Earth Sciences119
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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.”
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On the Subject of Dust
Our field team has set camp at 5045 m on the dusty slopes of Ampato, an extinct, ice-clad volcano in the Western Cordillera. This is the very mountain from which Juanita, the famous Incan ‘ice maiden’, was plucked back in 1995. The tents are clustered in the lee of a large glacial erratic and, now…
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Undersea Clues to Haiti’s Earthquake History
For all of its violent destruction, the earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12, 2010, hardly scratched the surface of the island. But scientists now say they have found some of the best clues to understanding the quake under water.
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Collecting Data Offshore Alaska, But Just Barely
One of the core objectives of our project is to image the part of the plate tectonic boundary that locks up and then ruptures to produce great earthquakes. To examine deep parts of the interface between the Pacific plate and the North American plate in the Aleutian subduction zone, we need to go as close…
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Going West
After a busy few weeks in the Cordillera Carabaya, our field team has said goodbye to the snowy, tempestuous climate of the eastern Andes and is moving west to the desert of Arequipa. Here the mountains are massive, isolated volcanoes, many of which exceed 6000 m in elevation. In fact, Coropuna is the third highest…
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Lurking Under Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake?
Beneath Bangladesh: The Next Great Earthquake? from Earth Institute on Vimeo. After the recent great quakes that have swept away entire coastlines and cities in Japan, Haiti and Sumatra, scientists are now looking hard at the nation that may suffer the gravest threat of all: Bangladesh. A new documentary from the Earth Institute follows seismologists as they trace signs of…
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Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Our field team has acquired a dog, ¨”Mooch”. Walking back to camp yesterday, amid driving snow and fully laden with rock samples, there he was exploring what passes for our kitchen. Unlike most Andean dogs – ferocious beasts trained to keep geologists from harassing the livestock – this one is a cheerful soul, happy to…
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Can the Oceans Keep Mopping Up Carbon Dioxide?
The oceans absorb nearly a third of the carbon dioxide humans put into the air, and this has helped offset CO2’s potential to warm global temperatures. But many researchers think the oceans are struggling to keep pace with rising emissions. A new study looks at 30 years of data to see how natural variability and…
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Ancient mud from the high Andes
Thanks in large part to Matt, an undergraduate from Pacific Lutheran University in Washington, our field team now has more than sixty samples for surface-exposure dating. This is no easy feat, for collecting these samples requires a great deal of hammering on granite boulders with nothing more than a hammer and chisel. There are other…
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