http://phys.org/space-news/earth-sciences/ en-us Phys.Org provides the latest news on earth science, astronomy and space exploration. A climber from Bangladesh and another from South Korea have died on Mount Everest as hundreds flock to the world's highest peak during good weather, Nepalese tourism officials said Tuesday. http://phys.org/news288329106.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Tue, 21 May 2013 04:50:01 EST news288329106 Monday's powerful tornado in suburban Oklahoma City loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999. http://phys.org/news288297518.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 19:38:43 EST news288297518 An Alaska volcano eruption is prompting regional airlines to cancel flights to nearby communities, including a town that reported traces of fallen ash. http://phys.org/news288291033.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 18:10:01 EST news288291033 (Phys.org) —Herds of wooly mammoths once shook the earth beneath their feet, sending humans scurrying across the landscape of prehistoric Ohio. But then something much larger shook the Earth itself, and at that point these mega mammals' days were numbered. http://phys.org/news288290206.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 17:37:25 EST news288290206 (Phys.org) —The Amazon rain forest, popularly known as the lungs of the planet, inhales carbon dioxide as it exudes oxygen. Plants use carbon dioxide from the air to grow parts that eventually fall to the ground to decompose or get washed away by the region's plentiful rainfall. http://phys.org/news288282832.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 15:33:59 EST news288282832 (Phys.org) —Earthquakes that last minutes rather than seconds are a relatively recent discovery, according to an international team of seismologists. Researchers have been aware of these slow earthquakes, only for the past five to 10 years because of new tools and new observations, but these tools may explain the triggering of some normal earthquakes and could help in earthquake prediction. http://phys.org/news288268588.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 11:36:57 EST news288268588 They didn't always speak the same language, but climate scientists and disaster relief workers wrapped up a meeting Tuesday in agreement about the importance of leveraging climate insights into improved disaster preparedness as the planet warms. http://phys.org/news288261023.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 09:30:31 EST news288261023 (Phys.org) —The North Sea oil and gas industry's pursuit of new oil reserves has contributed to a greater understanding of where life exists on Earth and may even help us look for life on other planets. http://phys.org/news288253590.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 08:20:01 EST news288253590 (Phys.org) —What happened the last time a vegetated Earth shifted from an extremely cold climate to desert-like conditions? And what does it tell us about climate change today? http://phys.org/news288249987.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Mon, 20 May 2013 06:26:43 EST news288249987 Scientists look at past climates to learn about climate change and the ability to simulate it with computer models. One region that has received a great deal of attention is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, the vast pool of warm water stretching along the equator from Africa to the western Pacific Ocean. http://phys.org/news288172277.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Sun, 19 May 2013 13:10:08 EST news288172277 (AP)—One of Alaska's most restless volcanoes has shot an ash cloud 15,000 feet into the air in an ongoing eruption that has drawn attention from a nearby community but isn't expected to threaten air traffic. http://phys.org/news288060788.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Sat, 18 May 2013 01:53:27 EST news288060788 NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite known as TRMM measured Cyclone Mahasen's rainfall rates from space as it made landfall on May 16. Mahasen has since dissipated over eastern India. http://phys.org/news288020324.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 17 May 2013 14:50:04 EST news288020324 The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season was short-lived. Satellite imagery revealed that Tropical Storm Alvin became a remnant low pressure area 36 hours after it was named. http://phys.org/news288020298.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 17 May 2013 14:38:30 EST news288020298 Why Tibetan antelope can live at elevations of 4,000-5,000m on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau? In a collaborative research published in Nature Communications, investigators from Qinghai University, BGI, and other institutes provide evidence that some genetic factors may be associated with the species' adaption to harsh highland environments. The data in this work will also provide implications for studying specific genetic mechanisms and the biology of other ruminant species. http://phys.org/news288007367.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 17 May 2013 11:04:19 EST news288007367 Short, sharp fluctuations in the Earth's climate throughout the last ice age may have stopped trees from getting a foothold in Europe and northern Asia, scientists say. http://phys.org/news287997336.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 17 May 2013 09:00:01 EST news287997336 The massive ball of iron sitting at the center of Earth is not quite as "rock-solid" as has been thought, say two Stanford mineral physicists. By conducting experiments that simulate the immense pressures deep in the planet's interior, the researchers determined that iron in Earth's inner core is only about 40 percent as strong as previous studies estimated. http://phys.org/news287996395.