and climate change other scientists including marine geologists at The british Antarctic Survey are investigating whether global warming is thinning Antarctica's ice sheets and speeding up the glacier's retreat.
which is burning toward those groves said Matt Brooks Yosemite Field Station leader for the U s. Geological Survey's Western Research Ecology Center.
Under natural conditions these forests have burned for millions of years with frequent fires said Jon Keeley a fire ecologist with the U s Geological Survey who is based in Sequoia
and lecturer at Yale university who studied the grizzlies for more than a decade as a U s. Geological Survey scientist.
Perhaps not but the crabs are a test case for how global warming will alter the migration of tropical species according to a Princeton university news release on the study nd Earth science is under the umbrella of NASA's mission.
#Hidden Graves Revealed with Geophysics Tools Convicting a murderer can be hard if there's no body
Pringle's colleague will present the work today (May 14) at a geophysics research meeting in Cancã n Mexico.
and glaciers and Earth's water resources from the perspective of Earth's paleoclimate geologist Aaron Putnam of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory said in a talk at the Columbic Club in New york on March 12 He described his recent
To find out when this wet period took place the scientists used radiocarbon dating a technique that measures the ratio of different forms of carbon to find an object's age.
They did radiocarbon dating of shells on the lake's shoreline finding the shells'ages matched those of the other samples from formerly wet areas.
#Holocene epoch: The Age of man The Holocene epoch is the current period of geologic time. Another term that is sometimes used is the Anthropocene Epoch
because its primary characteristic is the global changes caused by human activity. This term can be misleading though;
The Holocene epoch began 12000 to 11500 years ago at the close of the Paleolithic Ice age
Holocene extinction Pressure from the human population has had far-reaching effects on the biodiversity of the planet.
Most people are familiar with the last mass extinction that closed the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago
We base our division of geologic time on evidence of changes in the life forms present On earth in different times.
We may be nearing the end of the Holocene epoch.
#Holy land Farming Began 5, 000 Years Earlier Than Thought AVDAT Israel For thousands of years different groups of people have lived in the Negev desert building stone walls
A great surprise Bruins'findings come from radiocarbon dating of bones and organic materials in various soil layers in an ancient field in southern Israel.
Carbon dating has been used to date famous objects such as the Dead sea scrolls. Gallery of Dead sea scrolls: A Glimpse of the Past I found a wonderful radiocarbon sequence of ages Bruins said.
These regions are at the bottom of the human development index and the bottom of the hydrological index.
Now investigators have found that three of these forested islands are shell middens piles of freshwater snail shells left by human settlers more than 10000 years ago according to carbon dating.
The newfound site is the oldest archaeological site in southern and western Amazonia said researcher Umberto Lombardo a geographer at the University of Bern in Switzerland.
The Clovis culture Radiocarbon dating of two of the middens reveals an ancient human presence during the early Holocene period approximately 10400 years ago.
The samples enabled the scientists to peer back into the Arctic's climate history dating from 2. 2 million to 3. 6 million years ago during the middle Pliocene and early Pleistocene epochs.
Previous research suggests the proportion of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere in the middle Pliocene and Early Pleistocene was similar to the levels that are recorded today
and attributed to man-made sources. If this is the case Earth's climate may be more sensitive to carbon dioxide than scientists previously thought Brigham-Grette said.
and levels in the Pliocene were thought to be similar to today Brigham-Grette explained. Some of the changes we see going on now sea ice melting tree lines migrating
and glaciers with tremendous ablation rate suggest that we're heading back to the Pliocene.
And a return to Pliocene-type conditions may not be too far off in the future said Gifford Miller a professor in the department of geological sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder who conducts research in the Canadian Arctic.
Rethinking the timeline The extended warm period during the middle Pliocene also raises new questions about the subsequent ice ages.
The earthworms eat away at the puffy duff layer blanketing the forest floor where species such as salamanders and ovenbirds live Resner reported Sunday (Oct 27) at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.
See Images of the Longhorn of Dinos Ancient micro-continent Though the region is parched now during the Cretaceous period
 Primates though are sophisticated more cartographers: the monkeys were able to activate their grid cells simply by looking around.
