Victory in battle features prominently in these narratives with one example showing Louis with his army crossing the Rhine river in 1672. oehair streaming dressed in Roman style
 In the Paleozoic era life flourished in the seas. After the Cambrian period came the 45-million-year Ordovician period
which saw the spread of jawless fish throughout the seas. Mollusks and corals also thrived in the oceans
but the big news was what was happening on land: the first undisputed evidence of terrestrial life.
Before the Permian mass extinction though the warm seas teemed with life. Coral reefs flourished providing shelter for fish and shelled creatures such as nautiloids and ammonoids.
which caused glaciers to form sending sea levels downward. Gondwana moved further south during the Ordovician while the smaller continents started to move closer together.
Sea levels rose again creating shallow inland seas. In the Devonian the northern land masses continued merging and they finally joined together into the supercontinent Euramerica.
but the rest of the planet was ocean. By the last period of the Paleozoic the Permian Euramerica and Gondwana became one forming perhaps the most famous supercontinent of them all:
The giant ocean surrounding Pangaea was called Panthalassa. Pangaea's interior was likely very dry because its massive size prevented water-bearing rain clouds from penetrating far beyond the coasts.
 c
#Pee a Rainbow: Scientist Snaps Shot of Colorful Urine From red to blue to violet all the colors of the rainbow appear regularly in urine tests conducted at hospital labs. The prismatic pee collection seen in this stunning photo took only a week
On spring nights males gather on the shores of ephemeral ponds and lakes to sing for mates.
so they don't pay much attention to what's around in their environment Smalling said. 40 Freaky Frog Photos Researchers collected Pacific chorus frogs on a north-south transect across Lassen volcanic national park Lake Tahoe Yosemite national park Stanislaus National Forest
In the Sierras introducing trout into mountain lakes also hit frogs hard because the fish gobbled up tadpoles and tiny frogs.
A thick and growing coat of toxic algae appears each summer so vast that in 2011 it covered a sixth of its waters contributing to an expanding dead zone on its bottom reducing fish populations fouling beaches
March 15 the New york times. The environmental devastation of Lake erie is a tragedy. But it s one that can be reversed.
and other partners in the Western Lake erie Basin to reduce fertilizer and sediment runoff. We count on farmers to produce safe and abundant supplies of food
but it s runoff from farmland that finds its way into the lake and is largely responsible for the devastating algae bloomsâ describedâ by the New york times. Why Lake erie is Under attack from Algae Blooms The key question is:
How do we get enough farmers to practice sustainable agriculture so that algal blooms and dead zones whether in Lake erie or the Gulf of mexico become a thing of the past?
How do we actuallyâ win? The answer lies in convincing farmers that sustainable agriculture is not at odds with high yields and profitability.
and the creation (or maintenance) of wetlands and buffer strips which filter runoff before it can reach streams
and rivers can save farmers money and help improve the quality of their soil. We call this combination of higher efficiency
and coastal ecosystems that buffer the shores he explained. We need to take action to protect these natural ecosystems.
#Primeval Underwater Forest Discovered in Gulf of mexico Scuba divers have discovered a primeval underwater forest off the coast of Alabama.
The Bald cypress forest was buried under ocean sediments protected in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50000 years
and the executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation which researches estuaries. The forest contains trees so well-preserved that
The stumps of the Cypress trees span an area of at least 0. 5 square miles (1. 3 square kilometers) several miles from the coast of Mobile Ala
and sit about 60 feet (18 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of mexico. Despite its discovery only recently the underwater landscape has just a few years to be explored before wood-burrowing marine animals destroy the ancient forest. 8 of the World's Most Endangered Places Closely guarded secret Raines was talking with a friend who owned a dive shop
The forest had become an artificial reef attracting fish crustaceans sea anemones and other underwater life burrowing between the roots of dislodged stumps.
Mysterious Underwater Stone Structure Some of the trees were truly massive and many logs had fallen over before being covered by ocean sediment.
The trees'growth rings could reveal secrets about the climate of the Gulf of mexico thousands of years ago during a period known as the Wisconsin Glacial period
when sea levels were much lower than they are today. World's Weirdest Geological formations In addition because Bald cypress trees can live a thousand years
The longer this wood sits on the bottom of the ocean the more marine organisms burrow into the wood
Recent research also suggests that protecting watersheds reduces long-term water treatment and storage costs for consumers.
