Geology/Soil

An analysis of helium isotopes locked inside "super-deep" diamonds hundreds of kilometers below Earth's surface suggests that vast reservoirs of molten primordial source rock, perhaps nearly as old as the Earth, are present. The…

Geologists at the University of Jena (Germany) investigate the stability of the geotechnical barrier bentonite for the final disposal of nuclear wasteCredit: Franz Rinderknecht/KIT (Jena, Germany) Even after the official decision to phase…

Study dug deep to uncover which agricultural systems store the most carbonCredit: Courtesy Nicole Tautges/UC Davis By moving beyond the surface level and literally digging deep, scientists at the University of California,…

Credit: Lynn Ketchum, courtesy Oregon State University CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers at Oregon State University are paving the way toward greater safety for coastal residents and infrastructure by developing a better means of modeling the…

Credit: Martin Jurgensen Termites are unwelcome in your home. They can cause structural damage to the wood in frames, floors and other materials. It's nothing personal, though. They are really just looking for food sources.…

Credit: CIAT With growing emphasis on forest conservation and restoration as a key component in the fight against climate change, real-time information on vegetation cover changes is essential. Terra-i, a tool developed by the…

A vast region of Africa affected by drought and changing land use emits as much carbon dioxide each year as 200 million cars, research suggests. Observations from two satellites have consistently shown emissions over northern tropical…

Credit: University of Aberdeen/University of Adelaide An international team of subsurface explorers from the University of Adelaide in Australia and the University of Aberdeen in Scotland have uncovered a previously undescribed…

Like the eponymous character in Shel Silverstein's classic children's tale, trees are generous with their gifts, cleaning the air we breathe and slowing the ravages of global warming by absorbing about a quarter of all human-caused carbon…

Credit: Götz Ossendorf People in Ethiopia did not live in low valleys during the last ice age. Instead they lived high up in the inhospitable Bale Mountains. There they had enough water, built tools out of obsidian and relied mainly…