Fossil evidence suggests they evolved after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event about 65 million years ago that ended the age of dinosaurs;
However genetics research suggests placental lineages were actually far older hinting their diversification was linked to the breakup of the continents before the end of the Cretaceous period.
The possible body size increase in the megalodon lineage over geologic time will need to be tested further by examining megalodon collections throughout the world
</p><p></p><p>On June 4 meteorologists in Huntsville Ala. noticed a blob on their radar screen that looked like a strong thunderstorm
</p><p>Our operational meteorologist spotted it on radar immediately and initially thought he was caught off-guard by a pop-up thunderstorm that wasn't in the forecast Matthew Havin data services manager at weather technology company Baron Services told Livescience in an email.
(and even other meteorologists from other states) calling and e-mailing us trying to determine what was going on at the time.</
</p><p>This Cretaceous-era herbivore<i>Parasaurolophus</i>walked the Earth some 75 million years ago.
 Mount etna like other Mediterranean volcanoes such as Stromboli and Vesuvius rests on the subduction boundary where the African tectonic plate is being pushed under the Eurasian plate.
At 8 a m. PST on March 27 the U s. Geological Survey issued an official Hazard Watch for Mount st helens;
Volcanologists set up reflective targets between the fissures and used lasers placed on a mountain ridge six miles away to record changes.
'On the morning of May 18 USGS volcanologist David A. Johnston camped on the ridge with his lasers radioed in his regular 7 a m. report.
Today Mount st helens and other volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest are monitored closely by geologists at the David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver.
The rocks which carbon-dating of surrounding material showed to be between 4000 and 4800 years old were clustered in a tight pile.
and consulting geologist Stewart Redwood in a statement. However there are no gold artifacts in the rock shelter
Carbon dating suggested the area was occupied by humans from 7500 B c. to 4700 B c. roughly 5000 years prior to the erection of the first stones at Stonehenge.
#New world's Oldest Tomatillo Discovered A fossilized tomatillo still in its papery shell is the earliest fruit from the tomato family ever found in South america researchers reported Oct 30 at the Geological Society of America's annual
A long history of obsessives Thomas Jefferson architect botaanist diplomat farmer meteorologist president and author of the Declaration of Independence also kept a written log of every penny he ever spent
As Wisdom rewrites the record books she provides new insights into the remarkable biology of seabirds said Bruce Peterjohn head of the bird banding program at the U s. Geological Survey in the statement.
#Paleozoic era: Facts & Information The Paleozoic era which ran from about 542 million years ago to 251 million years ago was a time of great change On earth.
The era began with the breakup of one supercontinent and the formation of another. Plants became widespread.
Life in the Paleozoic The Paleozoic began with the Cambrian period 53 million years best known for ushering in an explosion of life On earth.
This Cambrian explosion included the evolution of arthropods (ancestors of today's insects and crustaceans) and chordates (animals with rudimentary spinal cords.
 In the Paleozoic era life flourished in the seas. After the Cambrian period came the 45-million-year Ordovician period
which is marked in the fossil record by an abundance of marine invertebrates. Perhaps the most famous of these invertebrates was the trilobite an armored arthropod that scuttled around the seafloor for about 270 million years before going extinct.
 After the Ordovician period came the Silurian period (443 million years ago to 416 million years ago)
Those developments would appear in the Devonian period the next geological period of the Paleozoic. Ferns appeared as did the first trees.
The Devonian period saw the rise of the first land-living arthropods including the earliest ancestors of spiders.
Paleozoic evolution Life continued its march in the late Paleozoic. The Carboniferous period which lasted from about 359 million years ago to 299 million years ago answered the question
Which came first the chicken or the egg? definitively. Long before birds evolved tetrapods began laying eggs on land for the first time during this period allowing them to break away from an amphibious lifestyle.
because roaches'ancient ancestor (Archimylacris eggintoni) was found all across the globe during the Carboniferous.
The last period of the Paleozoic was the Permian period which began 299 million years ago and wrapped up 251 million years ago.
the Permian extinction. 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. Modern conifers and ginkgo trees evolved on land.
Paleozoic geology and climate All this evolution took place against the backdrop of shifting continents and a changing climate.
During the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic the continents underwent a change. They had been joined as one supercontinent Rodinia
but during the Cambrian period Rodinia fragmented into Gondwana (consisting of what would eventually become the modern continents of the Southern hemisphere)
The Cambrian was warm worldwide but would be followed by an ice age in the Ordovician 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.
