A new study by the University of Utah revealed that the hot molten rock beneath Yellowstone National Park is 2 ½ times larger than previously estimated, meaning the park’s supervolcano has the potential to erupt with a force about 2,000 times the size of Mount St. Helens. By measuring seismic waves from earthquakes, scientists were able to map the magma chamber underneath the Yellowstone caldera as 55 miles long, lead author Jamie Farrell of the University of Utah said after presenting his findings last week to the American Geophysical Union. The last Yellowstone eruption happened 640,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It has baffled humans for millennia: how did life begin on planet Earth? Now, new research from a Texas Tech University paleontologist suggests it may have rained from the skies and started in the bowels of hell.
The mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’sapis melliferapopulation thatone bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.
New research out of Woods Hole predicts that rising temperatures will lead to a massive “greening,” or increase in plant cover, in the Arctic. In a paper published on March 31 in Nature Climate Change, scientists reveal new models projecting that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent over the next few decades. The researchers also show that this dramatic greening will accelerate climate warming at a rate greater than previously expected.
“Such widespread redistribution of Arctic vegetation would have impacts that reverberate through the global ecosystem,” said Richard Pearson, lead author on the paper and a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation.
ANNAPOLIS - A statewide container recycling incentive program that would add a five cent charge to the price of plastic, glass, and aluminum beverage containers, is scheduled to be heard in the Maryland general assembly on March 8.
The program, better known as a "bottle bill" has received both support and opposition.