earth

EARTH Magazine: Precise to a fault: How GPS revolutionized seismic research

Prior to the quake, geoscientists had placed GPS markers in and around the San Francisco area. Immediately after the quake, researchers converged on the area to collect and compare the pre- and post-quake GPS data, which revealed the direction and speed of surface movements, allowing scientists to infer the pattern of slip on the fault plane that had ruptured far underground.

EARTH Magazine: Faking quakes at full scale: Giant shake tables simulate earthquakes to make buildings safer

On a muggy day in mid-July 2009, a lone seven-story condominium complex northwest of Kobe, Japan, was violently shaken by an earthquake. Onlookers watched the 23-unit, wood-frame tower sway and bounce while, inside the building, furniture toppled and plates clattered to the floor. No one was hurt during the highly localized event and there was only minimal damage, in part because the building’s wooden skeleton had been augmented to better resist earthquake shaking, but also because the whole event — from the seismicity to the partially furnished building — was just a test.

EARTH Magazine: Humans are influencing some extreme weather events, but not all

It has often been said that individual weather events cannot be attributed to global climate change, but recent advances in the science of attribution are challenging that notion. A recent report from 18 different research teams that analyzed 12 extreme weather events in 2012 suggests that climate change was a contributing factor in about half of them.

EARTH Magazine: Climate, Terroir and Wine: What Matters Most in Producing a Great Wine?

Climate is arguably the most influential factor and it produces the most identifiable differences among wines. So how is climate change affecting wines globally? And how do other factors, such as the bedrock below the vineyard and the soil, produce subtle expressions in wine? Climatologist and viticulturalist Greg Jones discusses the complexity of nature's effects on wine and the latest scientific research in the January issue of EARTH Magazine.

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