The absence of monsoon rains at the source of the Nile was the cause of migrations and the demise of entire settlements in the late Roman province of Egypt.
This demographic development has been compared with environmental data for the first time…
Author: admin
-
Mars Crater Offers Window on Temperatures 3.5 Billion Years Ago
Once upon a time, seasons in Gale Crater probably felt something like those in Iceland. But nobody was there to bundle up more than 3 billion years ago.
The ancient Martian crater is the focus of a study by Rice University scientists comparing…
Continue Reading
-
Researchers Rewind the Clock to Calculate Age & Site of Supernova Blast
Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star.
By using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time…
Continue Reading
-
Understanding Origins of Arizona’s Sunset Crater Eruption 1,000 Years Ago
Around AD 1085 AD, along the southern rim of Northern Arizona’s elevated Colorado Plateau a volcano erupted, forever changing ancient Puebloan fortunes and all nearby life.
Among the 600 or so volcanoes that dot the landscape of the San…
Continue Reading
-
Major Drought in Middle Ages Could Have Parallels to Climate Change Today
The transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age was apparently accompanied by severe droughts between 1302 and 1307 in Europe; this preceded the wet and cold phase of the 1310s and the resulting great famine of 1315-21.
In the…
Continue Reading
-
Primordial Black Holes & Search For Dark Matter From Multiverse
The Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) is home to many interdisciplinary projects which benefit from the synergy of a wide range of expertise available at the institute.
One such project is the study of…
Continue Reading
-
Discovery Boosts Theory That Life on Earth Arose From RNA-DNA Mix
Chemists at Scripps Research have made a discovery that supports a surprising new view of how life originated on our planet.
In a study published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, they demonstrated that a simple compound called…
Continue Reading
-
Volcanic Eruptions Directly Triggered Ocean Acidification During Early Cretaceous
Around 120 million years ago, the earth experienced an extreme environmental disruption that choked oxygen from its oceans.
Known as oceanic anoxic event (OAE) 1a, the oxygen-deprived water led to a minor — but significant — mass extinction…
Continue Reading
-
Key Building Block for Organic Molecules Discovered in Meteorites
Scientists from Japan and NASA have confirmed the presence in meteorites of a key organic molecule which may have been used to build other organic molecules, including some used by life.
The discovery validates theories of the formation of organic…
Continue Reading
-
Climate Change Caused Demise of Central Asia’s River Civilizations, Not Genghis Khan
A new study challenges the long-held view that the destruction of Central Asia’s medieval river civilizations was a direct result of the Mongol invasion in the early 13th century AD.
The Aral Sea basin in Central Asia and the major rivers flowing…
Continue Reading