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Tag: geology

  • Scientists Find 6-Million-Year-Old Air Trapped in Earth’s Oldest Known Ice

    Science likes to travel far in search of new phenomena, but nature keeps reminding us that, really, we’ve yet to discover many things much closer to us. That was a clear lesson for researchers who dug up the oldest ice on record—an ancient piece of Earth’s geological history from roughly 6 million years ago.

    For a paper published on October 28 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Center for Oldest Ice Exploration, or COLDEX, describes the enigmatic composition of a 6-million-year-old ice core collected from the Allan Hills, a family of frigid hills in southeastern Antarctica. By carefully studying the composition of tiny air bubbles, permafrost, and other frozen deposits inside, the researchers derived an impressive reconstruction of Earth’s atmosphere from millions of years into the past.

    The samples present “discontinuous climate ‘snapshots’ that are much older and extend back into a much warmer interval in Earth’s history,” Sarah Shackleton, study lead author and a geophysicist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told Gizmodo in an email.

    The newest core is almost two times older than the previously oldest discontinuous ice core on record, dated at about 2.7 million years old, according to the paper.

    Frozen time machines

    Ice cores, as their name suggests, are solid, typically cylindrical samples drilled from ice sheets. East Antarctica harbors some of the oldest ice in the world, although reaching it requires drilling up to 6,500 feet (2,000 meters) underground—while, of course, abiding by international guidelines for environmental preservation.

    “Traditionally, the deeper you drill, the older the ice gets,” Shackleton said, “but things are a bit more complicated at the Allan Hills, where very old ice outcrops at the surface.”

    A photograph of the Allan Hills in Antarctica, where the researchers retrieved the ice cores. Credit: Julia Marks Peterson/COLDEX Collaboration

    To be exact, the Allan Hills are very windy and cold, which enables older ice to persist nearer to the surface, at about 300 to 650 feet (100 to 200 meters), but also makes in-person expeditions very difficult, she added. Still, the team managed to retrieve three new ice cores over several years of camping out at Allan Hill for months at a time.

    A window to the past

    Once they collected the cores, the team took detailed measurements of the isotopes of argon for the trapped air bubbles inside the samples. This allowed the researchers to pin down the age of each sample. They also used laser spectroscopy to identify different oxygen isotopes in the meltwater, which revealed that the area corresponding to today’s Allan Hills experienced a gradual, long-term decrease in temperatures of about 22 degrees F (12 degrees C).

    There was, however, one sample, dirty basal ice, that was basically gas-free. This made it impossible to date, Shackleton said. But analysis of the water isotopes for this sample suggests it formed at a much warmer temperature, and its position just below the oldest-dated sample strongly suggests it could be even older than 6 million years.

    Basal Ice Sample Oldest Ice Antarctica
    One of the ice samples was essentially gas-free, making it impossible for the researchers to directly date. Credit: COLDEX Collaboration

    “Given that it’s gas-free, it’s likely refrozen liquid water,” Shackleton said. “We’ve speculated about what it represents and what it can tell us about the past conditions at this site, but it’s still somewhat of a mystery.”

    Overall, the findings demonstrate the potential of ice cores in investigating and reconstructing climates long past—a critical insight, especially for warmer periods, since they could guide how scientists approach natural climate change. Either way, Shackleton and her colleagues are already at work to find how else ice cores may have frozen geological information in time.

    “We think we’ve just scratched the surface of what’s possible, and much more data is forthcoming, both new measurements and new cores,” she said. “Based on what we’ve found so far, we think there may be even older ice out there to discover.”

    Gayoung Lee

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  • PHOTOS: 66 million-year-old dinosaur ‘mummy’ skin was actually a perfect clay mask

    In the badlands of eastern Wyoming, the Lance Formation is a trove of prehistoric fossils. And one area in particular — a region less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) across — has provided scientists with at least half a dozen remarkably well-preserved dinosaur specimens complete with details of scaly skin, hooves and spikes.The paleontologist Dr. Paul Sereno and his colleagues dub it “the mummy zone” in a new study that aims to explain why this particular area has given rise to so many amazing finds and define exactly what a dinosaur “mummy” is.In the early 1900s, a fossil hunter named Charles Sternberg found two specimens of a large duck-billed dinosaur, Edmontosaurus annectens, in the Lance Formation. The skeletons were so pristine that Sternberg, along with H.F. Osborn, a paleontologist at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, could make out what appeared to be large swaths of skin with discernible scales and a fleshy crest that seemed to run along the reptile’s neck.Sereno, lead study author and a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, described the initial discovery as “the greatest dinosaur mummy — until maybe the juvenile that we found” in the year 2000.Separated by nearly a century, Sereno and his team’s find shared common traits with Sternberg’s: The skeletons were preserved in three-dimensional poses and showed clear evidence of skin and other attributes that don’t usually survive 66 million years in the ground. “Osborn said in 1912 he knew that it wasn’t actual, dehydrated skin, like in Egyptian mummies,” Sereno said. “But what was it?”Whatever it was, “we actually didn’t know how it was preserved,” he said. “It was a mystery.”The new research puts that mystery to rest and can help paleontologists find, recognize and analyze future mummy finds for tiny clues into how giant dinosaurs really looked.A dinosaur death cast in claySereno and his collaborators used CT scanning, 3D imaging, electron microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy to analyze two Edmontosaurus mummies they discovered in the Lance Formation in 2000 and 2001 — a juvenile and a young adult. “We looked and we looked and we looked, we sampled and we tested, and we didn’t find any” remnants of soft tissue, Sereno said.What the team found instead was a thin layer of clay, less than one-hundredth of an inch thick, which had formed on top of the animals’ skin. “It’s so real-looking, it’s unbelievable,” he said.Whereas Sternberg and Osborn referred to the “impression” of skin in their specimens, Sereno’s paper proposes an alternate term — “rendering” — which he argues is more precise.The study lays out the conditions that would produce such a rendering. In the Late Cretaceous Period, when Edmontosaurus roamed what is now the American West, the climate cycled between drought and monsoon rains. Drought has been determined to have been the cause of death of the original mummy found by Sternberg and described by Osborn, and of other animals whose fossils were found nearby. Assuming the same is true of the new specimens, the carcasses would have dried in the sun in a week or two.Then, a flash flood buried the bodies in sediment. The decaying carcasses would have been covered by a film of bacteria, which can electrostatically attract clay found in the surrounding sediment. The wafer-thin coating of clay remained long after the underlying tissues decayed completely, retaining their detailed morphology and forming a perfect clay mask.“Clay minerals have a way of attracting to and sticking onto biological surfaces, ensuring a molding that can faithfully reproduce the outermost surfaces of a body, such as skin and other soft tissues,” said Dr. Anthony Martin, professor of practice in the department of environmental sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, who was not involved in the research. “So it makes sense that these clays would have formed such fine portraits of dinosaurs’ scales, spikes and hooves.”Dr. Stephanie Drumheller-Horton, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who also was not involved in the study, is an expert in taphonomy, which she described as “the study of everything that happens to an organism from when it dies until when we find it.” She is particularly interested in how these fossils formed.“Dinosaur mummies have been known for over one hundred years, but there has definitely been more emphasis on describing their skin and less on understanding how they fossilized in the first place,” she said via email. “If we can understand how and why these fossils form, we can better target where to look to potentially find more of them.”A detailed portrait of a duck-billed dinosaurTogether, the two more recently unearthed mummies allowed Sereno and his team to create a detailed update of what Edmontosaurus probably looked like.According to their analyses, the dinosaur, which could grow to over 12 meters (40 feet) long, had a fleshy crest along the neck and back and a row of spikes running down the tail. The creature’s skin was thin enough to produce delicate wrinkles over the rib cage and was dotted with small, pebble-like scales.The clay mask revealed that the animal had hooves, a trait previously preserved only in mammals. That makes it the oldest land animal proven to have hooves and the first known example of a hoofed reptile, Sereno said. “Sorry, mammals, you didn’t invent it,” he joked. “Did we suspect it? Yeah, we suspected it had a hoof from the footprints, but seeing it is believing.”

    In the badlands of eastern Wyoming, the Lance Formation is a trove of prehistoric fossils. And one area in particular — a region less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) across — has provided scientists with at least half a dozen remarkably well-preserved dinosaur specimens complete with details of scaly skin, hooves and spikes.

    The paleontologist Dr. Paul Sereno and his colleagues dub it “the mummy zone” in a new study that aims to explain why this particular area has given rise to so many amazing finds and define exactly what a dinosaur “mummy” is.

    In the early 1900s, a fossil hunter named Charles Sternberg found two specimens of a large duck-billed dinosaur, Edmontosaurus annectens, in the Lance Formation. The skeletons were so pristine that Sternberg, along with H.F. Osborn, a paleontologist at New York’s American Museum of Natural History, could make out what appeared to be large swaths of skin with discernible scales and a fleshy crest that seemed to run along the reptile’s neck.

