Geology/Soil

Credit: K. Koehler-Cole Cover crop impacts on soil properties depends on cover crop productivity. Planting cover crops early and in a diverse mix of species could be an option to boost biomass production and enhance benefits to…

Credit: Alfred-Wegener-Institut/James McKay Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time. A team from the UK and…

90-million-year-old forest soil provides unexpected evidence for exceptionally warm climate near the South Pole in the CretaceousCredit: © Alfred-Wegener-Institut/Johann Klages An international team of researchers led by…

Researchers have found unexpected fossil traces of a temperate rainforest near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the continent had an exceptionally warm climate in prehistoric timesCredit: AWI/Bremen Researchers…

New work reveals how carbon behaved during Earth's violent formative periodCredit: Rebecca Fischer, Elizabeth Cottrell and Marion Le Voyer, Kanani Lee, and the late Erik Hauri. Washington, DC-- Carbon is essential for life as we…

Credit: Jacynthe Dessureault-Rompre In many regions of the world, farming must be done on areas of soil categorized as histosols. Histosols have a thick layer of rich organic matter, called peat. Scientists are concerned,…

A new study from a University of Michigan researcher and colleagues at three institutions demonstrates the potential for using existing networks of buried optical fibers as an inexpensive observatory for monitoring and studying…

Research led by the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research has anchored a long sequence of tree rings, providing context for the civilizations that existed throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages Charlotte Pearson's eyes…

Credit: Beverly J. Agtuca, Sylwia A. Stopka, Thalita R. Tuleski, Fernanda P. do Amaral, Sterling Evans, Yang Liu, Dong Xu, Rose Adele Monteiro, David W. Koppenaal, Ljiljana Paša-Toli?, Christopher R. Anderton,... Crop yields have…

Credit: IODP JRSO New Zealand's largest fault is a jumble of mixed-up rocks of all shapes, sizes, compositions and origins. According to research from a global team of scientists, this motley mixture could help explain why the fault…

"We are living through an explosion in the availability of microbiome data," according to JP Dundore-Arias, assistant professor of plant pathology at California State University, Monterey Bay. "In agricultural systems, the proliferation…

Ocean drilling project reveals 'mash up' of rock types that lead to unique slow motion earthquake events An international team of scientists has for the first time identified the conditions deep below the Earth's surface that lead to the…

Contaminant safety standards don't account for mixturesCredit: Vengosh Lab, Duke University DURHAM, N.C. - Contaminants that occur together naturally in groundwater under certain geological conditions may heighten health risks for…

Researchers open a window onto ancient mammal evolution using fossils from GermanyCredit: Oliver Wings/MLU The former coalfield of Geiseltal in Saxony-Anhalt has yielded large numbers of exceptionally preserved fossil animals, giving…

Catastrophic shock to US agriculture would deplete reserves, including those of other countries The American Dust Bowl of the 1930s - captured by the novels of John Steinbeck - was an environmental and socio-economic disaster that worsened…

Tropical forest ecosystems are an important part of the global carbon cycle as they take up and store large amounts of CO2. It is however uncertain how much these forests' ability to take up and store carbon differ between forests with…

Credit: Yen Strandqvist/Chalmers The environmental effects of agriculture and food are hotly debated. But the most widely used method of analysis often tends to overlook vital factors, such as biodiversity, soil quality, pesticide impacts…

Credit: David D'Amore Adult Pacific salmon spend a great portion of their life in the ocean. But their life began along the banks of freshwater streams. Their life will end there, as well. These important steps in the lifecycle of salmon…

New mitigation strategy bears great potentialCredit: Pleistocene Park Permafrost soils in the Arctic are thawing. As they do, large additional quantities of greenhouse gases could be released, accelerating climate change. In Russia,…

Credit: Alex Pryor Mysterious bone circles made from the remains of dozens of mammoths have revealed clues about how ancient communities survived Europe's ice age. About 70 of these structures are known to exist in Ukraine and the west…