Science Daily

By looking into fossil teeth from almost 2 million years old rhinos, researchers have launched a new molecular method for studying the evolutionary history of fossil species dating back millions of years.

The Navajo Sandstone is known for its beautiful red and tan crossbedded sandstones that grace many of the national parks and monuments in the southwest USA. The sands were deposited in dunes within the largest known sand sea (erg) in Earth's history during the Early Jurassic. These deposits show a record of desertification -- the process by which fertile lands become desert. How did this landscape lose its water bodies, vegetation, and animals?

Newly available archival film has revealed the eastern ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting faster than previous estimates, suggesting the shelf may collapse sooner than expected.

Scientists, studying evidence preserved in speleothems in a coastal cave, illustrate that more than three million years ago -- a time in which the Earth was two to three degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era -- sea level was as much as 16 meters higher than the present day.

Arctic sea-ice has decreased rapidly during the last decades in concert with substantial global surface warming. Both have happened much faster than predicted by climate models, and observed Arctic warming is much stronger than the global average. Projections suggest that Arctic summer sea-ice may virtually disappear within the course of the next fifty or even thirty years.

Variations in the depth of snow cover in the Arctic region from late winter to spring determines the summer temperature pattern in Eurasia, according to new research. In particular, deeper-than-usual snow cover in Western Russia enhanced the likelihood of summer heat waves in Europe and Northeast Asia in recent years.

Researchers have developed a way to remove ice and frost from surfaces extremely efficiently, using less than 1% of the energy and less than 0.01% of the time needed for traditional defrosting methods. Instead of conventional defrosting, which melts all the ice or frost from the top layer down, the researchers established a technique that melts the ice where the surface and the ice meet, so the ice can simply slide off.

Stone tools and other artifacts unearthed from an archeological dig at the Cooper's Ferry site in western Idaho suggest that people lived in the area 16,000 years ago, more than a thousand years earlier than scientists previously thought.

Scientists used geologic records from deep-sea drill cores to extend the astronomical time scale beyond 50 million years, by about 8 million years. Using their new chronology, they provide a new age for the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (56.01 Ma) with a small margin of error (0.1%).

When climates change, plants and animals often are forced to colonize new areas -- or possibly go extinct. Because the climate is currently changing, biologists are keenly interested in predicting how climate-induced migrations influence organisms over time.

New research finds Arctic Ocean currents and storms are moving bacteria from ocean algae blooms into the atmosphere where the particles help clouds form. These particles, which are biological in origin, can affect weather patterns throughout the world, according to the new study.

New research compares the growth rates between nearshore and offshore corals in the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the world's second-largest reef system. While nearshore corals have historically grown faster than those offshore, over the past decade there was a decline in the growth rates of two types of nearshore corals, while offshore coral growth rates in the same reef system stayed the same.

The oldest parasite DNA ever recorded has been found in the ancient, desiccated feces of a puma.

Glacier-fed rivers in northern Canada may be consuming significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to new research.

How does ice form? Surprisingly, science hasn't fully answered that question. But researchers today will explain their finding that the arrangements that surface atoms impose on water molecules are the key. Their work has implications for preventing ice formation on windshields, ships and power lines, and for improving weather prediction.

Climate change is altering the ability of the Southern Ocean off the West Antarctic Peninsula to absorb carbon dioxide, according to a new study, and that could magnify climate change in the long run.

With sea level rise and extreme weather threatening coastal communities, it's no longer a question of whether they are going to retreat; it's where, when and how. In a new paper, researchers advocate for a managed and planned retreat, not a short-term spur of the moment reaction to a massive storm.

The existence of water in deep Earth is considered to play an important role in geodynamics, because water drastically changes the physical properties of mantle rock, such as melting temperature, electric conductivity, and rheological properties. Water is transported into deep Earth by the hydrous minerals in the subducting cold plates. Hydrous minerals, such as serpentine, mica and clay minerals, contain water in the form of hydroxyl (-OH) in the crystal structure. Most of the hydrous minerals decompose into anhydrous minerals and water when they are transported into deep Earth, at 40-100 km depth, due to the high temperature and pressure conditions.

Much of the planet sweltered in unprecedented heat in July, as temperatures soared to new heights in the hottest month ever recorded. The record warmth also shrank Arctic and Antarctic sea ice to historic lows.

The Earth's carbon cycle is crucial in controlling the greenhouse gas content of our atmosphere, and ultimately our climate.