Alexandria, VA - A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck Chile on January 2, 2011. Or so scientists thought. With increasing sensor sensitivity and advances in the quantitative analysis of earthquakes, scientists have revealed that this quake was actually a doublet. This means that instead of just one massive quake, two similarly large earthquakes struck very near to one another within seconds. The closely spaced doublet was missed by global monitoring networks during the initial aftermath of the quake and, as EARTH Magazine explores, it presents a major challenge to earthquake and tsunami warning systems. [Read More]

More than half of the total human population on Earth lives in urban areas, where geology affects us every day. Yet when we think about “geology,” most of us think of the hinterlands. That needs to change, argue the authors of a new feature in EARTH Magazine discussing what the role of urban geology is, what it can be and the potential role geoscience organizations can play in curating the geologic data revealed during construction, excavations and surveys. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - Dianna McDowell, a teacher at Kemps Landing Old Donation School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has been named the 2016 recipient of the Edward C. Roy, Jr. Award for Excellence in K-8 Earth Science Teaching. McDowell, who earned her Master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of Virginia, started as a Naval Oceanography Officer and switched careers to a middle school Earth science teacher in order to foster natural curiosity about the world. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) congratulates Master’s candidate Elaine Young and Ph.D. candidate Andrea Stevens as the 2016 recipients of the Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship. The scholarship, awarded to women pursuing graduate degrees in geoscience, is a $5,000 award for the academic year, with the opportunity to renew for an additional year of support if qualified. Elaine Young is working towards a master’s degree at the University of California Davis. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - As skiers hit the slopes this winter, EARTH Magazine explores the science of how to keep them and other winter explorers safe. Every year, hundreds of people are killed by avalanches. Understanding the science of the frozen environment is only part of this story; communicating the risk is a field as dynamic as the weather systems and terrains that foster avalanches. The story of avalanche science starts in the decades after World War II with troops trained to work in snowy mountains and the earliest extreme skiers of the 1970s and 1980s forming the foundation of the community. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - Tsunami hazard maps exist for California coastlines, but recent geological studies have indicated that some faults may be capable of unleashing more powerful quakes than previously thought. Given this new information, researchers at the University of California Riverside wondered if the current tsunami hazard maps adequately predict inundation zones, or if they need to be updated. To test their idea, they modeled an earthquake of magnitude 7.7 on the Red Mountain and Pitas Point submarine faults off the coast of Los Angeles. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is pleased to announce the release of its upgraded Glossary of Geology app for the Android and iOS platforms. To celebrate, the apps have been discounted to $19.99 until March 31. This indispensable reference tool contains definitions of nearly 40,000 terms used in the earth and environmental science literature. The AGI Glossary of Geology has long been considered the definitive reference by geoscientists and other students and professionals needing fully-supported and detailed definitions of earth science terms. [Read More]

A decrease in the number of undergraduate geoscientists indicating that they would be enrolling in graduate school immediately following the completion of their degree, as well as a shift in employment from oil and gas industries to environmental and engineering fields, are among the highlights of the latest American Geosciences Institute’s (AGI) Geoscience Student Exit Survey. “I feel the drop in students heading to grad school could be reflecting the increasing difficulty students might be experiencing trying to gain admission into graduate geoscience programs,” report author Carolyn Wilson said. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - The challenge of feeding our planet’s growing population is a critical one. As the human population continues to rise, geoscience is informing experts, suggesting major shifts in agriculture must be taken to prevent rampant food insecurity by the year 2050. Based on model estimates, remotely sensed data and agricultural studies, scientists have been able to identify approximately how much food needs to be available to feed the 11 billion people expected on Earth by 2100. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - Toba volcano erupted 74,000 years ago, and is thought to have been the largest eruption in the last 2.5 million years. Some scientists have thought the fallout from the eruption caused a volcanic winter so catastrophic it almost drove humans to extinction. A new high-resolution study of lake sediments from East Africa disputes that idea, however, suggesting that the early humans in the area probably experienced little or no cooling following the massive eruption. [Read More]