New evidence about where a major earthquake struck central Washington State 145 years ago raises the possibility that today’s unusually frequent quakes in the area still echo that 1872 event.
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Posted inResearch Spotlights
Atmospheric Particles Aren’t the Same Cloud Seeds They Once Were
Still, more than half of the seeds required for cloud droplets to form in both the present-day and preindustrial atmospheres are made by trace gases that condense to form minute aerosol particles.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Ocean Showers Power the Global Electric Circuit
Satellite measurements confirm hundred-year-old observations collected by boat.
Posted inNews
Volcanic Woes May Have Contributed to Ancient Egypt’s Fall
Ice cores and ancient river records suggest that volcanic eruptions may have reduced the flow of the Nile River. Failures of the Nile floods that usually irrigated Egypt’s farms could have fed social unrest.
Posted inNews
How to Trigger a Massive Earthquake
Humans may be to blame for California’s second-largest 20th century earthquake, and a team of seismologists has now proposed how that could have happened.
Posted inEditors' Vox
Stories in the Soil
A series of field experiments in the U.S. Midwest is investigating how past, present, and future human activities and climate affect the health of soil.
Posted inNews
Sooty Bird Bellies Yield Insights into Historical Air Pollution
A new study mined museum collections to investigate just how sooty the air in the United States has been for the past 135 years.
Posted inScience Updates
An 1888 Volcanic Collapse Becomes a Benchmark for Tsunami Models
When volcanic mountains slide into the sea, they trigger tsunamis. How big are these waves, and how far away can they do damage? Ritter Island provides some answers.
Posted inOpinions
To Understand Future Solar Activity, One Has to Know the Past
Short-term funding strategies present serious problems for programs like solar activity studies, where observations and analysis span decades or longer.
Posted inNews
Giant Snails’ Century-Old Shells Recorded Monsoon Rainfall
Researchers explored past precipitation in India using shells from very large land snails collected there in 1918 and preserved in a British museum.