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5/15/2012

The Natural Environment Research Council’s Tamera Jones explores surprising new research concerning volcanic eruptions in Yellowstone National Park

The biggest volcanic eruption in Yellowstone’s long geological history may have been made up of two distinct events 6000 years apart, say scientists.

The findings suggest the huge super-volcano that sits just beneath the US’s Yellowstone National Park may be less super, but more active, than previously thought.

They might also give researchers a better idea of when we might expect the next eruption.

‘We’re still uncertain about when the next eruption will happen, but what we can say is that where before we knew we were overdue one, now we know we’re long overdue one,’ says Dr Darren Mark from The Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), co-author of the study, published in Quaternary Geochronology.

If the volcano did erupt, the effect would almost certainly be catastrophic.  Read more here.

5/15/2012

Stable isotope analysis can used to determine migration, diet, niche, parasite–host interactions, or condition of mammalian species. You’ve just got to know the tricks of the trade. (A mass spectrometer comes in handy, too.)  Read more here.

5/9/2012

A slice through a stalagmite from a cave in northern Borneo reveals the gradual growth of the calcite structure. By measuring the ratio of oxygen isotopes in such samples, Adkins and his colleagues were able to reconstruct a history of the climate in the tropics throughout the late Pleistocene era.

Almost everything we know about noteworthy climate shifts such as ice ages comes from the cold northern latitudes. Polar ice cores and North Atlantic deep ocean sediments have revealed global glaciations and jumps in temperature and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. But scientists have long wondered what was going on in the tropics during such shifts—an important question becauseclimate patterns such as El Niño can have global effects.

Now, scientists have filled in one of these gaps at the warmer, lower latitudes: A new study of stalagmites from caves in northern Borneo reconstructs the history of the tropical west Pacific’s climate from 570,000 to 210,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene era. The time covers four glacial cycles.   “Stalagmites are the ice cores of the tropics,”said study co-author Jess Adkins, geochemistry professor at Caltech.  Read more here.

5/7/2012

A Norwegian-led international research team in collaboration with the Ocean Tracking Network (OTN), headquartered at Dalhousie University, in Canada, is launching a 1.1 million Norwegian kroner (C$190,626) study that will place acoustic tags on Norwegian sea trout (Salmo trutta). Acoustic telemetry technology will provide the most extensive data to date on fish movement and ocean conditions to answer the question of declining sea trout populations … read more here:  Investigation Into Trout Populations Will Yield Unprecedented Data.