Did a Volcanic Eruption Lead to Napoleon’s Defeat at Waterloo?
A British scientist thinks a volcanic eruption may have led to Napoleon Bonaparte’s crushing defeat at Waterloo, in what is now Belgium, on June 18, 1815. Historians say heavy rains fell on Napoleon’s troops the night before the big battle, causing the ground to become very muddy and soggy. With these miserable conditions, Napoleon’s artillery […]
Diamonds Provide Evidence of Liquid Water Deep Inside Earth
Take a diamond with impurities to a jeweler, and you will probably be told it is worth little or nothing. But some impure diamonds that pushed up to the surface from the Earth’s interior in China, the Republic of South Africa, and Botswana are priceless to a group of scientists, who studied them. The researchers […]
Antarctic Glacier Melt Could Raise Global Sea Level by Nearly 3 Meters
An international group of scientists say if climate change continues at its current rate, Antarctica’s Totten Glacier might become so unstable that it could eventually release enough water to produce an almost 3 meter rise in the global sea-level sometime in the next several hundred years. A year ago, this same group of scientists from […]
Study: Ancient Forests Fueled Early Climate Change
A pair of scientists from the United Kingdom have found a fossilized tropical forest complete with tree stumps of one of Earth’s first forests in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located between Norway and the North Pole. They also say that primitive forests such as the one they found may be one of the reasons for […]
Giant Magma Reservoir Found Beneath Yellowstone Supervolcano
Yellowstone National Park’s many geothermal features, including its estimated 10,000 hot springs and geysers, draw millions of visitors each year. There’s good reason why the approximately 8,983 square km park has such a high level of geothermal activity. You see, the park sits atop one of the world’s largest active volcanic systems. According to the […]
Are We Destabilizing our Planetary Life Support System?
Three recently released studies are painting a grim picture for the future of humanity on planet Earth. Professor Will Steffen from the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre led some international scientists on two of the studies. Their papers found that the impact of human activity on Earth, such as economic growth/globalization, population […]
NASA Delves into Deep Recesses of Mars
NASA hope exploring the deep recesses of Mars will give scientists insight into the early history of Earth. The US space agency recently gave the green light for the construction of a new lander that will examine the deep interior of the red planet. Scientists hope learning more about the composition, layering and processes of […]
Evidence of Water Found on Mars
The Curiosity rover has discovered an ancient stream bed that suggests water, possibly lots of it, once flowed on Mars. In a new study, scientists say their findings represent the first on-site evidence of sustained water flow on the Martian landscape. The discovery also supports the theory Mars would have once been able to host […]
Mars Meteorite Sparks New Questions About Red Planet
Scientists have determined a meteorite discovered in the Sahara Desert in 2011 is about 2.1 billion years old and could be the first meteorite to come from the surface of Mars. The meteorite, designated NWA (North West Africa) 7034 and nicknamed “Black Beauty,” weighs about 320 grams and is loaded with Martian water. It is […]