ScienceDaily: Earth Science News

Global sea level rise: NASA mission takes stock of Earth's melting land ice

In the first comprehensive satellite study of its kind, researchers have used NASA data to calculate how much Earth's melting land ice is adding to global sea level rise. Using satellite measur...

Ancient seagrass holds secrets of the oldest living organism on Earth

It's big, it's old and it lives under the sea -- and now an international research collaboration has confirmed that an ancient seagrass holds the secrets of the oldest living organism on Ea...

Researchers uncover a mechanism to explain dune field patterns

In a study of the harsh but beautiful White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, researchers have uncovered a unifying mechanism to explain dune patterns. The new work represents a contribution t...

Tree rings may underestimate climate response to volcanic eruptions

Some climate cooling caused by past volcanic eruptions may not be evident in tree-ring reconstructions of temperature change because large enough temperature drops lead to greatly shortened or even...

Global extinction: Gradual doom is just as bad as abrupt

Around 250 million years ago, most life on Earth was wiped out in an extinction known as the "Great Dying." Geologists have learned that the end came slowly from thousands of centuries of...

Google Earth ocean terrain receives major update: Data sharpen resolution of seafloor maps, corre...

Internet information giant Google updated ocean data in its Google Earth application this week, reflecting new bathymetry data assembled by researchers from around the world. The newest version of ...

New way to study ground fractures

Geophysics researchers have created a new way to study fractures by producing elastic waves, or vibrations, through using high-intensity light focused directly on the fracture itself.

Treasure trove of wildlife found in Peru park

The Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Peru program recently announced the discovery of 365 species previously undocumented in Bahuaja Sonene National Park in southeastern Peru.

NASA's GCPEx mission: What we don't know about snow

NASA's GCPEx science team is collecting as much data as they can to improve understanding of snow dynamics inside clouds, because they relate to how snow moves through Earth's water and cli...

Sun delivered curveball of powerful radiation at Earth

A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Jan. 17, 2012, just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Ear...