Recognizing this water utilities increasingly are taking responsibility for the health of local watersheds with a special emphasis on protecting the forests they contain.
and maintain watersheds on privately owned forest lands. The project will encourage forest owners and water utilities to work together to conserve watersheds by keeping their forest locations healthy the most cost-effective way for communities to ensure continued access to clean water.
Both the Endowment and SFI believe strongly that one of the best ways to protect the nation's water quality is to develop effective collaborations between water utilities and forest landowners.
In 2011 for example Raleigh N c. established a watershed protection fee of 1 cent per 100 gallons in customers'monthly water bills.
Dozens of communities across the country are taking similar steps to protect their watersheds. The SFI Conservation Grant will help the Endowment educate community stakeholders water utilities
and maintaining the health of the watersheds they manage. This grant builds upon SFI's commitment to water resources through conservation grants awarded in 2012 to the World Resources Institute to examine how SFI requirements related to best-management practices result in improvements
and winter home in Southeast asia seacoasts scientists think. For example the 20-mile-long (32 km) Saemangeum seawall in South korea cut off 170 square miles (440 square km) of estuary and tidal flats feeding grounds for hundreds of thousands of migratory
birds and a primary stopping site for Spoon-billed sandpipers. And shorebirds are a food source for people living along the coastal mudflats of Myanmar
and two roosters found in Miami's South Beach this year were thought by some to be a Santerã a ritual sacrifice.
They constitute a large percentage of all living matter in oceans rivers and lakes. One species Didymosphenia geminata is responsible for creating thick blooms in mountain streams and ponds.
Check out the image gallery Diatoms of the Texas Gulf Coast. Editor's Note: The researchers depicted in Behind the Scenes articles have been supported by the National Science Foundation the federal agency charged with funding basic research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
#Rotting Balls of Fish Flesh Invade Salton Sea's Shores DENVER Boneyard beaches littered with dead tilapia line the shores of California's Salton Sea.
when winds stir up low-oxygen water from the lake depths. A fascinating and foul discovery on the skeleton-clad shores recently revealed the fate of the rest of the fish remains.
Their flesh drops to the lake floor where anaerobic bacteria transforms it into adipocere also known as corpse wax researchers from Kutztown University in Pennsylvania reported here Monday (Oct 28) at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.
Perhaps disturbed by fierce winds globs of decomposed fish flesh recently rose from deep in the Salton Sea coagulated into spheres on the lake surface
and surfed the waves to shore leaving the highwater line littered with thousands of sticky fish balls.
Salton Sea Fish balls Fish balls The bone beds first brought Simpson out from Pennsylvania in 2010.
The Salton Sea offers a modern analogue to fishy layers in New jersey's Newark Basin
In the Salton Sea tilapia adipocere is tinted orange to brown.''Evil'stench The sudden appearance of the decomposed flesh globes occurred remarkably close in time to the emergence of a spectacularly awful Salton Sea stench that wafted across Southern California in September 2012.
We are trying to answer whether they are linked Simpson said. We're trying to figure out what the time frame is.
To me something is fundamentally changing in the Salton Sea that's generating these adipocere Simpson said.
I went back and looked at historic photos of the shoreline and didn't see them
The Salton Sea's malodorous perfume often permeates nearby towns but the extent of 2012's rotten-egg smell driven by strong southeasterly winds was unusually broad.
It's amazing Simpson said of the Salton Sea's smell during his 2013 trip.
The greatest numbers of fish balls in 2013 showed up on the northern beaches where wind-driven waves pushed the balls up to the high-water mark said Elizabeth Heness a collaborator who is now a graduate student at the University of Texas at El paso. The rotting fish balls
are just the latest in a string of natural disasters to hit the inland lake from pollution to massive fish
A canal breach created the Salton Sea in 1905. With no outlet and no water source except for farming run off the lake has been shrinking
and growing saltier ever since. The water level is now less than 60 feet (18 meters) deep. This environmental catastrophe really shaped Southern California Simpson said.
your garden or back yard silt from near a pond or creek a sandy area such as a beach or sand box.
Ireland's most recent Op-Ed was When Hitting the Beach Stay Alert for Sewage.
