Geology3
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Cracking Open Diamonds for Messages From the Deep Earth
“After a diamond captures something, from that moment until millions of years later in my lab, that material stays the same. We can look at diamonds as time capsules, as messengers from a place we have no other way of seeing.”
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The Downs and Ups of Mountain Building
In the islands off Papua New Guinea, the rocks are giving rise to new ideas about the ways mountain chains form. A new scientific model shows how two seemingly opposite processes can take place in the same region.
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In a Melting Iceland, Drilling Deep to Stem Climate Change
Iceland is pioneering a new technology to deal with climate change. Its Hellisheidi geothermal power plant, the world’s largest, hosts arguably the world’s most advanced program to capture and lock away globe-warming carbon dioxide.
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Photo Essay: Iceland at the Cutting Edge of Climate Change
Iceland has a complicated relationship with climate change. As in much of the far north, global warming is already exerting many effects here–arguably both good and bad. Yet the country contributes relatively little to the warming, since most of its energy comes from geothermal and hydro plants, which produce little carbon dioxide. Now, it is…
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Exploring Antarctica by Sea, Air and Land
Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory scientists are among the many researchers currently doing fieldwork in Antarctica. They’re participating in expeditions near, above and on the continent, doing critical studies that will advance understanding of Antarctica’s land and sea processes.
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Alma Mater’s Other Secret: a Way Forward on Climate
Sitting on the iconic front steps of Low Library, Alma Mater rests on a plinth that offers a clue to a possible method of carbon sequestration, a vital technology for addressing our problem of too much CO2.
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Watch Your Step: the Alpha Predator of the Ordovician
Frozen into the stone floor of a stairway landing, several flights up in Columbia’s Lewisohn Hall, sits a stark reminder of how life has evolved in the sea. Part 6 of the Columbia Geology Tour.
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Orogenous Zones: How Rock Flows
The architects of Columbia’s modern Northwest Tower, at the corner of Broadway and 120th Street, made good use of some beautiful stones. In their polished and swirling surfaces, they tell a story of the clash of continents and the processes by which mountains are made.
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Seeing Red: The Great Oxygenation Event
In Part 4 of the Columbia Geology Tour, David Walker of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory explores the source of the red sandstone of Russell Hall at the Columbia Teachers College on 120th Street.
