EurekAlert! News by Subject: Earth Science - News by Subject: Earth Science

Earth Science

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 11-Sep-2025 03:11 ET (11-Sep-2025 07:11 GMT/UTC)

Reduction in supply of prey was decisive factor in extinction of saber-toothed tigers, study finds

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Cross-referencing climate data and fossils from around 15 million years ago shows that the decline in prey availability may have played a role in the extinction of these felines. Another study cites competition with elephants and an increase in predators as factors that reduced the once diverse antilocaprids to a single species today.

Journal: Journal of Evolutionary Biology
Funder: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

New genus and species of mole discovered at the Camp dels Ninots site

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team of researchers from the UAB, the IPHES and the ICP has identified and described Vulcanoscaptor ninoti, a previously unknown genus and species of Pliocene mole, discovered at the Camp dels Ninots palaeontological site (Caldes de Malavella, Girona). The most complete Pliocene mole fossil ever found in Europe reveals an unexpected evolutionary link to modern North American species.

Journal: Scientific Reports

RNA viruses may differentially shape carbon recycling in the ocean

Bar-Ilan University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study by researchers at Bar-Ilan University has uncovered that certain ocean viruses—specifically RNA viruses—may disrupt how carbon and nutrients are recycled in the ocean, potentially altering the global carbon cycle.

Journal: Science Advances

Mapping important infrastructure could aid emergency response after hurricanes

American Chemical Society
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the fall of 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the southeastern U.S., later downgrading to a tropical storm causing strong winds, flooding and major destruction throughout Appalachia. Now, researchers and public health officials in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters provide a debrief about how their mapping of key locations, including private wells, septic systems and service facilities, helped distribute disaster relief in North Carolina — a part of Appalachia hit particularly hard by the hurricane.

Journal: Environmental Science & Technology Letters

Study finds cities with proactive, risk-tolerant governing styles most likely to have ambitious climate strategies

University of Kansas
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers with the University of Kansas' School of Public Affairs and Administration have published a study finding that cities that have a proactive, learning-oriented and risk-tolerant governance style are more likely to implement and follow amibitious climate resilience strategies. The researchers found through survey data that city governments with higher transformative governance capacity were more likely to take part in voluntary FEMA programs and have high local policy ambitions.

Journal: Climate Policy

Fossilized oysters hold the key to mass extinction

University of Birmingham
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the first and only reconstruction of ocean pH ever carried out, new research from the University of St Andrews and the University of Birmingham has discovered that a rapid acidification of oceans, due to a massive and sudden rise in atmospheric CO2, caused a mass extinction event 201 million years ago.

Journal: Nature Communications

New study reveals widespread and overlooked flooding across NC

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study from UNC-Chapel Hill reveals that repetitive flooding in North Carolina is far more common and more widespread than previously recognized, with over 20,000 buildings flooding multiple times between 1996 and 2020.

Journal: Earth's Future

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