Stories indexed under: Geology

Total: 15   RSS feed

• Lava flows reveal clues to magnetic field reversals Sept. 25, 2008 Ancient lava flows are guiding a better understanding of what generates and controls the Earth's magnetic field - and what may drive it to occasionally reverse direction.
• Comet dust reveals unexpected mixing of solar system Sept. 18, 2008 Chemical clues from a comet's halo are challenging common views about the history and evolution of the solar system and showing it may be more mixed-up than previously thought.
• Ice Age lesson predicts a faster rise in sea level Sept. 2, 2008 If the lessons being learned by scientists about the demise of the last great North American ice sheet are correct, estimates of global sea level rise from a melting Greenland ice sheet may be seriously underestimated.
• Ebb and flow of the sea drives world’s big extinction events June 16, 2008 A new study, published online June 15 in the journal Nature, suggests that it is the ocean, and in particular the epic ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment over the course of geologic time, that is the primary cause of the world's periodic mass extinctions during the past 500 million years.
• Ancient mineral shows early Earth climate tough on continents June 13, 2008 A new analysis of ancient minerals called zircons suggests that a harsh climate may have scoured and possibly even destroyed the surface of the Earth's earliest continents.
• Facility gives geology department new dimension April 28, 2008 A geoscience visualization lab that opened last week in Weeks Hall will add a new dimension to geology research and education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
• Recent sightings: Seismometer image of Midwest earthquake April 18, 2008
• UW Geology Museum receives more than $100,000 in minerals March 19, 2008 In its 160-year existence, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Geology Museum has never before received a mineral donation like the one recently given by retired UW-Madison electrical engineering Professor R.A. Greiner.
• Geology professor drills into earth-shaking questions Jan. 30, 2008 Two months aboard an ocean-going ship might sound like a luxurious vacation. With 16-hour workdays amid the clamorous hubbub of an industrial drilling rig, however, Harold Tobin’s recent voyage was far from relaxing. Tobin, an associate professor in the geology department, sailed last fall into the western Pacific in a quest to peer into the heart of one of the most active earthquake zones on the planet.
• Arsenic contamination lacks one-size-fits-all remedy Dec. 10, 2007 Though a worldwide problem, arsenic contamination of drinking water does not have a universal solution, recent work by UW-Madison researchers has shown.
• Deep-sea drilling expedition off Japan seeks earthquake, tsunami causes Nov. 12, 2007 Harold Tobin is interested in deep scientific questions, whose answers lie thousands of meters underwater. The UW-Madison geologist studies deep oceanic earthquake faults, which extend miles into the Earth’s crust below the seafloor, to learn what causes earthquakes and tsunamis.
• Synthetic garnets made by Chancellor Wiley displayed at Geology Museum July 24, 2007 In a small, freestanding case near the entrance of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Geology Museum, you might notice a familiar name next to two faintly yellow gems.
• Recent sightings: Science learning with a big bang July 15, 2007
• With a big assist from NASA, UW-Madison launches astrobiology push May 31, 2007 With the help of a $6.5 million grant from NASA, Wisconsin researchers will join the hunt for extraterrestrial life and early life on Earth by developing techniques and instruments to read the chemical signatures living organisms leave in rocks and minerals.
• Curiosities: If we think the continents were at some point all connected, how did they separate? May 11, 2007 Question submitted by Abbie Stroup, seventh grader at Sennett Middle School.