In the Silurian period the land masses that would become North america central and Northern europe and Western europe moved even 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.
Gondwana still existed 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:
Pangaea. The giant ocean surrounding Pangaea was called Panthalassa. Pangaea's interior was likely very dry
The chemicals include two fungicides never before found in wild frogs said Kelly Smalling lead study author and a U s. Geological Survey (USGS) research hydrologist.
#Pleistocene epoch: Facts About the Last Ice age The Pleistocene epoch is defined typically as the time period that began about 1. 8 million years ago
and lasted until about 11700 years ago. The most recent Ice age occurred then as glaciers covered huge parts of the planet Earth.
The Pleistocene epoch is the first in which Homo sapiens evolved and by the end of the epoch humans could be found in nearly every part of the planet.
The Pleistocene epoch was the first epoch in the Quaternary period and the sixth in the Cenozoic era.
It was followed by the current stage called the Holocene epoch. At the time of the Pleistocene the continents had moved to their current positions.
At one point during the Ice age sheets of ice covered all of Antarctica large parts of Europe North america and South america and small areas in Asia.
Scientists identified the Pleistocene epoch s four key stages or ages Gelasian Calabrian Ionian and Tarantian.
The name Pleistocene is the combination of two Greek words: pleistos (meaning oemost) and kainos (meaning oenew or oerecent.
It was used first in 1839 by Sir Charles Lyell a British geologist and lawyer. As a result of Lyell s work the glacial theory gained acceptance between 1839 and 1846
During this period British geologist Edward Forbes aligned the period with other known ice ages. In 2009 the International Union of Geological Sciences established the start of the Pleistocene epoch at 1. 806 million years before the present.
While scientists haven t been able to determine the exact causes of an epoch changes in ocean current composition of the atmosphere changes in the position of the Earth in relation to the sun are believed to be key contributors.
One of the richest sources of information about life in the Pleistocene epoch can be found in the La Brea Tar pits in Los Angeles where remains of everything from insects to plant life to animals were preserved including a partial skeleton of a female human and a nearly complete woolly mammoth.
Other than a few birds that were classified as dinosaurs most notably the Titanis there were no dinosaurs during the Pleistocene epoch.
They had become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period more than 60 million years before the Pleistocene epoch began.
Precision agriculture helps address that problem by improving weather forecasting and modeling and localizing it even within a particular farm.
The system then combines the field data with a diversity of public data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration the National aeronautics and space administration and the U s. Geological Survey and private data from companies like Earth Networks.
In practical terms a farmer armed with precise weather forecasting information may choose to hold off on fertilizing an area of a farm expecting heavy rains;
and together with geographer Kristine Delong of Louisiana State university set out to discover the site's secrets.
World's Weirdest Geological formations In addition because Bald cypress trees can live a thousand years and there are so many of them the trees could contain thousands of years of climate history for the region Harley said.
The other was found by Xuchao Zhao now a scientist at the Institute of Geology
and Geophysics in Beijing China inside a meteorite discovered by the Chinese Antarctic Research Expedition.
Back in the twenties fires came through the area every eight to ten years keeping the forests more open according to U s. Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station Geographer and Researcher Carl Skinner.
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.
which were deposited in the Triassic period. The fish balls sized from kumquat to mandarin appeared on a return visit in March 2013.
According to Expert Senior Meteorologist Paul Pastelok head of Accuweather. com's Long Range Forecasting Department The latest indications are that the core of heat
Biological (and geological and hydrological! life continues to happen all around us except now scientists are physically
Dr. Chris Kellogg who studies the microbiomes of deep-sea corals works at the United states Geological Survey (USGS). She's one of about 8500 scientists at the agency
Two geologists in Arizona are also building a low-cost acoustic detector crowd-funded at about $1000 drawn by the age-old allure of communicating with plants.
Starting with a 3-foot-tall potted saguaro Wardell and geophysicist Charlotte Rowe hope to distinguish between cacti drying out
As part of that work the university has major research partnerships with federal agencies in Earth science climate and energy research.
But geologists like Lollar also lick rocks. Tiny sediment grains (too small for the eye to see) can be sorted by your sensitive tongue into silt clay or mud.
