On the desolate Antarctic peninsula, a colony of penguins creates a hub of biodiversity. One may ask, how exactly do those aquatic birds help maintain and enrich the variety of different kinds of organisms from plants and animals, to a wide range of insects and micro-organisms that live on our planet?

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The latest news on missions to search for ice and water beneath planetary surfaces....

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Clarisa Marambio, a soon-to-be graduate of the MPA in Environmental Science and Policy program, discusses her upbringing in Chile and how her two older sisters helped shape her interest in sustainability....

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It has been a while since we've had a giant explosive volcanic eruption, but Ruang off the coast of Indonesia's Sulawesi appears to have changed that....

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AWG Mid-Career Excellence Award Nomination Information

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On a ranch in the Texas hill country, members of The Planetary Society gathered to marvel at the 2024 total solar eclipse as a community....

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When stars explode, supernova-style, the explosion sets off streams of high energy particles across the universe, mainly protons and alpha particles, that after millions of years reach us here on Earth. Secondary cosmic rays pass through our bodies and almost everything around us, and they penetrate a few meters into the ground where they interact with atoms in soil and rock. This produces new isotopes called cosmogenic nuclides, in tiny but measurable quantities.

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You know what your hump day needs? Some absolute stunning photos of deep-sea animals. Look at this one. Look at that one. You gotta get yourself some of these deep-sea animals.

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Geologists are combing the New Jersey countryside for signs of earthquakes past and present....

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Each year, we honor Earth Day by sharing some amazing photos celebrating the beauty and magic of our planet from our campuses to the far corners of the world as captured by the Columbia community....

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In July 2021, the Benelux area, Germany, and France experienced heavy rainfall followed by mass flooding, causing widespread damage. Along the vast quantities of plastic swept along the riverbanks, Rahel Hauk, a researcher from Wageningen University, conducted fieldwork to assess the impact of the flood event on plastic deposition. Amidst the debris, Hauk and her colleagues noticed a large volume of specific plastic butter tubs. She noted them separately and over the following two years asked citizen scientists from the Schone Rivieren project who contribute to plastic deposition monitoring to do the same. Two years later, the extra data offered new insight into understanding plastic transport in rivers; a field that, particularly during floods, presents many unknowns.

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Laundry is the biggest source of microplastic fibers in our waterways. These Columbia researchers are working on a solution....

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The EGU General Assembly provides ground for formal presentations and sessions conveying a body of knowledge. However, science is so much more. It is a social process driven by shared values, such as openness and integrity, and established customs, like peer review. As such, working in science is inherently a collaborative effort, and the EGU supports that by giving participants plenty of opportunities to connect and interact with the diverse community. But how to make the most of it?

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Space science costs money. Here's why it's worth the investment....

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So, you've decided you want to become a marine biologist? Well, grab your snorkel, strap on your flippers, and prepare for a wild ride through the salty depths of academia! But fair warning: if you're expecting your days to be filled with dolphin cuddles and underwater tea parties with mermaids, you might want to reel in those expectations. Becoming a marine biologist is more than just playing with Nemo and friends--it's about diving deep into the unknown, navigating through murky research waters, and occasionally dodging the territorial advances of a particularly grumpy octopus. So, if you're ready to swap your land legs for sea legs and embark on a quest to unlock the secrets of the ocean, let's dive right in!

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A couple of followup notes related to last week's post about the news on El Vado Dam on the Rio Chama, crucial to water management on New Mexico's Rio Grande, thanks to my many alert and thoughtful Inkstain readers....

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Lately I've been going through my bookshelf and revisiting some memorable titles by and about geology, from the 1830s to today. Today I want to share three standout books of particular relevance to Oakland readers, all by the late Philip L. Fradkin (1935-2012). They constitute his "earthquake trilogy," published between 1998 and 2005. They all concern our particular place between the Pacific and North America plates. They've stuck in my mind for decades and still inform my approach in this blog.

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We need to end performative and ideological regulatory debates and strive for effective regulation that protects the public while encouraging innovation....

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The new ELI today continues our climate change series with 'Greenhouse effect in a bottle: how to simulate the effect of increased CO2 level on Earth's temperature'.

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Sugar Maple in Sica Hollow, northeasternmost South Dakota.For April's tree-following report I'm sticking with my strategy of following (learning about) South Dakota trees--helpful in preparing our guide to trees and shrubs of the state. This month I...

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There were two pieces of recent news which highlight why what was once most often referred to as global warming is now called climate change. Yes, the globe is heating up. But effects vary depending on where you live for various rea...

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In 1987 Grace, Lucas and Price Glacier on the northern end of South Georgia Island each reached tidewater. Each had retreated less than 100 m since 1976. This is a very cloudy region and clear satellite image views limited. Here we examine Landsat images from 2000 and 2016, and a Sentinel image from 2024 to identify changes.  Gordon et al., (2008) observed that larger tidewater and sea-calving valley and outlet glaciers generally remained in relatively advanced positions until the 1980's.  After 1980 most glaciers receded; many of these retreats have been dramatic including Twitcher, Herz, Ross, Hindle, Konig and Neumayer Glacier (Pelto, 2017).  

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For decades, the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (YPM) was a museum frozen in time, with no comprehensive updates to its paleontology halls since the 1950s. Then, around 2010, serious discussions began about overhauling the dinosaur and fossil mammal exhibits. Fundraising started in 2015, and in 2018, the museum announced that it had received a $160 million donation--enough to renovate not just the paleontology halls, but the entire museum. YPM closed its doors at the beginning of 2020, and on March 26 of this year, it reopened to the public once again.

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Every year EGU tries to provide more ways for people to interact with us and in 2021 we were delighted when one of our Artists in Residence Kelly Stanford, working together with members of our EDI Committee created a free colouring book! It was so popular that we decided to make two more, one with simpler drawings based on common Earth, planetary and space related concepts, nominally targeted at younger children (suggested around 8 and under), though actually it can be used by people of any age, and one that is more complicated based on photos from EGU's open access science image database: imaggeo!

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Why are we so disconnected from nature? Ecologist Carl Safina explores this issue in a lecture and new book about owls....

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