Geology News - March 2005

News stories about geology and earth sciences in the world. News articles will be archived monthly. All links are to external sites.

March 10, 2005

Students can simulate the search for life using new NASA geology mission module
Grades 5-8 will enjoy the recently released Geology Mission multimedia module on the Astro-Venture Web site. Astro-Venture is an interactive, multimedia Web site in which students role-play NASA careers, as they search for and design a planet that would be habitable to humans.

March 8, 2005

Celebration gig for ancient rock
The University of Wisconsin will hold a rock concert to celebrate the world's oldest known mineral fragment.

Related story - University of Wisconsin press release

March 7, 2005

Agriculture and excavations shape the landscape more than rivers and glaciers
Human activities shift ten times as much material on the Earth's surface as all natural geological processes put together.

March 1, 2005

Hawaiian volcano has harmful health effects
A study published in the March issue of the journal Geology shows that people who live downwind of Kilauea Volcano could have an increased risk of respiratory or cardiac ailments caused by exposure to high levels of sulphur dioxide and aerosol particulates.

March Geology and GSA TODAY media highlights
Topics include: revised age estimate for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary; discovery of ejecta from the Sudbury impact event in Canada; new model for predicting landslides; public health concerns from the first regional air assessment downwind from Kilauea volcano after 22 years of continuous eruption; evidence for Early Holocene collapse of the George VI ice shelf; and production of the first sequence of continental summer temperatures during the Antarctic glaciation of the Cenozoic.

Widespread Arctic warming crosses critical ecological thresholds
Unprecedented and maybe irreversible effects of Arctic warming, linked to human intervention, have been discovered by a team of international researchers led by Queen's University biologist John Smol and University of Alberta earth scientist Alexander Wolfe.