Cave formations offer highly resolved paleoclimate data that scientists plan to use to reconstruct California's ancient patterns of drought.
paleoclimatology & paleoceanography
Posted inResearch Spotlights
An Ancient Sea Once Separated the Pacific and Indian Oceans
Seafloor under the hypothesized East Asian Sea vanished 10 million years ago as surrounding plates swallowed it up, according to new reconstructions of plate tectonics in the Philippine Sea region.
Posted inScience Updates
Characterizing Superwarm Periods in Earth's History
DeepMIP Kickoff Meeting; Boulder, Colorado, 14–15 January 2016
Posted inNews
Bacteria Preserve Record of Earth's Magnetic Fields
Tiny yet stable magnetized particles created by microbes long ago could help scientists better determine the strength and orientation of ancient magnetic fields.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Reconstructing Catastrophic Floods on Earth and Mars
A new theoretical model suggests that ancient floods that carved canyons on Earth and Mars may have been much smaller but lasted longer than previously thought.
Posted inNews
Climate Warming May Have Helped Kill the Dinosaurs
New evidence indicates ancient warming spells that coincided with prodigious volcanism and a powerful meteorite impact, both seen as possible causes of mass extinctions about 66 million years ago.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Adapting Weather Forecasting Techniques to Paleoclimate Studies
First results of the Last Millennium Climate Reanalysis Project demonstrate the potential of the method to improve historical climate estimates by linking proxy data with climate models.
Posted inNews
"Sunken City" Was Really Made by Microbes
What scientists thought was a sunken Greek city turns out to be the fossils of an ancient hydrocarbon seep from several million years ago.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Curiosity Sends Curious Water Data from Mars
The rover's neutron spectroscopy instrument hints at an unexpected trend: The upper soil levels in the layers of Gale Crater's Kimberley formation seem to hold more water-associated hydrogen.
Posted inScience Updates
Paleofires and Models Illuminate Future Fire Scenarios
Advances in Interdisciplinary Paleofire Research: Data and Model Comparisons for the Past Millennium; Harvard Forest, Petersham, Massachusetts, 27 September to 2 October 2015