    Sereno, lead study author and a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago, described the initial discovery as “the greatest dinosaur mummy — until maybe the juvenile that we found” in the year 2000.

    Separated by nearly a century, Sereno and his team’s find shared common traits with Sternberg’s: The skeletons were preserved in three-dimensional poses and showed clear evidence of skin and other attributes that don’t usually survive 66 million years in the ground. “Osborn said in 1912 he knew that it wasn’t actual, dehydrated skin, like in Egyptian mummies,” Sereno said. “But what was it?”

    Whatever it was, “we actually didn’t know how it was preserved,” he said. “It was a mystery.”

    The new research puts that mystery to rest and can help paleontologists find, recognize and analyze future mummy finds for tiny clues into how giant dinosaurs really looked.

    A dinosaur death cast in clay

    Sereno and his collaborators used CT scanning, 3D imaging, electron microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy to analyze two Edmontosaurus mummies they discovered in the Lance Formation in 2000 and 2001 — a juvenile and a young adult. “We looked and we looked and we looked, we sampled and we tested, and we didn’t find any” remnants of soft tissue, Sereno said.

    What the team found instead was a thin layer of clay, less than one-hundredth of an inch thick, which had formed on top of the animals’ skin. “It’s so real-looking, it’s unbelievable,” he said.

    Whereas Sternberg and Osborn referred to the “impression” of skin in their specimens, Sereno’s paper proposes an alternate term — “rendering” — which he argues is more precise.

    The study lays out the conditions that would produce such a rendering. In the Late Cretaceous Period, when Edmontosaurus roamed what is now the American West, the climate cycled between drought and monsoon rains. Drought has been determined to have been the cause of death of the original mummy found by Sternberg and described by Osborn, and of other animals whose fossils were found nearby. Assuming the same is true of the new specimens, the carcasses would have dried in the sun in a week or two.

    Then, a flash flood buried the bodies in sediment. The decaying carcasses would have been covered by a film of bacteria, which can electrostatically attract clay found in the surrounding sediment. The wafer-thin coating of clay remained long after the underlying tissues decayed completely, retaining their detailed morphology and forming a perfect clay mask.

    “Clay minerals have a way of attracting to and sticking onto biological surfaces, ensuring a molding that can faithfully reproduce the outermost surfaces of a body, such as skin and other soft tissues,” said Dr. Anthony Martin, professor of practice in the department of environmental sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, who was not involved in the research. “So it makes sense that these clays would have formed such fine portraits of dinosaurs’ scales, spikes and hooves.”

    Dr. Stephanie Drumheller-Horton, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who also was not involved in the study, is an expert in taphonomy, which she described as “the study of everything that happens to an organism from when it dies until when we find it.” She is particularly interested in how these fossils formed.

    “Dinosaur mummies have been known for over one hundred years, but there has definitely been more emphasis on describing their skin and less on understanding how they fossilized in the first place,” she said via email. “If we can understand how and why these fossils form, we can better target where to look to potentially find more of them.”

    A detailed portrait of a duck-billed dinosaur

    Together, the two more recently unearthed mummies allowed Sereno and his team to create a detailed update of what Edmontosaurus probably looked like.

    According to their analyses, the dinosaur, which could grow to over 12 meters (40 feet) long, had a fleshy crest along the neck and back and a row of spikes running down the tail. The creature’s skin was thin enough to produce delicate wrinkles over the rib cage and was dotted with small, pebble-like scales.

    mummified dinosaur

    The clay mask revealed that the animal had hooves, a trait previously preserved only in mammals. That makes it the oldest land animal proven to have hooves and the first known example of a hoofed reptile, Sereno said. “Sorry, mammals, you didn’t invent it,” he joked. “Did we suspect it? Yeah, we suspected it had a hoof from the footprints, but seeing it is believing.”

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  • Easter Island’s Moai Statues May Have Walked to Where They Now Stand

    Easter Island statues, traditionally known as moai on the remote island of Rapa Nui in the South Pacific, are some of the most impressive artifacts of ancient Polynesian civilization. How the statues were transported has long remained a conundrum, because they can weigh up to several tons yet are scattered throughout the island. Various theories have been proposed, including that they were dragged on wooden sleds or rolled along the ground, but no supportive evidence has backed those claims.

    In 2012, a US research team succeeded in propping up a 4.35-ton replica of a moai statue and making it “walk.” The technique, in which two teams using ropes tugged the statue in opposite directions to teeter it forward while a third team ensured it wouldn’t topple over, challenged the conventional theories that moai were moved in a horizontal position.

    The question then is how much effort it would have taken to move much larger moai. “Once the moai are in motion, it’s not at all difficult,” explained Carl Lipo, an anthropologist at Binghamton University.

    Lipo and his team systematically surveyed 962 moai statues on Easter Island, focusing primarily on 62 found along ancient roads. They recently published a paper providing strong evidence that moai were transported in an upright position.

    The team also succeeded in moving an exact replica of roadside moai 100 meters in 40 minutes with only 18 people, a far more efficient result than those of previous experiments.

    Researchers demonstrate how the Rapa Nui people may have “walked” moai.

    Rules of the Road

    The study discovered that moai statues positioned along Rapa Nui’s roads have common characteristics. The broad D-shaped base and forward leaning design of the statues optimized the moai for “walking,” even as they increased in size. In fact, moai abandoned by the side of the road were found to have imbalanced centers of gravity and show signs of toppling over during transport.

    This hypothesis is also supported by the ancient roads themselves, which are approximately 4.5 meters wide and have slightly concave cross-sections. Researchers believe these were ideal conditions to aid in stabilizing the moai as they were walked.

    A statistical analysis of the distribution of moai showed 51.6 percent were concentrated within 2 km of the quarry where they originated, demonstrating an exponential decay pattern associated with mechanical failure rather than deliberate ceremonial placement. It’s likely these statues were damaged or fell over during transport and left where they lay.

    Ritsuko Kawai

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  • When Non-Avian Dinosaurs Went Extinct, the Earth Changed—Literally. Scientists Think They Finally Know Why

    Rocks formed immediately before and after non-avian dinosaurs went extinct are strikingly different, and now, tens of millions of years later, scientists think they’ve identified the culprit—and it wasn’t the Chicxulub asteroid impact.

    In a study published Monday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, researchers argue that dinosaurs physically influenced their surroundings so dramatically that their disappearance led to stark changes to the Earth’s landscape, and, in turn, the geologic record.

    Specifically, their mass extinction—an event known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (or K-Pg) mass extinction—enabled dense forests to grow, stabilizing sediments, and shaping rivers with broad meanders, or curves.

    “Very often when we’re thinking about how life has changed through time and how environments change through time, it’s usually that the climate changes and, therefore, it has a specific effect on life, or this mountain has grown and, therefore, it has a specific effect on life,” Luke Weaver, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.

    “It’s rarely thought that life itself could actually alter the climate and the landscape. The arrow doesn’t just go in one direction.”

    An artistic rendering of how a landscape may have changed after most dinosaurs went extinct. © Julius Csotonyi

    River deposits, not pond deposits

    Weaver and his colleagues concentrated their studies on the Williston Basin, which spreads throughout parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota; and the Bighorn Basin, in north-central Wyoming. Williston Basin’s Fort Union Formation dates to after non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, and features colorful rock layers that Weaver described as resembling pajama stripes. Beneath the Fort Union Formation are water-rich soils similar to a floodplain’s outer edges.

    Past research has posited that the colorful layers are evidence of pond deposits from rising sea levels. But the team’s new investigation, however, revealed that “the pajama stripes actually weren’t pond deposits at all. They’re point bar deposits, or deposits that form the inside of a big meander in a river,” Weaver said.

    “So instead of looking at a stillwater, quiet setting, what we’re actually looking at is a very active inside of a meander,” he explained.

    Above and below these river deposits were layers of a kind of coal created by plant matter, which the team thinks formed thanks to the stabilizing effect of thick forests, which can prevent rivers from frequent flooding. Stable rivers don’t distribute clay, silt, and sand across a floodplain, so the organic remains mostly pile up instead.

    The iridium anomaly

    The researchers then turned to what is called the iridium anomaly—a layer of rock rich in the element iridium—which deposited over parts of our planet when the Chicxulub asteroid struck Earth. As such, the iridium anomaly represents the K-Pg boundary.

    At Bighorn Basin, Weaver analyzed samples from a thin line of red clay between the dinosaur-era formation and the subsequent mammal-era formation. “Lo and behold, the iridium anomaly was right at the contact between those two formations, right where the geology changes,” Weaver said.

    “That discovery convinced us that this isn’t just a phenomenon in the Williston Basin. It’s probably true everywhere throughout the Western Interior of North America.”

