The last several decades have seen Arctic sea-ice minimums drop by more than half in area and more than three-quarters in volume. With current models predicting further reductions, scientists are calling it the “new normal” and are trying to grasp its implications — one of which is the occurrence of pathogens never before seen in the Arctic. Ice is a major eco-barrier for pathogens, but with Arctic ice diminishing rapidly amid the changing climate, pathogens have an opportunity to move into new areas and spread disease as mammals increase their ranges and intermingle. [Read More]

Alexandria, Va. — Tucked high in the Andes Mountains of northern Peru is a remarkable fossil locality: a 39-million-year-old petrified forest preserved in nearly pristine condition: stumps, full trees, leaves and all. With its existence unknown to scientists until the early 1990s — and its significance unbeknownst to villagers — this ancient forest hosts the remains of more than 40 types of trees, some still rooted, that flourished in a lowland tropical forest until they were suddenly buried by a volcanic eruption during the Eocene. [Read More]

Alexandria, Va. — County fairs are opportunities to bring in those handsome Holsteins competing for Best Bessie, to sample foods that don’t normally belong on sticks and definitely shouldn’t be deep-fried, and to enjoy carnival rides and games with unfavorable odds. They’re also opportunities to get the attention of a lot of people. Just ask the exhibitors who rent space to hawk their wares — everything from kitchen knives to leaf-free gutters. [Read More]

June 17, 2014, Alexandria, VA – Go online today to view a new webcast detailing three new contests that are being conducted as part of Earth Science Week, the annual worldwide celebration of the geosciences! Find the “Contests of Earth Science Week 2014” webcast online now for viewing at your convenience. This free webcast, narrated by AGI Outreach Assistant Katelyn Murtha, provides an overview of guidelines for photography, visual arts, and essay contests. [Read More]

Alexandria, Va. — “Hello World” Upon hearing that brief message, scientists at the European Space Agency (ESA) and followers around the world sent up a collective cheer. Rosetta — the ESA spacecraft currently on a 10-year mission to orbit and land on a comet — awoke in January after a three-year hibernation, and was ready to get to work. The Rosetta spacecraft launched on March 2, 2004, to study Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. [Read More]

Tulsa, Ok. — The Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM) announces an unusual paper in their journal PALAIOS that combines ‘forensic’ paleontology and archeology to identify origins of the millstones commonly used in the 1800’s. Over four years, the scientific team located millstones by visiting historical localities in Ohio, then studied them and identified unique characteristics between the coveted French buhr and the locally sourced Ohio buhrstone. Both types of millstones were composed out of an extremely hard rock called chert, and superficially they can look very similar. [Read More]

Alexandria, Va. - The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is now accepting advance orders for the Earth Science Week 2014 Toolkit. The Toolkit contains educational materials for all ages that correspond to this year’s event theme, “Earth’s Connected Systems.” Materials include the traditional program poster and school-year activity calendar, as well as resources from distinguished program partners such as the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, the National Park Service, Esri, ExxonMobil, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and professional geoscientific societies. [Read More]

Alexandria, Va. — In 2006, a fossil collector and his crew discovered a rare fossil on private land in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation: the bones of two fully articulated dinosaurs that appeared to have died together, locked in battle. The fossil duo — a small, pony-sized carnivorous tyrannosaurid and a slightly larger herbivorous ceratopsian, both now preserved in plaster — became known as the “Montana Dueling Dinosaurs.' Last November, the fossils were put on the block at Bonhams auction house in New York City — but they did not sell. [Read More]

Alexandria, VA - The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is sponsoring three national contests for Earth Science Week 2014, celebrating the theme “Earth’s Connected Systems.” This year’s competitions include a photography contest, a visual arts contest, and an essay contest. Photography Contest The photography contest, “Connections in My Community,” is open to students, geoscientists, and the general public. Entries must be original, unpublished material, showing where you observe the dynamic interactions of earth systems in your community. [Read More]

The existence of seafloor sediments containing valuable minerals and metals has been known since the late 19th century, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that the earliest attempts to recover mineral wealth from the deep sea were made. Technical challenges, as well as discoveries in the 1970s of more economical and previously unknown terrestrial mineral deposits, shelved the idea until the 1990s. Today, the surging demand for rare minerals, driven largely by their use in modern electronics, along with technological advancements and the discovery of mineral-rich seafloor massive sulfides, has now made the high cost of extraction worthwhile. [Read More]