A sample of that saliva can also help geologists get a good look at a rock with their hand lens a portable magnifying glass.
Photos of Exotic Food However one true tale of a Pleistocene repast comes from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Paleontologist Dale Guthrie
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.
The Geology of Yellowstone Van Eaton hopes the discovery will prompt other scientists to search for microscopic life in wet eruptions where magma hit water.
We have been able to show that the largest volcanic eruption of the last two million years did not significantly alter the climate of East Africa said researcher Christine Lane a geologist at the University of Oxford.
and hydrogen in water vary with geography on a continental scale and so because the stable isotope ratios in drinking water get incorporated into hair a record of travel history is revealed by looking at the isotope composition of scalp hair.
This Q&a was adapted from a talk and subsequent interview with Ahmed at the U s. Geological Survey's Western Ecological Research center in Sacramento on Jan 22.
Op-Ed Jake Weltzin is an ecologist with the U s. Geological Surveyand executive director of the USA National Phenology Network.
but locally relevant said Matt Hansen a geographer at the University of Maryland who led the mapping effort.
Next Landsat's operator the U s. Geological Survey altered its policies to make all of the data from Landsat 7 and previous Landsat satellites free.
Species falling out of sync with the season Jake Weltzin an ecologist with the United states Geological Survey
Some 250 million years ago during the late Permian and early Triassic the world was a greenhouse much hotter than it is today.
so we have a bit of a contradiction going on Ryberg said here Wednesday (Oct 30) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.
There are opinions that we're already past a sustainable population now in terms of being able to provide a high quality of life for every citizen on the planet said David Griggs a climatologist
and the World meteorological organization to assess the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of climate change. Others say improvements in technology will yield better crop production
and more frequent droughts related to climate change render larger tracts of land unusable Griggs the Monash University climatologist said.
A June 2013 study in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society suggests that the low flows will worsen in the future.
and a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic geology.
Fieldwork has been a major focus of my career as a paleobiologist and geologist. I really like being outdoors in the field and in exotic places and
and deciphering the geology and ancient environments from evidence in piled up layers of rock. Â When my colleague Rick Potts organized a core-drilling project in one of my favorite field areas in southern Kenya Olorgesailie (a local Maasai name pronounced O-lorg-eh-sigh
I have done a lot of outcrop geology over the past several decades.  There are missing parts of the geological record in the strata north of the core site becauseâ geologic faulting   in the basin caused uplift and erosion there.
The eroded sediments had to go somewhere and our team suspects that they were carried by streams into the basin where we drilled the core.
Levels of CO2 haven't been that high since the Pliocene epoch between 3 million and 5 million years ago according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In Montana's Glacier national park where about 150 glaciers were once found only 25 glaciers larger than 25 acres remain according to the U s. Geological Survey.
The last time Earth's atmospheric levels of CO2 reached 400 ppm was during the Pliocene epoch between 5 million and 3 million years ago according to the University of California San diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The plants then likely spread via the movement of Earth's tectonic plates finding their way to what became South america Africa and South Asia.
 The past three months have been among the driest 10 percent on record in New south wales (NSW) said Todd Lane a meteorologist at the University of Melbourne.
In the high-elevation canyons along the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau in central Arizona I worked with my colleague Thomas Martin of the U s. Geological Survey to study how more than two decades of changing winter temperatures
Facts, Information & Lodging Yosemite national park created in 1890 is one of the oldest nature preserves in the United states. A wonderland of geological formations
and Ohio rivers according to a new study led by the U s. Geological Survey (USGS). Such abnormalities are linked to estrogen-mimicking chemicals
U s. Geological Survey (USGS) biologist Jarred Barr discovered the duckling among a brood of downy avocet chicks on July 2.
and have become a regular part of weather forecasts these days Patil told Live Science. So people with allergies should keep an eye on them.
and shade levels using a portable weather station but didn't find any striking trends. Then she pointed to an infrared thermometer
Wild Bactrian camels (Camelus ferus) were discovered in 1878 by Nikolai Prejevalsky a Russian geographer who explored Mongolia and Tibet.
and fossilized poop or coprolites of eight Pleistocene beasts woolly mammoths rhinos bison and horses found in museums throughout the world.