    Iridium Anomaly
    Weaver pointing out the iridium anomaly in layers of rock. © Luke Weaver/University of Michigan

    Still, the researchers were puzzled as to why. They suspected that dinosaurs had somehow shaped their environment such that it influenced the geology, but it was only after weaver stumbled across a series of talks about how living animals like elephants shape their ecosystems that the team finally had its “lightbulb moment.” These ancient reptiles must have been the “ecosystem engineers” of their time.

    “Dinosaurs are huge. They must have had some sort of impact on this vegetation,” Weaver said.

    He and his colleagues argue that when non-avian dinosaurs were alive, they flattened vegetation and, as a result of their sheer size, affected the tree cover, likely shaping sparse, weedy landscapes with scattered trees. This would have meant that rivers without wide meanders may have flooded frequently. In the wake of their mass extinction, however, forests thrived, stabilized sediments, built point bars, and structured rivers.

    “To me, the most exciting part of our work is evidence that dinosaurs may have had a direct impact on their ecosystems,” said Courtney Sprain, a co-author on the study.

    “Specifically, the impact of their extinction may not just be observable by the disappearance of their fossils in the rock record, but also by changes in the sediments themselves.”

    Earth clearly felt the loss of the dinosaurs in more ways than one. I, however, am glad that Tyrannosaurus Rex doesn’t exist anymore (and don’t even get me started on the Meraxes Gigas).

    Margherita Bassi

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  • Multiple earthquakes slam Russian coastline

    Minor earthquakes have continued rattling the Kamchatka region of Russia in the aftermath of a massive 7.8 magnitude temblor that struck the area on Thursday, with aftershocks from 4.5 to 5.5 magnitude throughout Friday.

    Why It Matters

    Three moderate earthquakes struck off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula early Monday, shaking one of the world’s most geologically volatile regions. Kamchatka borders the Pacific Ring of Fire, and the region has endured a number of recent quakes just two months after getting slammed by one packing an 8.8 magnitude.

    The activity culminated in Thursday’s quake, which briefly triggered warnings of a tsunami, although no such event occurred. However, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that Hawaii had no expected threat of a tsunami despite a Pacific-wide warning.

    Thursday’s quake struck around 80 miles off the Russian coast, at a depth of 6 miles. Other officials reported tsunami waves of around 1 to 2 feet high at various points along the peninsula’s edge.

    An infographic shows the Pacific Ocean where tsunami advisories of various levels were issued after an 8.8 magnitude quake off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula on July 30.

    John Saeki/AFP via Getty Images

    What To Know

    Aftershocks further disrupted the Kamchatka region, with a fresh one occurring virtually every hour throughout Friday.

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recorded 14 seismic activities during the last 12 hours. The agency reviewed and confirmed all of them, with no reports of immediate damage or injury.

    As of Friday evening ET, several hours had passed with no further quakes and tsunami warnings were not issued.

    The clustered timing and proximity of the quakes suggested a possible sequence of related seismic disturbances. Experts have yet to confirm whether they represent a pattern or independent ruptures along the same fault zone.

    Where Is Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia?

    Kamchatka, along the volatile Pacific Ring of Fire, is among Russia‘s most seismically active regions.

    Perched on the edge of Avacha Bay in the Russian Far East, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the capital of Kamchatka Krai and one of the world’s most isolated major cities, accessible only by air or sea.

    The port city is surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes and rugged terrain, adding to its seismic vulnerability inside a tectonically active zone. But despite its isolation, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky remains a hub for scientists and tourists.

    What Happens Next

    Seismologists will continue monitoring the region for aftershocks and analyze the sequence for patterns that could indicate increased risk. Any further quakes could present a threat to the U.S. with tsunamis that could strike Alaska or Hawaii.

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  • Unbelievable facts

    Unbelievable facts

    Earth’s magnetic field was about twice as strong during Roman times as it is now, based on…

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  • Tarr details ‘new threat’ to Salisbury Beach

    Tarr details ‘new threat’ to Salisbury Beach

    SALISBURY — Standing before a smattering of local officials at Blue Ocean Music Hall, state Sen. Bruce Tarr detailed what he called a “new threat” to Salisbury Beach.

    Joined by town environmental consultant Tom Hughes and Town Manager Neil Harrington on Monday, the Gloucester Republican said the northern part of the beach is in serious danger of massive overwash.

    Overwash is the flow of water and sediment over a coastal dune or beach crest during storms.

    “The damage will be exponentially worse than what we’ve seen so far. And importantly, it will make the cost of remediation substantially higher, if it’s even within reach. This area of the beach is extremely vulnerable and it compels our action,” Tarr said.

    The Senate minority leader’s speech was billed as the latest attempt to stave off severe, ongoing erosion at Salisbury Beach.

    After a few minutes, Hughes took the microphone and elaborated on the latest threat.

    “That overwash elevation is a little bit above 15 feet above sea level,” Hughes said.

    Until last fall, according to Hughes, all of the dunes exceeded that elevation. But now there is a 1,200-foot stretch of the northern beach that is in the 13- to 14-foot range.

    “This is what would happen if nothing is done is we would get a significant overwatch event, a sustained storm that essentially just flattens the barrier and exposes 1A and all of the homes behind it to risk,” Hughes said, referring to Route 1A (North End Boulevard).

    The fix Hughes has been working on with Tarr would come in two phases. Phase one would look to restore the dunes to an elevation of 17 feet above sea level. The estimated cost would be $1.75 million.

    “It’s a very small project. It would need to be maintained until we can do a phase two,” Hughes said.

    The phase two project would bring the elevation up to 19 feet and extend the volume out further towards the water.

    “That requires more significant permitting,” Hughes said.

    The total cost for both phases would be approximately $6 million.

    “For us to be able to act, we have to be concerned about the shorebirds that will soon be on the beach, or at least there’s the potential for them to be on the beach, which presents a significant constraint in our ability to do work,” Tarr said.

    Tarr said to secure Salsibury Beach it will take the cooperation of various parties, including the Merrimack River Beach Alliance, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, state legislators, town officials, federal legislators, local stakeholders, United States Army Corps of Engineers, Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Transportation and other state regulatory agencies.

    “We cannot address this situation properly without everyone being at the table, and we think that we have set the stage with all the work that’s been done and all that you’ve heard today for us to have a productive path and one that will avoid significant damage,” Tarr said.

    Asked where the funding would come from, he said it would come from a number of sources, including the Salisbury Beach Preservation Trust Fund.

    The Salisbury Beach Preservation Trust Fund was the idea in 2008 of former state Sen. Steven Baddour, who worked with then-state Rep. Michael Costello, D-Newburyport, to make it a law. Baddour and Costello undertook that task after devastating storms ravaged Salisbury Beach three years in a row, including the Patriots Day storm of 2008, which scoured sand from the beach that is owned and maintained by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.

    “That’s in the near term, and in the long term we hope to cobble together the resources to have a sustainable beach. And again, our federal partners have identified some very promising sources,” Tarr said.

    Tarr emphasized that one of the big reasons the beach is such an urgent issue is that it protects Route 1A.

    “One-A is the subject of a planned project for reconstruction that literally is going to cost millions of dollars, so there’s a transportation component here, and we’re exploring the synergy potentially between investment in the road and investment in the beach that protects it,” Tarr said.

    Route 1A is also an emergency route for the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station.

    Regarding a timeline for securing funding, Tarr did not provide specifics but stated that for this initial short-term solution they would need to have it done by mid-June.

    “That means getting dollars fast, that means executing emergency contracts, that means mobilizing equipment,” Tarr said.

    He said he has continued to have in-depth conversations with Gov. Maura Healey.

    “She has walked this beach. She was instrumental in getting three access points restored after they were damaged by a storm not all that long ago. She knows what we face, and we’re all trying to work together to find a path forward,” Tarr said.

    Harrington shared that he hoped Healey is paying attention.

    “We are here to plead with the governor to listen to the citizens of Salisbury, to follow the science about what’s going on here at the beach, and to work with our legislative delegation to get this critical, immediate funding for the beach,” Harrington said.

    Erosion at Salisbury Beach has been going on for some time, dating back to December 2022 when the initial damage from nor’easter Elliott occurred.

    Local leaders first learned during a Salisbury Beach Resiliency Subcommittee meeting May 4 that the Department of Conservation and Recreation had shut down Points 8, 9 and 10 for a year due to beach erosion caused by the nor’easter. Points 9 and 10 were reopened the Friday before Memorial Day, with point 8 restored just before the Fourth of July.

    By Matt Petry | mpetry@northofboston.com

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  • Why the East Coast Earthquake Covered So Much Ground

    Why the East Coast Earthquake Covered So Much Ground

    Friday morning at around 10:30 local time, a magnitude 4.8 earthquake popped three miles below Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. Though nowhere near the magnitude of the West Coast’s monster quakes, the seismic waves traveled hundreds of miles, jostling not just nearby New York City, but Philadelphia and Boston and Washington, DC. The United States Geological Survey is urging the region to prepare for aftershocks of smaller magnitude.

