In The News: Department of Geoscience
A lot of the time, when someone mentions the University of Nevada Las Vegas, they’re speaking of its renowned School of Hospitality, its fast-growing medical school or its Jerry Tarkanian-era men’s basketball teams. But 51ԹϺ is also one of the nation’s top research universities, awarded an R1 classification (“very high research activity”) from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Join the Weekly as we peek into the laboratories where world-changing scientific research is ongoing.
Conservation efforts for Lake Mead appear to be helping, though there's still work to be done.
Humans began to alter environments long before records were kept of the things that lived in them, making it difficult for scientists to determine what healthy ecosystems should look like. The researchers have now shown that the recent fossil record preserves an authoritative snapshot of marine environments as they existed before humans.
As we plunge into Earth’s sixth stage of mass extinction (that we are aware of), biologists looking to conserve and restore ecosystems that have been stripped of plant and animal life can face a pretty daunting task. However, help is on the way in the form of some of the ocean’s worms, mollusks, and crabs. A study published July 11 in the journal PeerJ, finds that fossils from these groups are actually preserved in the fossil record in proportion to their diversity, making for a solid source of information about past ecosystems.
Around 1,800 miles beneath your feet lies a giant, blazing-hot ball of metal. It's the innermost part of our planet, Earth's core. It has a profound impact on your life, though none of us can even glimpse this impossibly remote, hostile place. The core is about the size of Pluto, yet scientists found that distant world in our solar system nearly a century ago, before discovering proof of the core.
High schoolers could read about the Great Unconformity in a geology textbook, or they could stand on a trail on Frenchman Mountain, notice that the rocks look different and wonder why.
Conservation of the Amazon rainforest is Colombia’s greatest contribution to solving the global climate crisis.
A paleontologist who excavated what he believes is a Washoe hunting camp in the flood plain of the Carson River is scheduled to speak 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville. 51ԹϺ Professor Emeritus Steve Rowland will discuss the excavation of he believes is a 200-year-old butchering site.
Mount Charleston's near-record snowpack this winter is melting as temperatures rise, but experts don't expect warming water to cause major flooding problems as snow melts in the Spring Mountains.
This winter’s near-record snowpack on Mount Charleston is melting away as temperatures rise, but experts are not expecting that warming water to pose any major flood problems as it melts off the Spring Mountains.
The Grand Canyon is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, visited by millions of admirers each year. So, naturally, you'd think that all of its rock layers had been studied and named. But you'd be wrong.
When environmental advocacy organization Get Outdoors Nevada holds volunteer clean up events at public lands around the valley, they typically bring buckets.