Author: Ari Koeppel, Postdoctoral Scientist in Earth and Planetary Science, Dartmouth College Andy Weir’s bestselling story “The Martian” predicts that by 2035 NASA will have landed humans on Mars three times, perfected return-to-Earth flight systems and collaborated with the China National Space Administration. We are now 10 years past the Hollywood adaptation’s 2015 release and […]
Author: Cédric M. John, Professor and Head of Data Science for the Environment and Sustainability, Queen Mary University of London Nearly three fourths of Earth is covered by oceans, making the planet look like a pale blue dot from space. But Japanese researchers have made a compelling case that Earth’s oceans were once green, in […]
Scientists have long puzzled over how pterosaurs became the first vertebrates to master flight. Some pterosaur species, such as the Quetzalcoatlus were the largest known animals to ever take to the skies, with wingspans of over ten meters (on par with military aircraft like the Spitfire). My team’s new study may help solve the evolutionary […]
When one tectonic plate sinks beneath another, it generates magmas rich in volatiles such as water, sulphur and chlorine. As these magmas ascend, they release magmatic fluids, in which sulphur and chlorine bind to metals such as gold and copper, and transport these metals towards the surface of the Earth. As the extreme conditions relevant […]
What would happen if humans dried out the Mediterranean sea, turning it into a giant salt lake? Would its wildlife survive, and if so, how long would it take to recover? These may seem like wildly theoretical questions, but not for Herman Sörgel, a Bavarian architect who dedicated much of his life to this exact […]
Author: Tom Shand, Honorary Senior Lecturer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau As the Olympics get going in earnest this week, not everyone’s attention is focused on host city Paris. Surf fans are heading to Tahiti, half a world away in French Polynesia. Why? Well, apart from the French […]
You can think of our atmosphere as a big chemistry set, a global churn of gaseous molecules and particles that constantly bounce off and change each other in complicated ways. While the particles are very small, often less than 1% of the thickness of human hair, they have outsized impacts. For example, particles are the […]
As the world’s largest unfrozen freshwater resource, groundwater is crucial for life on Earth. Now, a team of researchers has investigated how global warming is affecting groundwater temperatures and what that means for humanity and the environment . The study indicates that by 2100, more than 75 million people are likely to be living in […]
About 2.5 billion years ago, free oxygen, or O2, first started to accumulate to meaningful levels in Earth’s atmosphere, setting the stage for the rise of complex life on our evolving planet. Scientists refers to this phenomenon as the Great Oxidation Event, or GOE for short. But the initial accumulation of O2 on Earth was […]
Imagine you’re standing near the edge of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, gazing out over the ocean, when the ice near you starts to melt very rapidly. A surge of meltwater flows into the ocean. Surprisingly, you watch the sea level fall – not rise. But why? When we think of sea level rise, we picture […]