    For a region not accustomed to earthquakes, it was a jolt. Its wide-ranging impact turns out to be not a quirk, but a byproduct of the East Coast’s unique geology of ancient fault lines and rock composition.

    “Earthquakes in this region are uncommon, but not unexpected,” said seismologist Paul Earle, of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center, on a press call Friday. “Earthquakes on the East Coast are felt much farther—four or five times farther—than a similar earthquake on the West Coast.”

    Back in 2011, for instance, people felt the shock of a 5.8 quake in Virginia from up to 600 miles away, whereas a 6.8 a few years later in Napa, California—which produced twice as much energy—traveled less than half that distance. Given how much more densely populated the East Coast is than the West Coast, that means a whole lot of people over a much wider area will feel at least a little shaking, even if the magnitude is significantly smaller than something like a Loma Prieta earthquake, which devastated the Bay Area in 1989.

    Jostled East Coasters can blame the geology underneath their feet. On the West Coast, a vast web of faults pop off all the time along an active plate boundary, sending shocks across the landscape. “We have new faults forming, we have old faults taking on strain and rupturing in big earthquakes,” says Columbia University structural geologist Folarin Kolawole.

    But when an earthquake happens in a given fault, there are neighboring faults through which the energy is distributed. Basically, because the western US has so many faults along an active plate, it has a lot of channels to absorb earthquake energy—subterranean shock-absorbers, of sorts.

    While the USGS hasn’t yet pinpointed the exact fault responsible for today’s earthquake, it occurred in a region where the fault system is more static than on the West Coast. It appears an inactive fault was reactivated Friday morning under New Jersey, somewhere in the Ramapo fault system.

    The relative stability of the East Coast fault system is due to its geological age: Its rocks formed hundreds of millions of years before rocks on the West Coast. Geologically speaking, the East Coast is a quiet old man, while the West Coast is a rambunctious teenager.

    “We don’t have that tectonic complexity on the East Coast,” says Gregory Mountain, a geophysicist at Rutgers University. “We had it in the geologic past, hundreds of millions of years ago, but things are pretty well solidified—is one way to call it—and stabilized. For that reason, on the East Coast, seismic energy could actually probably travel quite a bit farther and have less energy loss with distance.”

    Matt Simon

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  • Divided panel calls for shift away from natural gas

    Divided panel calls for shift away from natural gas


    BOSTON — A divided state commission is calling for more aggressive steps to shift Massachusetts away from its reliance on natural gas for energy, but it’s not clear if state lawmakers will take up any of the proposed changes.

    In a report to the state Legislature, the Gas System Enhancement Working Group takes more steps to shift the state’s utilities away from installing gas infrastructure in the state. In some cases, the changes include only those to one or two words in the state laws on fixing gas leaks.

    But the panel, which included state regulators, environmental groups, labor leaders and representatives of utility companies, was unable to reach a consensus on many of the proposed regulatory changes.

    One proposal called for a shift from “replacement” to “repair” of leak-prone natural gas lines, which proponents argued would save ratepayers money and accelerate the state’s transition from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other renewable energy. But the utility panelists voted against in opposition, arguing that it would compromise safety and exceed the working group’s mandate.

    “A shift in policy that prioritizes repair over replacement does not reduce the risk that leak-prone pipes pose to people, property, and the environment,” they wrote in a summary of the report. “Both cast iron and cathodically unprotected steel will continue to pose concerns as they age.”

    The panel was created under a 2014 state law that requires utilities to track and grade all gas leaks on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being most serious, and immediately repair the most hazardous.

    The panel’s report noted that Massachusetts gas companies are spending more than $800 million a year installing new gas mains to replace aging leak-prone pipes. The new pipes have a lifespan of 50 years and will be paid for by energy consumers in the form of higher rates, they noted.

    But the report’s authors said estimates suggest utilities will spend $34 billion on new gas infrastructure, which would not be fully paid for until 2097. They noted that as more properties are retrofitted with heat pumps to replace gas, fewer customers will be on the gas distribution system.

    “However, that gas system will still have the same number of miles of pipe, with the same fixed maintenance costs,” Audrey Schulman, a panelist and director of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Cambridge nonprofit, wrote in a summary of the report. “These maintenance costs will be shouldered by fewer and fewer gas customers, making the customers overall gas bills increase.”

    Schulman said the state is “wasting money and time now by installing long-lived combustion infrastructure, while knowing that combustion is going away.”

    “Instead we are investing significantly and actively in the gas and electric system at the same time, without thinking through how to synergize the work to reduce the cost and increase the speed,” she wrote.

    “It is as though we are taking out a mortgage to replace the foundation on our horse’s stable, even after we’ve ordered an electric car,” Schulman added.

    Massachusetts utilities are under increasing pressure to employ alternatives to natural gas to comply with requirements of a climate change bill approved last year that requires the state to reduce its emissions to “net-zero” of 1990 levels by 2050.

    Meanwhile, environmental groups have been prodding the state to force utilities to move away from new natural gas infrastructure as the state seeks to diversify its energy portfolio to include solar, wind and other renewable sources of power.

    But industry officials argue the state will continue to need natural gas for a large portion of its energy, even as it turns to more renewable sources.

    Roughly half of New England’s energy comes from natural gas, according to ISO New England, which oversees the regional power grid.

    Critics have also noted the pocketbook costs to consumers from replacing natural gas infrastructure in homes and businesses.

    Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.



    By Christian M. Wade | Statehouse Reporter

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  • Research sheds new light on Moon rock formation, solving major puzzle in lunar geology

    Research sheds new light on Moon rock formation, solving major puzzle in lunar geology

    Newswise — The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals a key step in the genesis of these distinctive magmas.  A combination of high temperature laboratory experiments using molten rocks, together with sophisticated isotopic analyses of lunar samples, identify a critical reaction that controls their composition.

    This reaction took place in the deep lunar interior some three and a half billion years ago, involving exchange of the element iron (Fe) in the magma with the element magnesium (Mg) in the surrounding rocks, modifying the chemical and physical properties of the melt.  

    Co-lead author Tim Elliott, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, said: “The origin of volcanic lunar rocks is a fascinating tale involving an ‘avalanche’ of an unstable, planetary-scale crystal pile created by the cooling of a primordial magma ocean. 

    “Central to constraining this epic history is the presence of a magma type unique to the Moon, but explaining how such magmas could even have got to the surface, to be sampled by Space missions, has been a troublesome problem. It is great to have resolved this dilemma.”

    Surprisingly high concentrations of the element titanium (Ti) in parts of the lunar surface have been known since the NASA Apollo missions, back in the 1960s and 1970s, which successfully returned solidified, ancient lava samples from the Moon’s crust. More recent mapping by orbiting satellite shows these magmas, known as ‘high-Ti basalts’, to be widespread on the Moon.

    “Until now models have been unable to recreate magma compositions that match essential chemical and physical characteristics of the high-Ti basalts. It has proven particularly hard to explain their low density, which allowed them to be erupted some three and a half billion years ago,” added co-lead author Dr Martijn Klaver, Research Fellow at the University of Münster Institute of Mineralogy.

    The international team of scientists, led by the Universities of Bristol in the UK and Münster in Germany managed to mimic the high-Ti basalts in the process in the lab using high-temperature experiments.  Measurements of the high-Ti basalts also revealed a distinctive isotopic composition that provides a fingerprint of the reactions reproduced by the experiments.

    Both results clearly demonstrate how the melt-solid reaction is integral in understanding the formation of these unique magmas. 

    Paper

    ‘Titanium-rich basaltic melts on the Moon modulated by reactive flow processes’ by Martijn Klaver et al in Nature Geoscience

    University of Bristol

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  • Some mosquitoes like it hot

    Some mosquitoes like it hot

    Newswise — Certain populations of mosquitoes are more heat tolerant and better equipped to survive heat waves than others, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

    This is bad news in a world where vector-borne diseases are an increasingly global health concern. Most models that scientists use to estimate vector-borne disease risk currently assume that mosquito heat tolerances do not vary. As a result, these models may underestimate mosquitoes’ ability to spread diseases in a warming world.

    Researchers led by Katie M. Westby, a senior scientist at Tyson Research Center, Washington University’s environmental field station, conducted a new study that measured the critical thermal maximum (CTmax), an organism’s upper thermal tolerance limit, of eight populations of the globally invasive tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. The tiger mosquito is a known vector for many viruses including West Nile, chikungunya and dengue.

    “We found significant differences across populations for both adults and larvae, and these differences were more pronounced for adults,” Westby said. The new study is published Jan. 8 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

    Westby’s team sampled mosquitoes from eight different populations spanning four climate zones across the eastern United States, including mosquitoes from locations in New Orleans; St. Augustine, Fla.; Huntsville, Ala.; Stillwater, Okla.; St. Louis; Urbana, Ill.; College Park, Md.; and Allegheny County, Pa.

