News articles tagged with 'isotope'
New NASA missions to investigate how Mars turned hostile
— 19 Nov 2011 15:46 | AstronomyMaybe because it appears as a speck of blood in the sky, the planet Mars was named after the Roman god of war. From the point of view of life as we know it, that's appropriate. The…
Algae, bacteria hogged oxygen after ancient mass extinction, slowed marine life recovery
— 28 Mar 2011 15:37 | EnvironmentA mass extinction is hard enough for Earth's biosphere to handle, but when you chase it with prolonged oxygen deprivation, the biota ends up with a hangover that can last millions of…
Oxygen isotope analysis tells of the wandering life of a dust grain 4.5 billion years ago
— 4 Mar 2011 14:45 | AstronomyScientists have performed a micro-probe analysis of the core and outer layers of a pea-sized piece of a meteorite some 4.57 billion years old to reconstruct the history of its formation,…
Missing chromium is clue to planet formation
— 26 Feb 2011 16:36 | Geology and palaeontologyEarly in the formation of the Earth, some forms of the element chromium separated and disappeared deep into the planet's core, a new study by UC Davis geologists shows…
Caltech geobiologists uncover links between ancient climate change and mass extinction
— 28 Jan 2011 16:18 | Geology and palaeontologyAbout 450 million years ago, Earth suffered the second-largest mass extinction in its history - the Late Ordovician mass extinction, during which more than 75 percent of marine species…
Mercury in Bay Area fish a legacy of California mining
— 26 Jan 2011 18:10 | EnvironmentMercury contamination, a worldwide environmental problem, has been called 'public enemy No. 1' in California's San Francisco Bay…
Eggs show arctic mercury cycling may be linked to ice cover
— 21 Jan 2011 19:56 | EnvironmentAn international research team working with National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML) in Charleston, S.C., has suggested…
When continents formed
— 14 Jan 2011 16:26 | Geology and palaeontologyThe continental crust is the principal record of conditions on the Earth for the last 4.4 billion years. Its formation modified the composition of the mantle and the atmosphere, it…
Meteorite just one piece of an unknown celestial body
— 16 Dec 2010 17:07 | AstronomyScientists from all over the world are taking a second, more expansive, look at the car-sized asteroid that exploded over Sudan's Nubian Desert in 2008. Initial research was focused…
Life thrives in porous rock deep beneath the seafloor, scientists say
— 8 Dec 2010 18:41 | BiologyResearchers have found compelling evidence for an extensive biological community living in porous rock deep beneath the seafloor. The microbes in this hidden world appear to be an important…