The linkage between wastewater injection and earthquakes seems to have been covered ad nauseum over the past few years, especially in relation to the Oklahoma earthquakes on November 6, 2011, when a 5.7 magnitude earthquake near Prague (in Oklahoma, not in Europe) was preceded by a 5.0 shock and followed by literally thousands of aftershocks.
Scientific debate often rings immediately boring in many minds, with assumptions suggesting that the topic at hand is simply an academic one, and nothing important or impacting. Such is not the case for the debate over whether plate tectonics apply on the continental scale as well as on the fault scale, as more knowledge in
If you thought all you needed to know about the Earth’s core was found in the movie “The Core,” then I suggest that it is time you hit Wikipedia for some quick study. In the meantime, scientists at the University of Cambridge have determined that, contrary to previous research, the Earth’s core is actually moving
New research led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology, Caltech, have discovered new details that support the idea that the mass extinction that took place approximately 450 million years ago, known as the Late Ordovician mass extinction, was linked to a cooling climate. During the Late Ordovician mass extinction more than 75 percent
Determining the age of Earth’s continental crust has been the primary method of determining conditions on Earth for the past 4.4 billion years. The crust modified the composition of the mantle and the atmosphere, supports all life on Earth that we know of, and is a massive sink for carbon dioxide. Not surprisingly then, we
Geologists at the University of California, Riverside, have discovered chemical evidence that indicates Earth’s ancient oceans were not only oxygen-free, but also contained large quantities of hydrogen sulphide in some areas. “We are the first to show that ample hydrogen sulfide in the ocean was possible this early in Earth’s history,” said Timothy Lyons, a
Mountain creation has always been a heated topic of interest, and one that has relied on ancient data to provide answers to those hoping to understand the phenomenon that takes centuries and millennia to occur. Geochemists from Stanford University have used raindrops, or more precisely the isotopic residue of raindrops, to shed light on the
A team of geoscientists working on a separate geological project in South Australia accidentally stumbled upon the oldest evidence of animal life yet found. Previously, the oldest fossil evidence of non-unicellular, “hard bodied” life forms dates to about 550 million years ago. This new discovery pushes back the clock on animal life by 80 to 90 million years.
According to a recently published paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (Khan et al), Greenland’s ice mass loss has been accelerating and is now spreading up along its northwest coast, with data indicating the start of this acceleration to be late 2005.