    The scientists collected eggs in the wild and raised larvae from the different geographic locations to adult stages in the lab, tending the mosquito populations separately as they continued to breed and grow. The scientists then used adults and larvae from subsequent generations of these captive-raised mosquitoes in trials to determine CTmax values, ramping up air and water temperatures at a rate of 1 degree Celsius per minute using established research protocols.

    The team then tested the relationship between climatic variables measured near each population source and the CTmax of adults and larvae. The scientists found significant differences among the mosquito populations.

    The differences did not appear to follow a simple latitudinal or temperature-dependent pattern, but there were some important trends. Mosquito populations from locations with higher precipitation had higher CTmax values. Overall, the results reveal that mean and maximum seasonal temperatures, relative humidity and annual precipitation may all be important climatic factors in determining CTmax.

    “Larvae had significantly higher thermal limits than adults, and this likely results from different selection pressures for terrestrial adults and aquatic larvae,” said Benjamin Orlinick, first author of the paper and a former undergraduate research fellow at Tyson Research Center. “It appears that adult Ae. albopictus are experiencing temperatures closer to their CTmax than larvae, possibly explaining why there are more differences among adult populations.”

    “The overall trend is for increased heat tolerance with increasing precipitation,” Westby said. “It could be that wetter climates allow mosquitoes to endure hotter temperatures due to decreases in desiccation, as humidity and temperature are known to interact and influence mosquito survival.”

    Little is known about how different vector populations, like those of this kind of mosquito, are adapted to their local climate, nor the potential for vectors to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. This study is one of the few to consider the upper limits of survivability in high temperatures — akin to heat waves — as opposed to the limits imposed by cold winters.

    “Standing genetic variation in heat tolerance is necessary for organisms to adapt to higher temperatures,” Westby said. “That’s why it was important for us to experimentally determine if this mosquito exhibits variation before we can begin to test how, or if, it will adapt to a warmer world.”

    Future research in the lab aims to determine the upper limits that mosquitoes will seek out hosts for blood meals in the field, where they spend the hottest parts of the day when temperatures get above those thresholds, and if they are already adapting to higher temperatures. “Determining this is key to understanding how climate change will impact disease transmission in the real world,” Westby said. “Mosquitoes in the wild experience fluctuating daily temperatures and humidity that we cannot fully replicate in the lab.”

    Washington University in St. Louis

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  • Local lens, global impact: Mini park tackles big climate worries

    Local lens, global impact: Mini park tackles big climate worries

    Newswise — Palm Springs Downtown Park is an inviting 1.5-acre urban oasis for residents and visitors to Palm Springs, a design-forward desert destination nestled along the base of the San Jacinto Mountains along the southwestern boundary of the Coachella Valley in California’s Sonoran Desert of the USA. The site lies in the ancestral homeland of the Agua Caliente band of the Cahuilla people who seasonally migrated between the shady palm groves and meltwater creeks of mountain canyons in summer and the hot springs and temperate climate of the valley floor in winter. The park is also located on the historic site of the Desert Inn, Palm Springs’ first wellness resort. Nellie Coffman, the Desert Inn’s founder, famously promoted the “space, stillness, solitude, and simplicity” of Palm Springs, and the park is imbued with her spirit. Drawing inspiration from local natural features such as the oases of endemic California fan palms (Washingtonia filifera) in Palm Canyon and the striated geology of nearby Tahquitz Canyon, the park design creates hospitable, comfortable spaces for the community in the extreme heat of the desert. The park features dense palm grove planting with ample shaded areas for seating, two picnicking and event lawns, rock outcrop-like amphitheater seating for community events, shade structures inspired by palm fronds, and a grotto-like interactive water feature for play and cooling. Locally sourced stone, native desert plantings, and creature comforts create a common ground rooted in a hyperlocal use of materials to create a sense of place for the diverse, growing community of Palm Springs and its visitors

    Frontiers

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  • Separating out signals recorded at the seafloor

    Separating out signals recorded at the seafloor

    Newswise — Blame it on plate tectonics. The deep ocean is never preserved, but instead is lost to time as the seafloor is subducted. Geologists are mostly left with shallower rocks from closer to the shoreline to inform their studies of Earth history.

    “We have only a good record of the deep ocean for the last ~180 million years,” said David Fike, the Glassberg/Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. “Everything else is just shallow-water deposits. So it’s really important to understand the bias that might be present when we look at shallow-water deposits.”

    One of the ways that scientists like Fike use deposits from the seafloor is to reconstruct timelines of past ecological and environmental change. Researchers are keenly interested in how and when oxygen began to build up in the oceans and atmosphere, making Earth more hospitable to life as we know it.

    For decades they have relied on pyrite, the iron-sulfide mineral known as “fool’s gold,” as a sensitive recorder of conditions in the marine environment where it is formed. By measuring the bulk isotopic composition of sulfur in pyrite samples — the relative abundance of sulfur atoms with slightly different mass — scientists have tried to better understand ancient microbial activity and interpret global chemical cycles.

    But the outlook for pyrite is not so shiny anymore. In a pair of companion papers published Nov. 24 in the journal Science, Fike and his collaborators show that variations in pyrite sulfur isotopes may not represent the global processes that have made them such popular targets of analysis.

    Instead, Fike’s research demonstrates that pyritte responds predominantly to local processes that should not be taken as representative of the whole ocean. A new microanalysis approach developed at Washington University helped the researchers to separate out signals in pyrite that reveal the relative influence of microbes and that of local climate.

    For the first study, Fike worked with Roger Bryant, who completed his graduate studies at Washington University, to examine the grain-level distribution of pyrite sulfur isotope compositions in a sample of recent glacial-interglacial sediments. They developed and used a cutting-edge analytical technique with the secondary-ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) in Fike’s laboratory.

    “We analyzed every individual pyrite crystal that we could find and got isotopic values for each one,” Fike said. By considering the distribution of results from individual grains, rather than the average (or bulk) results, the scientists showed that it is possible to tease apart the role of the physical properties of the depositional environment, like the sedimentation rate and the porosity of the sediments, from the microbial activity in the seabed.

    “We found that even when bulk pyrite sulfur isotopes changed a lot between glacials and interglacials, the minima of our single grain pyrite distributions remained broadly constant,” Bryant said. “This told us that microbial activity did not drive the changes in bulk pyrite sulfur isotopes and refuted one of our major hypotheses.”

    “Using this framework, we’re able to go in and look at the separate roles of microbes and sediments in driving the signals,” Fike said. “That to me represents a huge step forward in being able to interpret what is recorded in these signals.”

    In the second paper, led by Itay Halevy of the Weizmann Institute of Science and co-authored by Fike and Bryant, the scientists developed and explored a computer model of marine sediments, complete with mathematical representations of the microorganisms that degrade organic matter and turn sulfate into sulfide and the processes that trap that sulfide in pyrite.

    “We found that variations in the isotopic composition of pyrite are mostly a function of the depositional environment in which the pyrite formed,” Halevy said. The new model shows that a range of parameters of the sedimentary environment affect the balance between sulfate and sulfide consumption and resupply, and that this balance is the major determinant of the sulfur isotope composition of pyrite.

    “The rate of sediment deposition on the seafloor, the proportion of organic matter in that sediment, the proportion of reactive iron particles, the density of packing of the sediment as it settles to the seafloor — all of these properties affect the isotopic composition of pyrite in ways that we can now understand,” he said.

    Importantly, none of these properties of the sedimentary environment are strongly linked to the global sulfur cycle, to the oxidation state of the global ocean, or essentially any other property that researchers have traditionally used pyrite sulfur isotopes to reconstruct, the scientists said.

    “The really exciting aspect of this new work is that it gives us a predictive model for how we think other pyrite records should behave,” Fike said. “For example, if we can interpret other records — and better understand that they are driven by things like local changes in sedimentation, rather than global parameters about ocean oxygen state or microbial activity — then we can try to use this data to refine our understanding of sea level change in the past.”

    Washington University in St. Louis

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  • Study examines link between underwater landslides and tsunamis

    Study examines link between underwater landslides and tsunamis

    Newswise — COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists have calculated a way to determine the speed of past underwater landslides, a new study has found. 

    Researchers from The Ohio State University studied the remains of an underwater landslide just off the coast of Oregon – dubbed the 44-N Slide – that is part of the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ). 

    Stretching from Vancouver Island in Canada to Cape Mendocino in Northern California, the CSZ is a dipping fault line that has been the source of some of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded. These quakes can result in underwater (also known as submarine) landslides, which can lead to tsunamis. 

    Now, using properties measured from distortions in the seafloor near the 44-N Slide, researchers have developed a novel approach for analyzing the risk that underwater landslides may trigger deadly tsunamis. 

    Previous research showed that large blocks from the 44-N Slide dropped down 1,200 meters at a 13-degree slope, and slid 10 kilometers horizontally before it finally came to a standstill. The researchers in this study investigated the shape and volume of the rock structures in the area where it was deposited, creating what’s called a “deformation zone.”  

