http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/geography-blog.html Geography blog from networlddirectory, the place for information. Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:42:14 GMT en-us http://www.networlddirectory.com/images/blogs/geography-blog.jpg http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/geography-blog.html 105 85 http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2010/connection-between-beetle-attacks-wildfire.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2010/connection-between-beetle-attacks-wildfire.html Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:42:14 GMT If your summer travels have taken you across the Rocky Mountains, you've probably seen large swaths of reddish trees dotting otherwise green forests. While it may look like autumn has come early to the mountains, evergreen trees don't change color with the seasons. The red trees are dying, the result of attacks by mountain pine beetles........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2010/irrigations-cooling-effects-may-mask-warming.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2010/irrigations-cooling-effects-may-mask-warming.html Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:42:14 GMT Expanded irrigation has made it possible to feed the world's growing billions-and it may also temporarily be counteracting the effects of climate change in some regions, say researchers in a newly released study. But some major groundwater aquifers, a source of irrigation water, are projected to dry up in coming decades from continuing overuse, and when they do, people may face the double whammy of food shortages and higher temperatures. A newly released study in the Journal of Geophysical Research pinpoints where the trouble spots appears to be........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2010/war-hurts-more-than-just-lives.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/9-2010/war-hurts-more-than-just-lives.html Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:42:14 GMT War hurts, we"ve looked at the environmental impact of war many times before this and it"s notable that the U.S. Army now mandates a response to the impact of warfare operations on the environment through the Modern warfare tactics, as seen in Vietnam, the Rwandan and Congolese civil wars, and the current war in Iraq, have greatly increased the world"s capacity to destroy our natural landscape and produce devastating environmental effects on the planet, according to Sarah DeWeerdt, author of "War and the Environment," January/February 2008 issue of World Watch.

Wartime destruction of ......... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/climate-change-and-decline-of-horseshoe-crabs.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/climate-change-and-decline-of-horseshoe-crabs.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT A distinct decline in horseshoe crab numbers has occurred that parallels climate change linked to the end of the last Ice Age, as per a research studythat used genomics to assess historical trends in population sizes. The new research also indicates that horseshoe crabs numbers may continue to decline in the future because of predicted climate change, said Tim King, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey and a main author on the newly released study published in Molecular Ecology........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/oil-sands-mining-and-processing-and-pollution.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/oil-sands-mining-and-processing-and-pollution.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT EdmontonInorganic elements known to be toxic at low concentrations are being discharged to air and water by oilsands mining and processing as per University of Alberta (U of A) research findings being published this month in one of the world's top scientific journals. The 13 elements being discharged include mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium and several other metals known to be toxic at trace levels. The paper will appear in the August 30 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/psychological-effects-of-bp-gulf-disaster.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/psychological-effects-of-bp-gulf-disaster.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Anger, depression, and helplessness are the main psychological responses being seen in response to the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and they are likely to have long-lasting effects, as per an interview in Ecopsychology, a peer-evaluated, online journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The interview is available free online at www.liebertpub.com/eco........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/bahamas-blue-holes.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/bahamas-blue-holes.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT The cover story of the most recent issue of National Geographic Magazine (August 2010) features a University of Miami (UM) led expedition to the underwater caves of the Bahamas, known as 'blue holes.' These unique environments are one of the least understood ecosystems on the planet, largely due to the challenges involved in studying these extreme environments, which include complete darkness, dramatic reversing currents, extreme depths, poisonous gasses, and silty, tight squeezes. The expedition made significant findings correlation to the past history of the earth, including human occupation, previously undiscovered microbial life, and abrupt climatic changes........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/large-co2-release-speeds-up-ice-age-melting.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/large-co2-release-speeds-up-ice-age-melting.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Radiocarbon dating is used to determine the age of everything from ancient artifacts to prehistoric corals on the ocean bottom. But in a recent study appearing in the Aug. 26 edition of the journal, Nature, a Lawrence Livermore scientist and colleagues used the method to trace the pathway of carbon dioxide released from the deep ocean to the atmosphere at the end of the last ice age........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/big-quakes-more-frequent-than-thought.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/big-quakes-more-frequent-than-thought.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Earthquakes have rocked the powerful San Andreas fault that splits California far more often than previously thought, as per UC Irvine and Arizona State University scientists who have charted temblors there stretching back 700 years. The findings, to be reported in the Sept. 1 issue of Geology, conclude that large ruptures have occurred on the Carrizo Plain portion of the fault - about 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles - as often as every 45 to 144 years. But the last big quake was in 1857, more than 150 years ago........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/texas-petrochemical-emissions-down.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/texas-petrochemical-emissions-down.