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Aug 31, 2010

Swarm of 30,000 Earthquakes Reveals Newfound Volcanic Potential

A swarm of thousands of earthquakes that struck the corner of Saudi Arabia nearest to Egypt in 2009 helped reveal that the area is unexpectedly volcanically active, scientists now report. The seismic readings that researchers managed to collect from these quakes could help predict when volcanoes might erupt in the...

Aug 31, 2010

American Scientists Unsure What Caused Mudslide in Mexico

A mudslide that reportedly killed seven people and buried as many as 300 homes in a rural Mexican village may be linked to the relentless rainfall the region has recently experienced, although American geologists cannot confirm what led to the devastating mudslide. Without going down there and looking at the...

Aug 31, 2010

Hurricane Season Marches on with Tropical Storm Nicole

After a quiet few days in the Atlantic basin and Gulf of Mexico, a newly formed tropical storm is blowing across the Caribbean. Tropical Storm Nicole strengthened from a tropical depression and was upgraded to a tropical storm this morning (Sept. 29) by the National Hurricane Center. Nicole has maximum...

Jul 31, 2010

The Grand Canyon in Pictures

Grand Rainbow (Image credit: National Park Service)Rainbow in the Grand Canyon as seen from near Mather Point on the South Rim. Large Lazy Clouds (Image credit: National Park Service)Panoramic view of the Grand Canyon from Pima Point on the West Rim Drive. Eroded Red Rock (Image credit: National Park Service)Looking...

Jul 31, 2010

How to Anticipate a Possible Aurora

Another way that you can anticipate a possible aurora is to check the latest space weather from the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center. You can check on the latest solar flare activity here. The site is updated every five minutes. Pay particular attention to the red graph. When a spike...

Jul 31, 2010

Enormous Ice Chunk Breaks Off Greenland Glacier

A chunk of ice four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier, scientists announced today. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962. In the early morning hours of August 5, 2010, an ice island four times the size...

Jul 31, 2010

Amount of Water in Amazon Floodplain Measured from Space

When the Amazon River floods, it swells by more than half the volume of Lake Erie, the world's 15th largest lake, a new study suggests. But this increase accounts for only 5 percent of the water flowing through the Amazon River each year, and is a much smaller rise than...

Jul 31, 2010

Images: Everest, 1924

Ever Group (Image credit: Reproduced by permission of the Durham University Library and the Bentley Beetham Trust.)Members of the 1924 Everest expedition at base camp, 16,500 feet (5,029 meters), Tibet. Back row, left to right: Andrew Irvine, George Mallory, Edward Norton, Noel Odell, John MacDonald. Front row: Edward Shebbeare, Geoffrey...

Jul 31, 2010

What's the World's Biggest Airplane?

With a wingspan of 290 feet (88.4 meters) almost the length of football field and a maximum take-off weight of 1.3 million pounds (600,000 kilograms), the Antonov-225 is the world's largest airplane. This giant among planes was built in the 1980s to carry the Russian spacecraft Buran the country's first...

Jul 31, 2010

Deep Ocean Diving Just a Click Away

With the click of a mouse, anyone can follow oceanographers as they journey hundreds of miles off the Washington and Oregon coasts and dive with robots nearly a mile under the ocean's surface to explore some of the most extreme environments on Earth. The expedition, called Enlighten '10, will explore...

Jul 31, 2010

Rare Fire Tornado Seen in Brazil

A rare fire tornado was spotted recently in the Brazilian city of Aracatuba. The flaming dust devil, known colloquially as a fire devil, was captured on video, as reported by the U.K. Telegraph. A three-month drought in the region has led to brush fires across Brazil, and when combined with...

Jul 31, 2010

Relics from Tragic Race to South Pole Up for Sale

Skis worn by a member of English explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole will be auctioned off next month at Christie's in London. The auction of the skis and other equipment that belonged to Canadian scientist Charles Seymour Wright was reported by Discovery News. A...

Jul 31, 2010

Flying Into the Storm: NASA Hurricane Study Takes Off

This week, NASA conducted the first of many flights slated to soar near,through and above tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 hurricane season. The inaugural voyage was part of the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes mission, or GRIP experiment. The study aims to unlock the secrets...

Jul 31, 2010

Computers Take a Closer Look Inside the Earth

More detailed pictures of the processes that continuously reshape theEarth from the inside out are being generated by new, more sophisticated computer models, yielding new insights into the hidden world beneath our feet. The added resolution that these models provide — down to a single kilometer from a minimum of...

Jul 31, 2010

What's Sea Ice?

The term sea ice has been sending shivers down many spines with the growing threat of global warming, but many non-scientists still misunderstand what sea ice really is. Sea ice is a thin, fragile, solid layer of frozen ocean water that forms in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans. Not to...