    Their findings showed that the 44-N Slide was estimated to be moving at 60 meters per second during its fall, and impacted the seafloor with so much force that it created a 275-meter thick and 10-kilometer-long region of contorted and deformed seafloor sediment. Because of its velocity, it also likely could have been “tsunamigenic,” meaning it was powerful enough to have generated a huge tsunami on its own, though it’s unclear if that particular instance did.

    Researchers are unsure when the 44-N Slide might have occurred.

    “Just like on land, submarine landslides happen when giant masses of rock and sediment fall,” said Derek Sawyer, co-author of the study and an associate professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University. “They can be really dangerous to people if they create tsunamis, which is why we want to understand how, when and why they form.”

    The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

    Despite being a relatively common occurrence, known instances of tsunamigenic slides have been extremely limited. Moreover, discerning the type of underwater landslide and whether that event could cause such a disaster can be a challenging task – mainly because researchers are only able to interpret how fast these landslides travel from the deposits they leave behind, said Sawyer.  

    The minimum velocity needed for an underwater landslide to trigger a tsunami is still unconfirmed, Sawyer said. One piece of evidence is the Storegga Slides, a series of landslides that occurred in the Norwegian Sea over a period of thousands of years, which were estimated to have a speed of between 35-60 meters per second. It caused such massive tsunamis that some scientists believed it to be responsible for washing away the land bridge between Great Britain and the rest of Europe.

    The 1929 Grand Banks Earthquake also triggered underwater landslides and turbidity flows that moved between 15-30 meters per second, and caused tsunami waves so high that they destroyed a number of coastal communities. The underwater landslides themselves ripped apart underwater communication cables connecting the U.S. and Europe.

    “Submarine landslides can sometimes move so fast that they cause infrastructure damage to the global internet cables that line the ocean floor, as well as trigger and even amplify earthquake-caused tsunamis,” said Sawyer. 

    Nevertheless, both the Storegga Slides and the Grand Banks Earthquake served as a fount of knowledge for researchers striving to more closely examine the complexities behind these seismic-induced phenomena.

    “Because of the timing of the cable breaks, scientists could back-calculate how fast those flows were going, which was the first time we’d ever been able to do that in the marine environment,” said Sawyer. “The severity of these events, like how big the tsunami is or how dangerous it is, is tightly tied to how fast the landslide moves.”

    Deciphering how past landslides played out is vital, not only for protecting underwater cables, but also for people living on coastlines and policymakers who guide emergency response plans in response to tsunamis, said Sawyer. 

    After all, getting a better grip on the mechanics of underwater landslides could give the public time to prepare for the hazards they cause. But without better seafloor imaging technologies, past slides and threats from future ones could remain undetected, said Sawyer. 

    “We’re a long way off from really being able to predict with any degree of certainty what style of a landslide is likely to happen in the event of an earthquake,” he said. “But this type of study helps us understand the entire range of possible outcomes.”

    The techniques highlighted in the paper will also be made available to researchers interested in modeling underwater landslide deformation zones in other parts of the world. 

    This work was supported by the National Science Foundation. Other Ohio State co-authors were Ph.D student Brandi L. Lenz, now at Texas A&M University, and W. Ashley Griffith, an associate professor in earth sciences. 

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    Ohio State University

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  • Dr. Jennifer Lotz Appointed Space Telescope Science Institute Director

    Dr. Jennifer Lotz Appointed Space Telescope Science Institute Director

    Newswise — The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jennifer Lotz as the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Dr. Lotz will begin her five-year appointment as STScI Director starting February 12, 2024. Previously, Dr. Lotz was the Director of the International Gemini Observatory, which is operated by NSF’s NOIRLab and managed by AURA.

    “Dr. Lotz is a science driven, accomplished leader,” said Dr. Matt Mountain, President of AURA, which manages STScI on behalf of NASA. “Jen’s passion for the Institute’s mission, to enable the science community in its exploration of the ground-breaking science coming from both JWST and Hubble, and her compelling vision, will ensure an exciting future as she leads STScI into a new era of space science.”

    Dr. Lotz was chosen from a pool of highly qualified candidates by a selection committee of respected leaders in the field of astronomy. Her proven leadership skills as Director of Gemini Observatory, her research experience, and her knowledge of the challenges the field of astronomy faces were some of the qualifications that led to her selection as STScI’s next Director.  The Chair of AURA’s Board of Directors, Dr. Maura Hagan, added, “The AURA Board of Directors is thrilled with the selection of Jennifer Lotz as the next STScI Director. She represents a new generation of scientific leadership.”

    Dr. Lotz will succeed Dr. Nancy Levenson, who served as STScI Interim Director since August 2022. “I welcome Jen’s new perspectives and look forward to working with her to advance STScI,” said Dr. Levenson, who will return to her former position as STScI Deputy Director. AURA extends thanks to Dr. Levenson for her service as Interim Director.

    Dr. Lotz received her Ph.D. in astrophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 2003 and specializes in galaxy evolution and morphology, the high-redshift universe, and gravitational lensing. Before her appointment as Gemini Director, she was a tenured associate astronomer at STScI with a joint appointment as a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University. She was also a Leo Goldberg Fellow at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz.

    “I am honored to be rejoining STScI as its next Director. The Institute’s work on Hubble and JWST has been an inspiration for the world,” commented Jen Lotz. “I am also excited to partner with NASA to drive forward a new era of scientific discovery with the new generation of space telescopes — JWST, Roman, and the Habitable Worlds Observatory.”

    Lotz is a leading expert in the field of galaxy mergers, and makes use of both ground-based and space-based telescopes to track the growth of galaxies over cosmic time. She led the Hubble Frontier Fields program, one of the largest programs undertaken with Hubble to detect the faintest, most distant galaxies seen at that time. She continues her study of galaxies at the edge of the universe as part of the JWST Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science team.

    The Space Telescope Science Institute is expanding the frontiers of space astronomy by hosting the science operations center of the Hubble Space Telescope, the science and mission operations centers for the James Webb Space Telescope, and the science operations center for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. STScI also houses the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) which is a NASA-funded project to support and provide to the astronomical community a variety of astronomical data archives, and is the data repository for the Hubble, Webb, Roman, Kepler, K2, TESS missions and more. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

    The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), founded in 1957, is a consortium of 49 US institutions and 3 international affiliates. Although it began as a small organization with just eight founding members, AURA is now a thriving scientific institution with 52 members and over 1,700 employees. AURA’s role is to establish, nurture, and promote public observatories and facilities that advance innovative astronomical research. In addition, AURA is deeply committed to public and educational outreach, and to diversity throughout the astronomical and scientific workforce.

    Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

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  • UT-Led Aerial Surveys Reveal Ancient Landscape Beneath East Antarctic Ice Sheet

    UT-Led Aerial Surveys Reveal Ancient Landscape Beneath East Antarctic Ice Sheet

    Newswise — AUSTIN, Texas — Long before Antarctica froze over, rivers carved valleys through mountains in the continent’s east. Millions of years later, researchers have discovered a remnant of this ancient highland landscape thanks to an aerial survey campaign led by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG).

    The findings were described by researchers at Durham University and Newcastle University, UK, and were published Oct. 24, 2023, in the journal Nature Communications.

    According to the research, the landscape of ancient valleys and ridges formed at least 14 million years ago. The find is unusual because the tremendous weight and motion of the overlying ice sheet should have ground it away.

    Finding such a well-preserved landscape from before the continent’s glaciation gives researchers a geologic reference point to measure how quickly the ice sheet grew and how rapidly it will melt, said coauthor Duncan Young, a UTIG research scientist. 

    “This landscape hanging out there in the middle of the basin is a little bit of an odd phenomenon,” he said. “We’re now working to answer why it was preserved and use that knowledge to find others.”

    Scientists are keen to learn about the land under Antarctica’s ice because it plays a vital role in the stability of the ice sheet. Some landscapes let ice flow rapidly to the ocean, others act to slow or bolster against intruding seawater. The land also records the history of how the ice sheet grew and retreated.

    The basin where the ancient landscape was found contains enough ice to raise global sea level by more than 25 feet. But less is known about the land under the ice than the surface of Mars, said the paper’s lead author Stewart Jamieson, a professor in the department of geography at Durham University.

    “And that’s a problem because that landscape controls the way that ice in Antarctica flows, and it controls the way it might respond to past, present and future climate change,” he said.  

    The more evidence researchers can find about how the ice sheet grew and retreated in the past the better they will understand how Antarctic ice will respond to ongoing global warming, he said.

    The discovery of the landscape was made using satellite data and radio-echo sounding techniques to map a region of land underneath the ice sheet measuring 32,000 square-kilometers (12,355 square-miles, about the size of the state of Maryland). It builds on previous work by researchers to map out hidden mountain ranges, canyon systems and lakes beneath the ice in Antarctica.  
     