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT A thick blanket of yellow haze hovering over Houston as a result of chemical pollution produced by manufacturing petroleum products appears to be getting a little bit thinner, as per a newly released study. But the new findings -- which have implications for petrochemical-producing cities around the world -- come with a catch, says a team of researchers from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, a joint institute of the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/oldest-earth-mantle-reservoir.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/oldest-earth-mantle-reservoir.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Scientists have found a primitive Earth mantle reservoir on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. Geologist Matthew Jackson and colleagues from a multi-institution collaboration report the finding--the first discovery of what appears to be a primitive Earth mantle--this week in the journal Nature. The Earth's mantle is a rocky, solid shell that is between the Earth's crust and the outer core, and makes up about 84 percent of the Earth's volume. The mantle is made up of a number of distinct portions or reservoirs that have different chemical compositions........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/massive-shift-during-cambrian-explosion.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/massive-shift-during-cambrian-explosion.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT The Gondwana supercontinent underwent a 60-degree rotation across Earth's surface during the Early Cambrian period, as per new evidence uncovered by a team of Yale University geologists. Gondwana made up the southern half of Pangaea, the giant supercontinent that constituted the Earth's landmass before it broke up into the separate continents we see today. The study, which appears in the recent issue of the journal Geology, has implications for the environmental conditions that existed at a crucial period in Earth's evolutionary history called the Cambrian explosion, when most of the major groups of complex animals rapidly appeared........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/milestone-in-climate-research.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/milestone-in-climate-research.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT After years of concentrated effort, researchers from the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project hit bedrock more than 8,300 feet below the surface of the Greenland ice sheet last week. The project has yielded ice core samples that may offer valuable insights into how the world can change during periods of abrupt warming........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/gulf-oil-spill-impacts-to-florida-everglades.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/gulf-oil-spill-impacts-to-florida-everglades.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT With its vast 1.5 million acres of mangrove swamps, sawgrass prairies and subtropical jungles, could the Florida Everglades--the famous river of grass--be affected by the Gulf oil spill? While current estimates are that little if any oil entered the Loop Current or reached the Everglades, this area is a significant national natural resource, and to study the effects of the spill on seagrasses and mangrove forests in and near the Everglades, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a rapid response grant to researchers affiliated with NSF's Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site."....... ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/greenland-glacier.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/8-2010/greenland-glacier.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT A University of Delaware researcher reports that an "ice island" four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962. "In the early morning hours of August 5, 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland," said Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. Muenchow's research in Nares Strait, between Greenland and Canada, is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF)........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2010/global-warming-slows-coral-growth.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2010/global-warming-slows-coral-growth.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT In a pioneering use of computed tomography (CT) scans, researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have discovered that carbon dioxide (CO2)-induced global warming is in the process of killing off a major coral species in the Red Sea. As summer sea surface temperatures have remained about 1.5 degrees Celsius above ambient over the last 10 years, growth of the coral, Diploastrea heliopora, has declined by 30% and "could cease growing altogether by 2070" or sooner, they report in the July 16 issue of the journal Science........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2010/heat-waves-could-be-commonplace-in-20-years.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2010/heat-waves-could-be-commonplace-in-20-years.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Exceptionally long heat waves and other hot events could become commonplace in the United States in the next 30 years, as per a newly released study by Stanford University climate scientists. "Using a large suite of climate model experiments, we see a clear emergence of much more intense, hot conditions in the U.S. within the next three decades," said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford and the main author of the study........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2010/global-warming-started-with-ancient-hunters.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2010/global-warming-started-with-ancient-hunters.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Even before the dawn of agriculture, people may have caused the planet to warm up, a newly released study suggests. Mammoths used to roam modern-day Russia and North America, but are now extinct-and there's evidence that around 15,000 years ago, early hunters had a hand in wiping them out. A newly released study, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), argues that this die-off had the side effect of heating up the planet........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2010/climate-change-scientists-in-alaska.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2010/climate-change-scientists-in-alaska.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are planning a large-scale, long-term ecosystem experiment to test the effects of global warming on the icy layers of arctic permafrost. While ORNL scientists have conducted extensive studies on the impact of climate change in temperate regions like East Tennessee, less is known about the impact global warming could have on arctic regions........ ]]> http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2010/improved-telescope-sees-through-atmosphere.html http://www.networlddirectory.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2010/improved-telescope-sees-through-atmosphere.html Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:37 GMT A sharp view of the starry sky is difficult, because the atmosphere constantly distorts the image. TU/e researcher Roger Hamelinck developed a new type of telescope mirror, which quickly corrects the image. His prototypes are mandatory for future large telescopes, but also gives old telescopes a sharper view........ ]]>