In Tanzania and Kenya there has been debate about how to connect the Lake victoria region and its growing human population with areas to the east.
which includes river watersheds that supply drinking water to San francisco and many other California cities. Only 287 firefighters (down from more than 4500 in late August) continue to mop up hot spots
In general vineyards in higher latitudes at higher altitudes or surrounded by ocean will benefit from climate change.
from the Southern Rhone. Given that most grapevines produce fruit for 25 to 50 years grape growers
as if the same calories were in solid form says David Cummings associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington and the Veterans Affairs Puget sound Health care System.
and toxic plants. 8 Strange Things Scientists Have tasted Party ice At camps on sea ice scientists drink their study subject
but has nibbled never an Antarctic pteropod called the naked sea butterfly (Clione limacina) which makes a chemical antifeedant compound.
The team collected ancient charcoal samples buried in the mud at the bottom of 14 lakes in the area.
and one of the most powerful eruptions in Earth's history said lead study author Alexa Van Eaton a postdoctoral scholar at both the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington and Arizona State university.
More than 600 million cubic meters (20 billion cubic feet) of diatoms from a lake flew into the air Van Eaton reported Sept. 6 in the journal Geology.
Biggest Volcanoes On earth World domination cell by cell Diatoms a golden brown algae rule Earth's waterways.
From Antarctica's glacial lakes to acidic hot springs to unkempt home aquariums diatoms are everywhere.
When Wyoming's Yellowstone Lake emerged from its mile-thick ice cover 14000 years ago diatoms quickly arrived Theriot said.
Diatoms particularly love volcanic lakes because they are the only creatures that build shells of glass.
Silica-rich magma often causes the volcanic explosions that leave behind lake-filled craters and silica is the key ingredient in diatom shells.
Yellowstone Lake which sits in a caldera created by a super-eruption contains so many diatoms that the lake sediments are mostly shells (85 percent by weight) Theriot said.
when a massive volcano like Yellowstone blasts through a big lake. Immaculate preservation The Taupo Volcano super-eruption slammed through a deep lake that filled a rift valley similar to the elongated lakes in East Africa.
The combination of water and ash created a hellish dirty thunderstorm with towering clouds and roaring winds.
Diatoms fashion spores to ride out inhospitable changes in their environment Two years ago Danish researchers revived 100-year-old resting spores from muck in a local fjord.
and dispersing the diatomite that is being created at the bottom of Yellowstone Lake Theriot said. This is the most thoroughly studied
A dozen or so supervolcanoes exist today some of them lying at the bottom of the sea.
Ash in Africa Lane and her colleagues examined ash from Toba recovered from mud extracted from two sites at the bottom of Lake Malawi the second largest lake in the East African Rift valley.
Their analysis discovered that a thin layer of ash in this sediment about 90 feet (27 m) below the lake floor was from the last of the Toba eruptions known as Youngest Toba Tuff.
I was surprised to find so much ash in the Lake Malawi record Lane added. The ash is composed very tiny of shards of volcanic glass smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
Quick recovery If the area had seen dramatic cooling because of all the ash spewed into the atmosphere living matter near the lake surface would likely have died off significantly altering the composition of the lake's mud.
or may not have had on other lakes in East Africa. Whilst from this we can hypothesize that the global climatic impact was not as dramatic as some have suggested we will need to find similarly high-resolution records of past climate from other regions that also contain Youngest Toba Tuff
Happily there's a third way one that could aid both our anemic economy and equally anemic rivers.
and rivers raising revenues and boosting meaningful job growth in rural areas. What's not to like?
and replenish shrunken rivers. It's true that this approach will require that environmentalists jettison the outmoded notion that
#The 10 Weirdest Spills in Naturefrom molasses to rubber ducks some strange substances have spilled into waterways and onto roadways.
when it sprung a leak dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of the goo into the ocean.
while being transported from a beach where it died to a laboratory in the Taiwanese city of Tainan according to BBC News. Gas buildup inside the decomposing cetacean was thought to be responsible for the explosion
The beloved blocks have bobbed now through the Northwest Passage to the shores of Alaska one scientist calculates.
was an innovation of the Pre-classic period writes Yale university Professor Michael Coe in his book The Maya (Thames and Hudson 2011).
or continually depleting the oceans. It could also answer the problem of methane emissions from agriculture.
The area studied is called the Yuba Fan built up around the Yuba River that runs out of the Sierra nevada mountains north of Sacramento not far from California s verdant wine country. oethe Yuba fan is created totally artificial by humans said Singer
The fan contains more than a billion cubic meters of sediment reaching down to the Golden gate. The miners used high pressure hoses called monitors to blast the hillsides washing the gold-bearing mud into sluices.
