To understand the ancient movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, comprehensive magnetic and petrographic studies are needed to detect secondary magnetization in carbonates and other sedimentary rocks.
sediments
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Do Rivers Flow over Bedrock?
A study questions whether the hydraulics of rivers that lack loose sediments along their bottoms can be accurately depicted by standard equations for flow over sediment.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Iceberg Surge During Last Deglaciation May Have Had Two Pulses
Seafloor sediment cores provide new clues that could help clarify the influence of ice sheet collapse on a period of ocean cooling marked by slowed deepwater circulation.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
New Tool for Understanding Landscape Evolution in Drylands
Combining vegetation distribution models and sediment transport models offers a better understanding of how dryland environments change in response to different factors.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Dam Discharge Events Alter Water Flow in an Estuary in Spain
Three-year observations suggest that increased sediment concentrations inhibit vertical transfer of momentum between water layers for more than 2 months after a high-discharge event.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Mountain Range's History Preserved in Ocean Sediments
Fission track dating core samples from the Gulf of Alaska demonstrates that offshore sediments can be used to reconstruct a mountain range's changing exhumation patterns.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Fingerprinting the Source of Fore-Arc Fluids
A new model tracks boron and other tracers in fluids expelled from subducting slabs to help identify the fluids' source regions and migration routes.
Posted inNews
Déjà Vu? Ocean Warmth Melted Ancient West Antarctic Ice Shelf
Clues in seafloor sediments reveal that relatively warm water beneath western Antarctic ice shelves, a major factor in today's massive ice sheet retreat, also fueled some past ice loss.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Boulders Limit Transport of Sand and Gravel in Steep Rivers
Mountain rivers and streams actively reshape landscapes by eroding material from uplands and depositing it in lowlands. Scientists can now predict this transport in very steep streams.
Posted inScience Updates
Probing the History of New Zealand's Orakei Maar
A team of scientists drilled into the bed within a northern New Zealand explosion crater lake to gain insights into volcanic hazards and past climates.