Earth Sciences116
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Magnitude 5.8 Quake Rattles East Coast
The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that shook central Virginia on Tuesday afternoon is one of the biggest earthquakes to hit the East Coast since 1897, and was comparable in strength to a quake on the New York-Canadian border in 1944, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was centered near Mineral, Va., about 38 miles northwest…
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Tree Rings, Ecology and Culture in Mongolia
“How do you know when you are in wilderness? When you have walked beyond where most people walk, when you have left the road … when the easiest route to walk is not a path tread by people but rather the path tread by wolves, moose and deer.”
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Hydraulic Fracturing: Resources for Journalists
(Updated Feb. 12, 2019) Earth Institute scientists can offer a wide range of expertise to journalists covering natural-gas production using hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking). This includes basics of energy exploration and extraction; rock mechanics; contaminants in underground water; manmade earthquakes; and economic/political questions surrounding the practice. Here is a brief guide. (Click on hyperlinks for individual…
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Atmospheric Scientists Win Early Career Awards
Two scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory have been recognized for early-career achievement in the atmospheric sciences by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the world’s largest earth-sciences organization. Tiffany Shaw, 31, is a physicist who uses computer models and mathematical equations to study the basic dynamics of the atmosphere and climate, for instance, how the jet…
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Mountaintop Removal: Laying Waste to Streams and Forests
Mountaintop removal mining, an environmentally devastating form of coal mining that involves blowing off the tops of mountains, has already leveled over 500 mountains and buried 1,200 miles of streams in the Appalachians.
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Sewage Still Plagues Hudson River
People are swimming in the Hudson again, and while clumps of sewage rarely float by anymore, the water is not reliably clean, says a report released this week from the environmental group Riverkeeper. Four years of testing by Riverkeeper and Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, show recurring hot spots, especially after rain, when overwhelmed sewers divert…
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In a First, Scientists Successfully Forecast Undersea Eruption
Lava Flow Is Spotted Off Oregon
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End of the Line – Good Byes to a Great Field Season in Peru
After more than six weeks trawling the Peruvian Andes in search of palaeoclimate clues, our field team is visiting the last site, a potential calibration sites near Coropuna. The objective of that ongoing work is to refine the cosmogenic surface-exposure method for the tropics, thereby improving the precision of new and existing datasets.
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Have We Crossed the 9 Planetary Boundaries?
“The world needs to awaken itself to the looming catastrophe of global warming,” said Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, at a recent meeting in Muscat. “We must provide a safe operating space where vested interest and lobby-driven policies will not see the world marching into disaster.”
By studying thousands of buildings and analyzing their electricity use, Columbia Climate School Dean Alexis Abramson has been able to uncover ways to significantly cut energy consumption and emissions. Watch the Video: “Engineering a Cooler Future Through Smarter Buildings“
