Posts Tagged Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Since 2010, the best estimate of the age of Earth’s magnetic field has been 3.45 billion years. But now the Rochester researcher responsible for that finding has new data showing the magnetic field is far older.

Combined with the current weakening of Earth’s magnetic field, the data suggest that the region of Earth’s core beneath southern Africa may play a special role in reversals of the planet’s magnetic poles.

Rochester researchers now know what causes the bend in the otherwise straight line of the Appalachian Mountains, and this new understanding of the region’s underlying structures could inform debates over the practice of hyrdrofracking.

Scientists have long been trying to understand how the Andes and other broad, high-elevation mountain ranges were formed. New research by Carmala Garzione, professor of earth and environmental sciences, provides an explanation.

Home to some of the most active volcanoes in the world, researchers now have a better picture of the subterranean plumbing system that feeds the Galápagos volcanoes.

The American Geophysical Union is honoring Ebinger for her “fundamental work on the evolution of continental rifts toward seafloor spreading in East Africa and Afar.”

Vasilii Petrenko is one of 16 researchers being awarded a prestigious David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship totaling $875,000 over five years to spend on a research project of his or her choice.

These meteorites, or pallasites, were likely formed when a smaller asteroid crashed into a planet-like body about 30 times smaller than earth.

Researchers from the University of Rochester and Texas A&M University have found that naturally occurring bacteria that exist in the Gulf of Mexico consumed and removed at least 200,000 tons of oil and natural gas after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.