Sun experiences seasonal changes, new research finds

A number of NASA instruments captured detailed images of this coronal mass ejection on August 31, 2012. Although CMEs can damage sensitive technological systems, this one just struck a glancing blow to Earth's atmosphere. New research has identified quasi-annual variations in solar activity, which may help experts better forecast CMEs and potentially damaging space weathers. (Image courtesy NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.) The sun undergoes...

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Discovering missing body parts of ancient fossils

Certain specimens of Dickinsonia, a fossil of the Ediacaran biota, are incomplete because ancient currents lifted them from the sea floor, a team of researchers led by paleontologists at the University of California, Riverside, has found. Sand then got deposited beneath the lifted portion, the researchers report, strongly suggesting that Dickinsonia was mobile, easily separated from the sea floor and not attached to the substrate on which...

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SCIENTISTS SEE DEEPER YELLOWSTONE MAGMA DATE: APRIL 23, 2015

A new University of Utah study in the journal Science provides the first complete view of the plumbing system that supplies hot and partly molten rock from the Yellowstone hotspot to the Yellowstone supervolcano. The study revealed a gigantic magma reservoir beneath the previously known magma chamber. This cross-section illustration cutting southwest-northeast under Yelowstone depicts the view revealed by seismic imaging. Seismologists say...

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Conservation works: Forests for water in eastern Amazonia

Image of Xingu watershed collected by the Envisat/MERIS satellite in May of 2006 by the European Space Agency (ESA). A new study published in the Journal of Hydrology led by Woods Hole Research Center scientist Prajjwal Panday found that large protected areas in the Xingu River Basin have helped shield this Amazonian watershed from the effects observed in its less-protected neighbor, the Araguaia-Tocantins.Full St...

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Climate connections: Examining climate changes of the past

Rapid climate change influenced marine ecosystems off the coast of Venezuela tens of thousands of years ago and was accompanied by simultaneous changes globally. In common parlance, the phrase "global climate change" is often used to describe how present-day climate is changing in response to human activities. But climate has also varied naturally and sometimes quite rapidly in the past, with implications for the ocean and its ecosystems. This...

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1. SCIENTISTS DISCOVER ELUSIVE SECRET OF HOW CONTINENTS FORMED

Esteban Gazel, a geoscientist at Virginia Tech, collects samples of lava in a variety of locations, in this case Etna, Italy, to probe the chemical evolution of the planet. v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE ...

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