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Fri, 17 May 2013 08:00:12 EST news287996395 Earthquakes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters often showcase the worst in human suffering – especially when those disasters strike populations who live in rapidly growing communities in the developing world with poorly enforced or non-existent building codes. http://phys.org/news287944058.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 17:27:45 EST news287944058 (Phys.org) —The distortion of the ancient shoreline and flooding surface of the U.S. Atlantic Coastal Plain are the direct result of fluctuations in topography in the region and could have implications on understanding long-term climate change, according to a new study. http://phys.org/news287944022.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 17:27:11 EST news287944022 NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA's GOES-15 satellite captured imagery of the Eastern Pacific Ocean's first named tropical storm, Alvin. Aqua and GOES-15 provided imagery of Alvin that provided a look at the overall storm and the temperatures of its cloud tops. http://phys.org/news287943860.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 17:24:26 EST news287943860 NASA's TRMM satellite identified areas of heavy rainfall as Cyclone Mahasen made landfall today, May 16, in southern Bangladesh. NASA's Aqua satellite also captured an image of the storm and showed the extent of Cyclone Mahasen's clouds over three countries. http://phys.org/news287943802.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 17:23:29 EST news287943802 Russian explorers headed home Thursday after proving it is possible to drive from Russia to Canada across the North Pole, in buses with bloated tires over drifting ice, using a pickaxe to clear the way. http://phys.org/news287936452.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 15:20:58 EST news287936452 A new study suggests that the previous connections scientists made between ancient shoreline height and ice volumes are erroneous and that perhaps our ice sheets were more stable in the past than we originally thought. The study found that the Earth's hot mantle pushed up segments of ancient shorelines over millions of years, making them appear higher now than they originally were millions of years ago. http://phys.org/news287930644.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:17 EST news287930644 While 99 percent of Earth's land ice is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, the remaining ice in the world's glaciers contributed just as much to sea rise as the two ice sheets combined from 2003 to 2009, says a new study led by Clark University and involving the University Colorado Boulder. http://phys.org/news287930762.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 14:00:07 EST news287930762 A deadly earthquake in the Italian town of L'Aquila in 2009 which killed 309 people "was not unforeseeable", a judge said Thursday, reigniting a heated scientific debate over whether experts should have warned the population beforehand. http://phys.org/news287928901.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 13:15:21 EST news287928901 (Phys.org) —Semi-precious minerals found in a bucket of sand from an island nation have cracked open a clue to the drifting movements and break-up of ancient Earth's massive continental plates. http://phys.org/news287911393.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Thu, 16 May 2013 08:24:13 EST news287911393 (Phys.org) —The eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula, a finger of the southern polar continent that juts toward South America, has experienced summer warming of perhaps a half-degree per decade – a greater rate than possibly anywhere else on Earth – in the last 50 years, and that warming is largely attributed to human causes. http://phys.org/news287850627.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 15 May 2013 15:30:37 EST news287850627 Tropical Cyclone Mahasen has been strengthening and expanding as it moves through the northern Bay of Bengal for a landfall on Thursday, May 16. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the cyclone as it was hugging the central India coastline. Rainfall data from NASA's TRMM satellite was compiled in an animation to reveal large rainfall totals as the storm tracked through the Bay of Bengal earlier this week. http://phys.org/news287850126.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 15 May 2013 15:22:39 EST news287850126 The Hurricane Season of the Eastern Pacific Ocean officially begins today, May 15 and the first tropical depression of the season formed. Tropical Depression One-E was seen by NASA's Aqua satellite while it was developing. http://phys.org/news287849831.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 15 May 2013 15:17:33 EST news287849831 A UK-Canadian team of scientists has discovered ancient pockets of water, which have been isolated deep underground for billions of years and contain abundant chemicals known to support life. http://phys.org/news287825062.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 15 May 2013 13:00:06 EST news287825062 Weather forecasters have a tougher job predicting winter conditions over Europe in some years over others, concludes a new study carried out by the National Oceanography Centre. http://phys.org/news287835403.html Space & Earth - Earth Sciences Wed, 15 May 2013 11:16:48 EST news287835403