1 Cosmology and the Earth
2 Journey to the Center of the Earth
3 Drifting Continents and Spreading Seas
4 The Way the Earth Works: Plate Tectonics
5 Patterns in Nature: Minerals
6 Up from the Inferno: Magma and Igneous Rocks
7 A Surface Veneer: Sediments, Soils, and Sedimentary Rocks
8 Metamorphism: A Process of Change
9 The Wrath of Vulcan: Volcanic Eruptions
10 A Violent Pulse: Earthquakes
11 Crags, Cracks, and Crumples: Crustal Deformations and Mountain Building
12 Deep Time: How Old Is Old?
13 A Biography of Earth
14 Squeezing Power from a Stone: Energy Resources
15 Riches in Rock: Mineral Resources
16 Unsafe Ground: Landslides and Other Mass Movements
17 Streams and Floods: The Geology of Running Water
18 Restless Realm: Oceans and Coasts
19 A Hidden Reserve: Groundwater
20 An Envelope of Gas: Earth’s Atmosphere and Climate
21 Dry Regions: The Geology of Deserts
22 Amazing Ice: Glaciers and Ice Ages
23 Global Change in the Earth System

Organize

Learn

Connect

Norton Gradebook

Instructors now have an easy way to collect students’ online quizzes with the Norton Gradebook without flooding their inboxes with e-mails.

Students can track their online quiz scores by setting up their own Student Gradebook.

Earth: Portrait of a Planet

Geology in the News

Reduce Text SizeIncrease Text SizeEmailPrint Page

USGS Real-Time Earthquake and Plate Boundary Mapping in Google Earth™

Earthquakes happen all the time! Government agencies, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, catalog these earthquakes and provide data that can be viewed in a variety of ways, including on a Google Earth™ globe.

Follow this link and simply click on one of the KML feeds to open it in Google Earth™. The maps will display earthquakes and plate boundaries, showing the latitude and longitude of the epicenter by a dot. The dot color indicates the depth of the hypocenter, while its size represents the magnitude of the event. Watch as the earthquakes of the last week pop up as dots on the map. Even though the map shows only a week's worth of data, you can easily spot the seismic belts that delineate plate boundaries, as well as the particularly active intracratonic seismic zones. Note that at lower elevations, your map will show a grid on the Earth's surface; the grid will disappear if you zoom out to a distance of over 9,500 km.

 

Science Daily NY Times

Hidden threat: Elevated pollution levels near regional airports - Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST
Scientists are reporting evidence that air pollution -- a well-recognized problem at major airports -- may pose an important but largely overlooked health concern for people living near smaller regional airports. Those airports are becoming an increasingly important component of global air transport systems. The study, one of only a handful to examine airborne pollutants near regional airports, suggests that officials should pay closer attention to these overlooked emissions, which could cause health problems for local residents.

 

Optical properties of the Antarctic system and new radiation information - Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:00:00 EST
In a new study, measurements were made during three Austral summers to study the optical properties of the Antarctic system and to produce radiation information for additional modeling studies. The system has an important part in the global climate due to its size, its high latitude location and the negative radiation balance of its large ice sheets.

 

Frog legs trade may facilitate spread of pathogens - Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST
Most countries throughout the world participate in the $40-million-per-year culinary trade of frog legs in some way, with 75 percent of frog legs consumed in France, Belgium and the United States. Scientists have found that this trade is a potential carrier of pathogens deadly to amphibians.

 

Why Israeli rodents are more cautious than Jordanian ones - Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:00:00 EST
Rodent, reptile and ant lion species behave differently on either side of the Israel-Jordan border. Researchers found that Israeli gerbils are more cautious than their Jordanian friends, and the funnel-digging ant lion population in Israel is unmistakably larger than in Jordan.

 

Braking news: Particles from car brakes harm lung cells - Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST
Real-life particles released by car brake pads can harm lung cells in vitro. Researchers found that heavy braking, as in an emergency stop, caused the most damage, but normal breaking and even close proximity to a disengaged brake resulted in potentially dangerous cellular stress.

 

 

 MM_XSLTransform error:
An error occured while loading XML document "http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Environment.xml".
Error message was: Access is denied.