previously known from a single fossil housed at the Milan Natural History Museum.

Researchers from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology (SCSIO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators found that adding a small amount of aluminum to achieve concentrations in the 10x nanomolar range can increase the net fixation of CO₂ by marine diatoms and decrease their decomposition, thus improving the ocean's ability to absorb CO₂ and sequester carbon at deep ocean depths.

Biodiversity is of crucial importance to the marine ecosystem. The prohibition of trawling activities in the Hong Kong marine environment for two and a half years has significantly improved biodiversity, an inter-university study led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has found. Research results showed that the trawl ban could restore and conserve biodiversity in tropical coastal waters.