Vanishing wildflowers Between 10000 and 15000 years ago forbs declined in the Arctic study co-author Mary E. Edwards a physical geographer at the University of Southampton in England wrote in an email.
Researchers from Mcgill University in Montreal and the Saskatchewan Museum found evidence of one of those blazes among fossilized plants at Grasslands National park in a geologic layer known as the Frenchman Formation (so named
This rock deposit is a natural time capsule from the Late Cretaceous period just before a mass extinction wiped out the dinosaurs.
How Plate tectonics Started A cold crusty shell of a planet that regularly kills off its occupants with violent earthquakes
But Earth's grinding plates the source of its deadly tectonics are actually one of the key ingredients that make it only planet with life in the solar system (found so far.
Now a new model seeks to explain why Earth's plate tectonics is unique among the sun's rocky planets.
What goes on in rocks has helped us understand how plate boundaries evolve said David Bercovici a geophysicist at Yale university
Plate tectonics is accepted a widely theory that says the Earth's outer surface or crust in divided into rigid plates.
What is Plate tectonics? There are hints that the plates emerged 4 billion years ago only 500 million years after Earth formed.
But many researchers think the full system of plate tectonics we see today with the entire Earth's surface covered in rigid plates that crash slide
and pressures as well as geologic evidence such as rocks called mylonite brought from deep in the Earth to the surface through movement along faults.
The researchers also compared their Earth plate tectonics model to Venus finding that the surface of Venus was too hot for plate tectonics to develop.
But sea lamprey expert Joseph Zydlewski a U s. Geological Survey researcher and professor at the University of Maine said the risk to people is actually pretty tiny.
See Photos of the World's Cutest Baby Wild Animals I don't know that they actually think of us as whooping cranes said Glenn Olsen a veterinarian at the U s. Geological Survey's (USGS) Patuxent Wildlife Research center in Maryland who said he spends much of May through July
#Permian period: Climate, Animals & Plants The Permian period was the final period of the Paleozoic era. Lasting from 299 million to 251 million years ago it followed the Carboniferous period
and preceded the Triassic period. By the early Permian the two great continents of the Paleozoic Gondwana and Euramerica had collided to form the supercontinent Pangaea.
Pangaea was shaped like a thickened letter C.#The top curve of the C# consisted of landmasses that would later become modern Europe and Asia.
North and South america formed the curved back of the C# with Africa inside the curve.
India Australia and Antarctica made up the low curve. Inside the C# was the Tethys Ocean
Because Pangaea was so immense the interior portions of the continent had a much cooler drier climate than had existed in the Carboniferous.
and spiny fishes that gave rise to the amphibians of the Carboniferous were being replaced by true bony fish.
On land the giant swamp forests of the Carboniferous began to dry out. The mossy plants that depended on spores for reproduction were being replaced by the first seed-bearing plants the gymnosperms.
Arthropods continued to diversify during the Permian period to fill the niches opened up by the more variable climate.
and sucking plant materials evolved during the Permian. Other new groups included the cicadas and beetles.
Two important groups of animals dominated the Permian landscape: Synapsids and Sauropsids. Synapsids had skulls with a single temporal opening
In the early Permian it appeared that the Synapsids were to be the dominant group of land animals.
In the late Permian Pelycosaurs were succeeded by a new lineage known as Therapsids. These animals were much closer to mammals.
At the end of the Permian the largest Synapsids became extinct leaving many ecological niches open. The second group of land animals the Sauropsid group weathered the Permian Extinction more successfully
and rapidly diversified to fill them. The Sauropsid lineage gave rise to the dinosaurs that would dominate the Mesozoic era.
The Permian period ended with the greatest mass extinction event in Earth s history. In a blink of Geologic time in as little as 100000 years the majority of living species on the planet were wiped out of existence.
Scientists estimate that more than 95 percent of marine species became extinct and more than 70 percent of land animals.
Fossil beds in the Italian Alps show that plants were hit just as hard as animal species. Fossils from the late Permian show that huge conifer forests blanketed the region.
These strata are followed by early Triassic fossils that show few signs of plants being present
but instead are filled with fossil remnants of fungi that probably proliferated on a glut of decaying trees.
Whatever the cause the Great Dying closed the Paleozoic era e
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