Earth

  1. Earth

    Greenland glacial quakes becoming more common

    The number of earthquakes that occur beneath surging glaciers in Greenland has doubled in the past 4 years.

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  2. Earth

    Buried Treasures

    Geologists have long understood the chemical processes that sculpt many cave formations, but they've only recently come up with a physical model that explains some of their shapes.

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  3. Earth

    Limited Storage: Lack of nutrients will constrain carbon uptake

    Even though the carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere acts as a fertilizer for plants, the planet's vegetation won't be able to sequester large amounts of that greenhouse gas in the long term because it will quickly run out of other nutrients.

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  4. Earth

    Region at Risk

    Scientists are still analyzing the magnitude 7.9 quake that struck San Francisco a century ago and, at the same time, are scrambling to estimate when the next large quake will strike the Bay Area.

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  5. Earth

    Volcanic mineral caused rare cancer in Turkey

    In two Turkish villages, nearly half of all deaths since 1980 have resulted from a form of cancer caused by inhaling erionite, a brittle and fibrous volcanic mineral that looks similar to wool.

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  6. Earth

    Coral Clues: Rise and fall of reefs record quakes’ effects

    Shallow coral reefs around islands west of Sumatra chronicled the uplift and subsidence that resulted from the massive quakes that struck that region in 2004 and 2005.

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  7. Earth

    Shafts of snow sculpted by sun

    Physicists have created miniature, laboratory versions of towering snow spikes found high in the Andes Mountains.

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  8. Earth

    Uncharted Territory

    Ultraslow-spreading undersea ridges are giving oceanographers fresh insights into how Earth's crust forms.

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  9. Earth

    Still Standing: Tsunamis won’t wash away Maldives atolls

    The December 2004 tsunami had little geological impact on the seemingly fragile coral-reef islands of the Maldives archipelago.

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  10. Earth

    Tiny Bubbles: Oldest evidence yet for methane makers

    Analyses of the gases dissolved in water trapped in ancient minerals suggest that methane-generating microbes have been around almost 3.5 billion years.

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  11. Earth

    Leaden streets

    Street grit is the probable source of lead in urban homes, and flaking paint from overpasses and bridges is a major contributor.

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  12. Earth

    Shaken but Not Stirred: Rock formations reveal past quakes’ size limit

    Dozens of precariously balanced rocks in southern California tell a consistent story that earthquakes at nearby faults in recent millennia haven't exceeded magnitude 7.

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