News tagged with geologic ages

LAMIS -- a green chemistry alternative for laser spectroscopy

At some point this year, after NASA's rover Curiosity has landed on Mars, a laser will fire a beam of infrared light at a rock or soil sample. This will "ablate" or vaporize a microgram-sized piece of the ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 01, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Sediments from the Enol lake reveal more than 13,500 years of environmental history

A team of Spanish researchers have used different geological samples, extracted from the Enol lake in Asturias, to show that the Holocene, a period that started 11,600 years ago, did not have a climate as ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (7) | comments 1

A new theory emerges for where some fish became four-limbed creatures

A small fish crawling on stumpy limbs from a shrinking desert pond is an icon of can-do spirit, emblematic of a leading theory for the evolutionary transition between fish and amphibians. This theorized image ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Dec 27, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (8) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Seeking a pot of geological gold

Researchers are moving a step closer to solving one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time. It happened roughly 200 million years ago, marking the boundary between the Triassic and Jurassic periods, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 16, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 3

Humans and climate contributed to extinctions of large ice-age mammals, study finds

the woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, bison, and musk ox -- is the subject of a study by an international group of scientists investigating how climate fluctuations and human activity ...

Biology / Ecology

created Nov 02, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Research team suggests European Little Ice Age came about due to reforestation in New World

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team comprised of geological and environmental science researchers from Stanford University has been studying the impact that early European exploration had on the New World and have found evidence that ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 17, 2011 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (13) | comments 19 | with audio podcast report

Long-lost Lake Agassiz offers clues to climate change

Not long ago, geologically speaking, a now-vanished lake covered a huge expanse of today's Canadian prairie. As big as Hudson Bay, the lake was fed by melting glaciers as they receded at the end of the last ice age. At its ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 05, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Climate played big role in Vikings' disappearance from Greenland

The end of the Norse settlements on Greenland likely will remain shrouded in mystery. While there is scant written evidence of the colony's demise in the 14th and early 15th centuries, archaeological remains ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created May 30, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Newly discovered drumlin field provides answers about glaciation and climate

The landform known as a drumlin, created when the ice advanced during the Ice Age, can also be produced by today's glaciers. This discovery, made by researchers from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 16, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

End of an Era: New Ruling Decides the Boundaries of Earth's History

After decades of debate and four years of investigation an international body of earth scientists has formally agreed to move the boundary dates for the prehistoric Quaternary age by 800,000 years, reports the Journal of ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Sep 22, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Humans 'damaging the oceans': research

Mounting evidence that human activity is changing the world's oceans in profound and damaging ways is outlined in a new scientific discussion paper released today.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Jul 29, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (10) | comments 14

Gullies on Mars show tantalizing signs of recent water activity

(PhysOrg.com) -- Planetary geologists at Brown University have found a gully fan system on Mars that formed about 1.25 million years ago. The fan offers compelling evidence that it was formed by melt water ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 02, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (19) | comments 15

Census of modern organisms reveals echo of ancient mass extinction

Paleontologists can still hear the echo of the death knell that drove the dinosaurs and many other organisms to extinction following an asteroid collision at the end of the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Feb 05, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (14) | comments 0

New Ice Age maps point to climate change patterns

(PhysOrg.com) -- New climate maps of the Earth’s surface during the height of the last Ice Age support predictions that northern Australia will become wetter and southern Australia drier due to climate change.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jan 19, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (10) | comments 3