Mercury was added to the sluices to form an amalgam with the gold that settled to the bottom.
The sediment washed downstream Singer said actually forming new river valleys and terraces the fan.
because we know there are nice wetlands with herbivores on the other side. We know that
For example warmer oceans remove less CO2 from the atmosphere than cooler oceans and they have even become net CO2 emitters during warming periods in the Earth's past;
The primeval underwater forest long buried under the sediments at the bottom of the Gulf of mexico was uncovered probably by Hurricane Katrina
You have to think of the cachet of something made from a 50000-year-old wood said Ben Raines the diver who first reported on the site and the executive director of the Weeks Bay Foundation a waterways conservation organization.
Primeval forest The grove of 50000-year-old bald cypress trees was preserved beneath ocean sediments off the coast of Alabama until Hurricane Katrina swept those sediments away.
The enchanted forest became a natural reef teeming with fish and crustaceans that sheltered between tree roots.
Secrets of the Deep The foundation has contacted several federal agencies including the Bureau of Ocean Management to begin that process.
Scientists believe the grove of thousand-year-old trees could reveal millennia of the Gulf of mexico's climate history.
or be eaten away by sea life in the next few years. But Raines believes it's worth protecting the underwater treasure
Here underwater trees in the Great lakes may not be subject to shipworms zebra mussels are slowly eating through the wood.
The fine scale of the map allows researchers to zoom in close enough to see logging roads river meanders
For example does your desktop wallpaper feature a waterfall a forest or a beach? Do you harvest tomatoes in Farmville explore the exotic territories of World of Warcraft
a nature island with waterfalls rivers different kinds of trees flowers plants grass rocks a beach and dirt paths;
when we post our photos of rosy sunsets blooming gardens and tranquil lakes online. Could we apply biophilic design to our hardware
because it is among the most rapidly melting ice masses in the world thinning as it flows to the Amundsen Sea at a rate of about 2. 5 miles (4 kilometers) each year.
Since warm seawater flows beneath the ice shelf (the part of the glacier that floats on the ocean) scientists have known that the Pine Island Glacier was melting from below.
and ultimate break up of the ice shelf David Holland a professor of mathematics at the Center for Atmosphere Ocean Science at New york University said in a statement.
and without that restraining force the Pine Island catchment basin could further contribute to global sea-level rise.
Glacial plug The Pine Island Glacier currently acts as a plug that holds back the immense West Antarctic Ice Sheet whose melting ice contributes to rising sea levels.
and empties into the ocean causing sea levels to rise. Warming oceans also cause sea levels to go up
because water expands as its temperature increases. Still understanding precisely why these changes are occurring
and how much sea levels are projected to rise in the future is tricky researchers have said. Last November a study published in the journal Science estimated that ice lost from the entire Antarctic ice sheet
and floated freely into the Amundsen Sea. Modeling melt To see how much the Pine Island Glacier was melting Holland
The instruments measured ocean temperatures salinity (or salt content) and the movement of warm-water currents that carve channels through the ice shelf and flow underneath it.
What we have brought to the table are detailed measurements of the melt rates that will allow simple physical models of the melting processes to be plugged into computer models of the coupled ocean/glacier system Tim Stanton a research professor at the Naval
and glacier-melt rates of the potentially unstable Western Antarctic Ice Sheet in response to changing ocean forces.
Martian lakes? One of the rocks Rice mentioned was a mudstone that Curiosity drilled into.
Researchers think the mudstone formed in a place where water was calm such as a lake perhaps an ideal place for microbes to survive
Calm lake water is a better place to live. Another rock that received a lot of attention at the conference is Tintina a tiny pebble that Curiosity rolled over and broke apart.
Flowing rivers More strong evidence of Mars'wet past comes from Curiosity s discovery of calcium sulfate veins fissures in the surface rock that once sampled with a laser-firing instrument called Chemcam
And then there are the ancient river deposits. Â One such feature of the Martian landscape studied by Curiosity
Features resembling Shaler are formed commonly by rivers here On earth; turbulent water creates dunes on the riverbed
And these look exactly like the sort of features I ve looked at On earth formed by ancient rivers Gupta added.
Was it clay minerals deposited in a lake? Or digenesis which is when the rocks have been changed
#Western Crop Watering May Make Wetter East Coast Summers SAN FRANCISCO Intensive irrigation in the Western United states could be causing wetter summers on the East Coast new research suggests.