    Although the landscape is not visible to the naked eye, satellite images captured over the region show small undulations of the ice sheet’s surface. The landscape’s existence was confirmed by UTIG-led aerial surveys that used ice-penetrating radar to see through the ice and map the shape of the land beneath the ice sheet.  
     
    The research team believes that there are other undiscovered, ancient landscapes hidden beneath the ice sheet. 

    More could soon be identified thanks to a long-term effort to map unexplored regions of East Antarctica by Young and his collaborators, who have flown hundreds of flights since 2008 using a modified, WWII-era DC-3, equipped with ice-penetrating radar and other instruments. 

    Those surveys helped in the latest discovery and could lead to many more as scientists continue to comb the data.

    “It’s a gift that keeps on giving,” said Young, who helped spearhead an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation to make the radar data available to the broader scientific community.
     
    The research behind the latest discovery was supported by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the G. Unger Vetlesen Foundation, NSF and NASA.

    Other UTIG co-authors include Senior Research Scientist Don Blankenship, who led the first stage of aerial surveys, and Shuai Yan, a graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences whose research turned up a lake hidden beneath the ice in another region of the basin. UTIG is a research unit of the Jackson School.

    Adapted from “Ancient landscape discovered beneath East Antarctic Ice Sheet” published Oct. 24, 2023, by Durham University.

    University of Texas at Austin, Jackson School of Geosciences

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  • Alpine rock reveals dynamics of plate movements in Earth’s interior

    Alpine rock reveals dynamics of plate movements in Earth’s interior

    Newswise — FRANKFURT. Geoscientists analyze rocks in mountain belts to reconstruct how they once moved downwards into the depths and then returned to the surface. This history of burial and exhumation sheds light on the mechanisms of plate tectonics and mountain building. Certain rocks that sink far down into Earth’s interior together with plates are transformed into different types under the enormous pressure that prevails there. During this UHP metamorphosis (UHP: Ultra High Pressure), silica (SiO2) in the rock, for example, becomes coesite, which is also referred to as the UHP polymorph of SiO2. Although it is chemically still silica, the crystal lattices are more tightly packed and therefore denser. When the plates move upwards again from the depths, the UHP rocks also come to the surface and can be found in certain places in the mountains. Their mineral composition provides information about the pressures to which they were exposed during their vertical journey through Earth’s interior. Using lithostatic pressure as a unit of measurement, it is possible to correlate pressure and depth: the higher the pressure, the deeper the rocks once lay.

    Until now, research had assumed that UHP rocks were buried at a depth of 120 kilometers. From there, they returned to the surface together with the plates. In the process, ambient pressure decreased at a stable rate, i.e. statically. However, a new study by Goethe University Frankfurt and the universities of Heidelberg and Rennes (France) calls this assumption of a long, continuous ascent into question. Among those involved in the study on the part of Goethe University Frankfurt were first author Cindy Luisier, who came to the university on a Humboldt Research Fellowship, and Thibault Duretz, head of the Geodynamic Modeling Working Group at the Department of Geosciences. The research team analyzed whiteschist from the Dora Maira Massif in the Western Alps, Italy. “Whiteschists are rocks that formed as a result of the UHP metamorphosis of a hydrothermally altered granite during the formation of the Alps,” explains Duretz. “What is special about them is the large amount of coesite. The coesite crystals in the whiteschist are several hundred micrometers in size, which makes them ideal for our experiments.” The piece of whiteschist from the Dora Maira Massif contained pink garnets in a silvery-white matrix composed of quartz and other minerals. “The rock has special chemical and thus mineralogical properties,” says Duretz. Together with the team, he analyzed it by first cutting a very thin slice about 50 micrometers thick and then gluing it onto glass. In this way, it was possible to identify the minerals under a microscope. The next step was computer modeling of specific, particularly interesting areas.

    These areas were silica particles surrounded by the grains of pink garnet, in which two SiO2 polymorphs had formed. One of these was coesite, which had formed under very high pressure (4.3 gigapascals). The other silica polymorph was quartz, which lay like a ring around the coesite. It had formed under much lower pressure (1.1 gigapascals). The whiteschist had evidently first been exposed to very high and then much lower pressure. There had been a sharp decrease in pressure or decompression. The most important discovery was that spoke-shaped cracks radiated from the SiO2 inclusions in all directions: the result of the phase transition from coesite to quartz. The effect of this transition was a large change in volume, and it caused extensive geological stresses in the rock. These made the garnet surrounding the SiO2 inclusions fracture. “Such radial cracks can only form if the host mineral, the garnet, stays very strong,” explains Duretz. “At such temperatures, garnet only stays very strong if the pressure drops very quickly.” On a geological timescale, “very quickly” means in thousands to hundreds of thousands of years. In this “short” period, the pressure must have dropped from 4.3 to 1.1 gigapascals. The garnet would otherwise have creeped viscously to compensate for the change in volume in the SiO2 inclusions, instead of forming cracks.

    According to Duretz, the previous assumption that UHP rock reaches a depth of 120 kilometers seems less probable in view of this rapid decompression because the ascent from such a depth would take place over a long period of time, which does not equate with the high decompression rate, he says. “We rather presume that our whiteschist lay at a depth of only 60 to 80 kilometers,” says the geoscientist. And the processes underway in Earth’s interior could also be quite different than assumed in the past. That rock units move continuously upwards over great distances, from a depth of 120 kilometers to the surface, also seems less probable than previously thought. “Our hypothesis is that rapid tectonic processes took place instead, which led to minimal vertical plate displacements.” We can imagine it like this, he says: The plates suddenly jerked upwards a little bit in Earth’s interior – and as a result the pressure surrounding the UHP rock decreased in a relatively short time.

    Goethe-Universitat Frankfurt am Main

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  • Source of largest Mars quake revealed

    Source of largest Mars quake revealed

    Newswise — The quake, which had a magnitude of 4.7 and caused vibrations to reverberate through the planet for at least six hours, was recorded by NASA’s InSight lander on May 4 2022. Because its seismic signal was similar to previous quakes known to be caused by meteoroid impacts, the team believed that this event (dubbed ‘S1222a’) might have been caused by an impact as well, and launched an international search for a fresh crater.

    Although Mars is smaller than Earth, it has a similar land surface area because it has no oceans. In order to survey this huge amount of ground – 144 million km2 – study lead Dr Benjamin Fernando of the University of Oxford sought contributions from the European Space Agency, the Chinese National Space Agency, the Indian Space Research Organisation, and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency. This is thought to be the first time that all missions in orbit around Mars have collaborated on a single project. Each group examined data from their satellites orbiting Mars to look for a new crater, or any other tell-tale signature of an impact (e.g. a dust cloud appearing in the hours after the quake).

    After several months of searching, the team announced today that no fresh crater was found. They conclude that the event was instead caused by the release of enormous tectonic forces within Mars’ interior. The results, published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, indicate that the planet is much more seismically active than previously thought.

    Dr Fernando said: ‘We still think that Mars doesn’t have any active plate tectonics today, so this event was likely caused by the release of stress within Mars’ crust. These stresses are the result of billions of years of evolution; including the cooling and shrinking of different parts of the planet at different rates. We still do not fully understand why some parts of the planet seem to have higher stresses than others, but results like these help us to investigate further. One day, this information may help us to understand where it would be safe for humans to live on Mars and where you might want to avoid!’

    He added: ‘This project represents a huge international effort to help solve the mystery of S1222a, and I am incredibly grateful to all the missions who contributed. I hope this project serves as a template for productive international collaborations in deep space.’

    Dr Daniela Tirsch, Science Coordinator for the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board the European Space Agency’s Mars Express Spacecraft said: ‘This experiment shows how important it is to maintain a diverse set of instruments at Mars, and we are very glad to have played our part in completing the multi-instrumental and international approach of this study.’

    From China, Dr Jianjun Liu (National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences) added: ‘We are willing to collaborate with scientists around the world to share and apply this scientific data to get more knowledge about Mars, and are proud to have provided data from the colour imagers on Tianwen-1 to contribute to this effort.’

    Dr Dimitra Atri, Group Leader for Mars at New York University Abu Dhabi and contributor of data from the UAE’s Hope Spacecraft, said: ‘This has been a great opportunity for me to collaborate with the InSight team, as well as with individuals from other major missions dedicated to the study of Mars. This really is the golden age of Mars exploration!’

    S1222a was one of the last events recorded by InSight before its end of mission was declared in December 2022. The team are now moving forward by applying knowledge from this study to future work, including upcoming missions to the Moon and Titan’s Moon Saturn.

    University of Oxford

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  • Studying Grand Canyon’s Past for Climate Insights

    Studying Grand Canyon’s Past for Climate Insights

    Newswise — The Grand Canyon’s valleys and millions of years of rock layers spanning Earth’s history have earned it a designation as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. But, according to a new UNLV and University of New Mexico study, its marvels extend to vast cave systems that lie beneath the surface, which just might hold clues to better understand the future of climate change — by studying nature’s past.

