In The News: Department of Geoscience
Researchers have used fossilized teeth found near Lake Turkana in northwest Kenya to identify a new monkey species—a discovery that helps fill a 6-million-year gap in primate evolution.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists in collaboration with University of Nevada Las Vegas (51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ) have discovered a previously unknown pressure induced phase transition for TATB that can help predict detonation performance and safety of the explosive. The research appears in the May 13 online edition of the Applied Physics Letters and it is highlighted as a cover and featured article.
Geologists from 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ have confirmed some unsettling suspicions, namely, that an estimated one million acres in Clark County has asbestos in the rocks and soil.
An undated photo at Grand Canyon National Park shows the fossilized tracks of an unidentified creature that researchers believe lived about 315 million years ago.
When Americans celebrated the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, the planet's atmosphere was markedly different than it is today. Nearly 50 years ago, scientists measured Earth's levels of carbon dioxide — the planet's most important greenhouse gas — at around 325 parts per million, or ppm.
Asbestos is no longer ubiquitous in building materials, and since it's proven to cause cancer, many Americans likely assumed the substance had been banned entirely. But not only is asbestos a naturally occurring mineral, it is also still used to make some household products. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports on "broken" U.S. regulation and why we continue to import the carcinogen.
Quicksand may not be as common as adventure movies might lead one to believe, but that doesn't mean that getting stuck in the stuff is entirely inconceivable.
The Fenner Valley Water Authority (FVWA) has released a new analysis by water chemistry expert Dr. David K. Kreamer, a professor of Hydrology & Geosciences at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas critiquing two opposition-funded papers to the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project. FVWA is the public agency charged with operating and pre-project monitoring of the Cadiz Water Project in coordination with San Bernardino County.
No one knows when the big one will hit Las Vegas, but that's not stopping researchers at 51³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ from trying to predict if and when it could happen.
Forty-two centuries ago, the flourishing Akkadian Empire—spread across modern-day Iraq, Turkey, and Syria—suddenly disappeared. Paleoclimatologists and other geoscientists now have one possible explanation for why. Using precisely age dated chemical measurements from a stalagmite collected in a cave in Iran, researchers found an abrupt uptick in dust at that point in history. This heightened dust activity, which persisted for 300 years, might have made for uncomfortable living conditions and difficulties in farming, the researchers suggest.
When you’re out hiking in the Grand Canyon, you never know what you might see. You could cross paths with lizards, tarantulas or maybe even something bigger like a javelina. More likely, you’ll also come across the tracks of these critters.
Fossilized reptile prints older than any dinosaur were recently discovered in the Grand Canyon.