Water Reservoir Inside Earth

A massive reservoir of water three times the volume of Earth's oceans has been discovered 700 km down inside the mantle locked within a blue rock called ringwoodite, with the liquid "sweating" out of the mineral due to the great pressures and temperatures.

Oldest Piece of Earth's Crust

Using uranium decay dating methods, a 4.4 billion-year-old zircon crystal found in the Jack Hills region of Western Australia has been confirmed as the oldest known fragment of Earth's crust, evidence of solid crust formation soon after Earth's formation itself and quickly following the impact that produced the Moon.

Younger Dryas Asteroid Impact

Scientists have found mounting evidence of unique mineral signatures in North America and Greenland soil samples indicating an asteroid impact near modern-day Quebec about 12,900 years ago, corresponding to archaeological global climate cooling and the most recent ice age known as the Younger Dryas.

Moon and Earth Water Source

New analysis of the hydrogen-deuterium ratios in samples brought back on the Apollo missions shows the residual water left in the lunar soil is of an identical origin to that found on Earth, implying water was already present on Earth at the formation of the Moon 4.5 billion years ago.

Oldest Crater Found in Greenland

Geologists have discovered evidence of Earth's oldest known impact crater centered along the western coast of Greenland, the remains of an asteroid 30 km in diameter smashing into the surface about 3 billion years ago and creating a crater 25 km deep and 600 km wide.

Remnants of War in Beach Sand

Geologists have discovered small shrapnel grains, rounded iron beads and fragments of glass in the sand of Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, remnants of the D-Day invasion of World War II only now revealed under a scanning electron microscope.

Geologic Cause for Cambrian Life

New research suggests a dramatic sedimentary boundary named the "Great Unconformity" of about 600 million years ago represents a shift in geologic conditions resulting in continental weathering of rock exposed by retreating seas, leading to biomineralization and the sudden great diversity of life known as the Cambrian Explosion and the emergence of hard shells and skeletons.

New Class of Landform on Mars

Images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed a new class of geologic landform named periodic bedrock ridges on the surface of Mars, a structure similar to sand dunes but formed by the wind erosion of bedrock material.

New Species around Sea Vents

A rich "lost world" of dozens of species new to science has been discovered living around hydrothermal vents on the sea floor near Antarctica, where marine life thrive without sunlight and in waters reaching temperatures up to 382°C.

Rubbing Boulders of Atacama

Geologists have discovered the boulders of Chile's Atacama Desert have been rubbed smooth not by typical mechanisms of water or wind erosion but by the previously unknown method of jostling about by periodic earthquakes grinding stones against each other.

Viking Navigational "Sunstones"

Researchers investigating Icelandic spar recovered from Viking shipwrecks have found the crystal separates polarized from unpolarized light, and these crystals may be the historical "sunstones" used to navigate even on cloudy days by locating the position of the hidden sun.

New Minerals in Meteorites

Two new minerals, named krotite and wassonite, have been discovered inside two different meteorites and join about 60 unique minerals known to date to the formation of our solar system.

Native American Land Use

New research has shown that prehistoric Native American land use had a widespread impact on the development of floodplains and other landscape features centuries before the establishment of European settlements and their own farming practices.

Impact Crater in DR Congo

Initially described in 1919 and recently seen on satellite images in the 1990s, the so-called Luizi structure in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been confirmed as the first known impact crater in central Africa after shatter cones were discovered on-site.

Impact Crater in DR Congo

Deforestation of the last decade in the Central African country of DR Congo has revealed a possible giant impact crater 36-46 km wide that is clearly visible in satellite images.

Ancient Indian Impact Crater

Scientists have found evidence of an impact crater in the Shiva basin off the western coast of India that is four times as large as that beneath the Yucatan Peninsula, leading to speculation that this may have been the asteroid impact leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Evidence of Clovis-Age Comet

New nanodiamond evidence has been found on California's Channel Islands of a comet impact in North America about 12,900 years ago, possibly driving many Clovis-age species to extinction.

Turtle Fossil Points to Warm Arctic Past

Geologists from the University of Rochester discovered a warm-weather turtle fossil in the Canadian Arctic that suggests once temperate or even subtropical temperatures at the poles.

Setting out to study the paleomagnetism of the region, the turtle was uncovered almost by accident in an area known to be rich with fossils. A previously unknown species, the fossil resembles modern tropical Mongolian freshwater turtles and suggests a much warmer climate than the current frigid temperatures in the Arctic. In conjunction with the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Canada, the turtle species was named Aurorachelys, or aurora turtle.

Animals were previously thought to migrate between Asia and North America in the Cretaceous period via a former land bridge that existed around the Alaska region. This fossil evidence points to a previous warm Arctic freshwater sea that existed about 90 million years ago, through which species such as this turtle could have migrated directly across the pole.

This warming is believed to be due to ancient volcanic activity pumping massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, creating a "super-greenhouse effect" with a warm Arctic sea free of ice.

These results were published in the February issue of Geology.

Source: ScienceDaily

Major New Fault Discovered in Eastern Arkansas

Scientists at the Arkansas Earthquake Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock have discovered a major, previously unknown fault in Arkansas that could trigger up to a magnitude 7.0 earthquake.

The new fault is near the town of Marianna in eastern Arkansas, about 100 miles east of Little Rock. It was indicated by stretches of fine sand with fertile soil, the result of liquefied sand bubbling up through underground vents. Ground radar and samples confirmed the existence of the fault, which likely formed within the past 5000 years. This fault is separate from the New Madrid Seismic Zone, an area stretching south into Arkansas from New Madrid, Missouri. This zone is a major fault line and was responsible for the widely destructive New Madrid earthquakes of 1811 and 1812, estimated to be around magnitude 8.0.

Researchers have expressed concerns over natural gas pipelines and other industrial conduits crossing this fault. This infrastructure is not required to have the more robust safety features as similar equipment in earthquake-prone southern California.

These results were presented on January 21st at a luncheon at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Source: Yahoo!; Photo: Wikipedia

Nanodiamonds Point to Prehistoric Impact Event

A 26-member multi-institutional team led by the University of Oregon has discovered a nanodiamond-rich soil layer at six different sites across the North American continent.

Nanodiamonds (nanometer-sized gems) are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions, which occur rarely in nature. The presence of this nanodiamond formation supports the theory of a scattered comet impact about 12,900 years ago.

The nanodiamonds were found only in what is called the Younger Dryas Boundary, a geologic strata dated at about 12,900 years ago. Below this boundary layer are a wealth of prehistoric fossils from now-extinct species, including artifacts from the prehistoric Clovis culture. This strata also marks the beginning of a 1300-year cold period known as the Younger Dryas. A series of clustered comet impacts may have been responsible for this extinction event.

The sites are identified as Murray Springs, Arizona; Bull Creek, Oklahoma; Gainey, Michigan; Topper, South Carolina; Lake Hind, Manitoba; and Chobot, Alberta.

These results are reported in the January 2nd issue of Science.

Photo: ScienceDaily