    A research team led by UNLV paleoclimatologist and Professor Matthew Lachniet that included the University of New Mexico Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Distinguished Professor Yemane Asmerom and Research Scientist Victor Polyak and other collaborators, studied an ancient stalagmite from the floor of an undisturbed Grand Canyon cave. By studying the mineral deposits’ geochemistry, they were able to analyze precipitation patterns during the rapidly warming period following the last Ice Age to improve understanding of the potential impact of future climate change on summer monsoon rains in the U.S. Southwest and northwestern Mexico.

    Their findings, “Elevated Grand Canyon groundwater recharge during the warm Early Holocene,” published Oct. 2 in Nature Geoscience, revealed that increasing levels of water seeped into the cave between 8,500 and 14,000 years ago, during a period known as the early Holocene when temperatures rose throughout the region. Using a paleoclimate model, the researchers determined that this was likely caused by intensified and expanded summer rainfall stemming from atmospheric impacts on air circulation patterns that more quickly melted the winter snowpacks and sped up the evaporation process that fuels monsoon rains. 

    This is significant, authors say, because most of the water currently infiltrating through the bedrock and into caves and aquifers — and contributing to groundwater recharge — comes from winter snowmelt. During the early Holocene, however, when peak temperatures were only slightly warmer than today, both summer and winter moisture contributed to groundwater recharge in the region.

    The authors suggest that future warming, which could cause temperatures to rise above those of the early Holocene, may also lead to greater rates of summer rainfall on the high-elevation Colorado Plateau and an intensifying North American monsoon, the pattern of pronounced and increased thunderstorms and precipitation that typically occur between June and mid-September.

    “What was surprising about our results is that during this past warm period, both the summer monsoon and infiltration into the cave increased, which suggests that summer was important for Grand Canyon groundwater recharge, even though today it is not an important season for recharge,” said Lachniet, who personally retrieved the stalagmite from a cave in the Redwall Formation on the South Rim of eastern Grand Canyon in 2017. “While we still expect the region to dry in the future, more intense summer rainfall may actually infiltrate into the subsurface more than it does today.”

    Stalagmites are common cave formations that act as ancient rain gauges that record historic climate change. They grow as mineral-rich waters seep through the ground above and drop from the tips of stalactites on cave ceilings. Calcite minerals from tiny drops of water accumulate over thousands of years and, much like tree rings, accurately record the rainfall history of an area. Three natural forms of oxygen are found in water, and the quantity of one form decreases as rainfall increases. This information is

    locked into the stalagmites over time. Because of the distinct difference in the oxygen isotope composition between summer and winter precipitation, it is possible to estimate the relative contributions from each season. Variation in uranium 234 isotope and changes in the growth thickness of stalagmite give indication of the change in the amount of precipitation. 

    “We were able to validate the oxygen record with the growth data, with the uranium isotope data to confirm that in fact, we see significant increases in summer moisture during this warm period, which we attribute is to the monsoon,” said Asmerom. “Obviously, we know things very precisely in terms of timing because we know how to date things. This is something that we are known for around the world using these methods”, Polyak added.

    The research team used stalagmite samples to reconstruct groundwater recharge rates — or the amount of water that penetrates the aquifers — in the Grand Canyon area during the early years of the Holocene period. High groundwater recharge rates likely occurred on other high-elevation plateaus in the region, too, they said, though it’s unclear how the activity applies to hotter, low-elevation deserts.   

    What is clear is that ongoing human-caused climate change is leading to hotter temperatures throughout southwestern North America, including the Grand Canyon region. Alongside population growth and agricultural pressures, this warming can reduce the infiltration of surface water into groundwater aquifers. Groundwater recharge rates also depend on the frequency and intensity of summer rains associated with monsoon season.

    Though summer infiltration isn’t a significant contributor to groundwater recharge in the region today, these latest findings suggest that could change in the future as the climate warms and monsoonal moisture increases. What’s unknown is how a projected decrease in winter precipitation and snowpack could impact overall groundwater reserves.

    In a previous study led by UNM’s Asmerom and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they found that the North American monsoon is likely to intensify with increased warming. But there were other, mostly model-based studies that suggested otherwise. The new study is consistent with Asmerom and colleagues’ previous study. 

    “Unfortunately, effective moisture is the balance between precipitation and evaporation. Unlike the more temperate Grand Canyon climate, the dry southern part, is likely to be drier, as a result of the increased temperatures,” said Asmerom.

    University of New Mexico

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  • First ever subduction zone research center to open, diversify geoscience workforce

    First ever subduction zone research center to open, diversify geoscience workforce

    BYLINE: Laurel Hamers, University Communications

    Newswise — The University of Oregon will lead a new multi-institution earthquake research center, which will receive $15 million from the National Science Foundation over five years to study the Cascadia subduction zone and bolster earthquake preparedness in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

    The Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center (CRESCENT) will be the first center of its kind in the nation focused on earthquakes at subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another. 

    The center will unite scientists studying the possible impacts of a major earthquake along the Cascadia subduction zone, an offshore tectonic plate boundary that stretches more than 1000 kilometers from southern British Columbia to northern California. It will advance earthquake research, foster community partnerships, and diversify and train the next generation geosciences work force. 

    “The main goal of the center is to bring together the large group of geoscientists working in Cascadia to march together to the beat of a singular drum,” said Diego Melgar, associate professor of earth sciences at the University of Oregon and the director of the new center. “The center organizes us, focuses collaboration, and identifies key priorities, rather than these institutions competing.”

    CRESCENT includes researchers from 16 institutions around the United States. University of Oregon earth scientists Valerie Sahakian and Amanda Thomas are University of Oregon lead investigators on the center alongside Melgar. The center also has co-investigators in its leadership from Oregon State University, Central Washington University, and the University of Washington. All participating institutions are listed below.

    The Cascadia subduction zone has a long history of spurring large earthquakes, but scientists have only started to realize its power within the last few decades. Research shows that the fault is capable of producing an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 or greater—and communities along the U.S. West Coast are ill-prepared for a quake this powerful. 

    Such an event would set off a cascade of deadly natural hazards in the Cascadia region, from tsunamis to landslides. It could cause buildings and bridges to collapse, disrupt power and gas lines, and leave water supplies inaccessible for months. 

    CRESCENT’S work can help mitigate that damage. Scientists in the center will use the latest technology—including high performance computing and artificial intelligence—to understand the complex dynamics of a major subduction zone earthquake. They’ll gather data and develop tools to better forecast specific local and regional impacts from a quake. That knowledge will help communities to better prepare, by improving infrastructure and nailing down more informed emergency plans. 

    “Modeling the shaking from California to Canada is a gigantic endeavor,” Sahakian said. “The center enables us to make bigger strides in models, products, and lines of research, to work with engineers to create better building codes and actionable societal outcomes.” 

    Subduction zones in the US are understudied compared to other kinds of faults, and create distinctive earthquake dynamics that still aren’t fully understood, Melgar said. So, the lessons learned from CRESCENT’s work could also be applied to subduction zones in Alaska, the Caribbean, and around the world.  

    Community collaboration will be a major part of the center’s work. The CRESCENT team will work with communities impacted by hazards, regularly soliciting their input to guide research priorities. And they’ll build connections with public agencies, tribal groups, and private industry, so that scientific advances from the center will get translated into community action and policy. 

    The center will also work to increase diversity in geosciences and train the next generation of geoscientists in the latest technologies. For example, it will engage with minority-serving and tribal high schools to raise interest in and create pathways to geoscience careers, and provide fieldwork stipends and year-round paid research assistantships to support undergraduate students.

    “The center will conduct research that is directly relevant to earthquake and tsunami hazards but too ambitious for any one scientist to take on individually,” said Thomas, the Chief Technical Officer for CRESCENT. “Our goal is to create community-endorsed research products that are immediately relevant for science and hazard estimates.”

    Building resiliency in the region to face off “The Big One” is a much greater task than any institution can undertake on its own, Melgar said. Through the collaboration, community engagement, and scientific advances that CRESCENT enables, the Cascadia region’s shaky foundations will be strengthened.

    CRESCENT participating institutions include: 

    University of Oregon
    Central Washington University
    Oregon State University
    University of Washington
    Cal Poly Humboldt
    Cedar Lake Research Group
    EarthScope Consortium
    Portland State University
    Purdue University
    Smith College
    Stanford University
    UC San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
    University of North Carolina-Wilmington
    Virginia Tech
    Washington State University
    Western Washington University

    About the College of Arts and Sciences
    The College of Arts and Sciences supports the UO’s mission and shapes its identity as a comprehensive research university. With disciplines in humanities and social and natural sciences, the College of Arts and Sciences serves approximately two-thirds of all UO students. The College of Arts and Sciences faculty includes some of the world’s most accomplished researchers, and the more than $75 million in sponsored research activity of the faculty underpins the UO’s status as a Carnegie Research I institution and its membership in the Association of American Universities.

    University of Oregon

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