The East Coast of the United states has seen wetter weather in the last 50 years compared to prior years with some regions such as the Catskills in New york getting about 1. 6 inches (4 centimeters) more rain in June
The impact of irrigation isn't all that surprising given that the western United states poured enough water into crop irrigation to fill the entire Great lakes region with 2. 3 feet (0. 7 meters) of water
All told irrigation could account for about a quarter of the increased sogginess on the East Coast though global warming is likely responsible for the rest he speculated.
Of course reducing crop watering to make the East Coast summers a little drier isn't an option.
On the western coast of Alaska nestled against the Bering sea residents of the remote village of Newtok may soon become the country's first climate refugees.
In recent years however warming oceans and milder surface temperatures have melted the icy subsoil causing the ground beneath Newtok to erode
and Sink in 2007 the village already sat below sea level and studies warned that the subarctic outpost could be washed completely away within a decade.
With climate change rapidly altering human ecosystems around the globe Newtok may not be alone in its fight against warming temperatures melting ice and rising seas.
In the United states the Bureau of Reclamation released a report on the status of the Colorado river Basin in December 2012.
The study concluded that over the next 50 years water supply from the Colorado river will be insufficient to meet the demands of its adjacent states including Arizona New mexico
and they are thrown back into the ocean to slowly die. However China's taste for the dish may be fading:
Areas the institute protects include watersheds that provide drinking water for SãO Paulo. Unlike some other organizations they haven't overextended themselves Jenkins said.
After 14 years of drought Lake Powell is less than half full. Water flows into Lake Powell nestled between Utah and Arizona from high in the Rocky mountains via the Colorado river.
More than 30 million people in seven states depend on the mighty Colorado for water to grow crops fuel power plants and keep cities such as Las vegas alive.
In August the federal Bureau of Reclamation cut by 9 percent the amount of water people in the southwestern United states could draw from Lake Powell.
Greenberg is also part of a working group looking for agricultural solutions to water shortages along the Colorado river.
Fights over water rights are causing political conflicts and instability in such places as the Nile valley and the Indian subcontinent.
For example the Tigris river flows from Turkey to Iraq so ensuring Iraq's supply requires conservation from Turkey a political problem that requires international negotiations.
or other sources creates runoff that carries pesticides into local rivers and often out of the local watershed Boccaletti told Livescience.
Other water evaporates into the atmosphere and is carried then away to distant parts of the globe. 5 Ways We Waste Water To stem those wasteful processes farmers would need to cover crops with plastic to prevent evaporation
And Australia the driest continent has already commissioned several desalination plants along its eastern coastline.
1 kilogram) produced according to the United nations'UN-Water program could be produced in the Amazon river Basin the largest watershed in the world.
People who rely on the Colorado river are facing that problem now. A June 2013 study in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society suggests that the low flows will worsen in the future.
To protect the resource everyone who relies on the river must agree on a new way to allocate its waters Greenberg said.
Politicians conservation groups and grassroots organizations have proposed several ideas from farfetched schemes such as moving cellophane-wrapped icebergs to the coasts
or diverting water from the Mississippi river to politically unpopular solutions such as decommissioning water-based power plants and limiting population growth.
Currently the legal regime that governs water use for the Colorado river States the Laws of the Rivers make water a use-it
and eventually changing the landscape from wetlands to deeply incised quickly flowing streams. Before Europeans arrived American beech red oak
Leaves from swamp plants also appear in the mud confirming that the forested spot was on the upslope edge of a nearby wetland.
Plants in Danger We had a valley margin forest growing right next to the valley bottom in conjunction with all these wetlands Elliott said.
#What An Ancient Lake Reveals at Its Core Kay Behrensmeyer is a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural history.
I am amazed at how much information is contained in our tiny vertical sample from an ancient lake basin.
and we discovered an extinct lake! The layers in the core are preserved very well and show many periods with volcanic eruptions alternating with quiet lake phases
and dry periods when the water receded and soil developed. Â Thin horizontal stripes in the core called laminae formed
Those features are good evidence that a deep fairly large lake once existed in that area of Olorgesailie.
 We can analyze volcanic ash brought into the lake by wind using the technique of radiometric dating so it will be possible to measure how long ago each ash layer was deposited.
  The section of the core shown here (see the enlargement in the lower right of the image) also revealed where banded lake deposits have a well-defined contact on top of an ancient clay-rich soil.
The water level must have risen quickly to make such a sharp transition from land to lake.
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