Earth's | Common News Update

Jun152021 by adminNo Comments

Methane-eating microbes in the ocean help moderate Earth’s temperature

Science

June 14 (UPI) -- Methane-eating microbes in the planet's oceans play an unappreciated role moderating Earth's temperature, according to a new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. Carbon dioxide is the most abundant and famous greenhouse gas, but methane is plentiful and its warming effect is more than 30 times more powerful. Most methane that ends up in the atmosphere is released by human activities, but several natural processes also produce methane: volcanic activity, subsurface water-rock interactions and microbial metabolism. The majority of naturally produced methane on Earth is produced by microbes, and much of that is in the ocean. Over the last decade or so, a number of studies have shown the planet's oceans to be home to a lot more me...

Apr32021 by adminNo Comments

Most of Earth’s carbon came from the interstellar medium

Science

April 2 (UPI) -- We really are made of stardust. New research suggests the majority of Earth's carbon came from the interstellar medium, the diffuse supply of gas and dust found between a galaxy's stars. According to a new study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, carbon from the interstellar medium became incorporated into the solar system's protoplanetary disk just a million years after the sun was born. Advertisement Previously, scientists hypothesized most of Earth's organic molecules were sourced from nebular gas. As gas from the stellar nebula cooled, researchers surmised, carbon and other molecules precipitated out of the cloud and became incorporated into rocky planets. The problem with this theory is that once carbon vaporizes, it's unable to condense back into a s...

Mar122021 by adminNo Comments

Traces of primordial Earth’s magma ocean found hiding in Greenland’s rocks

Science

March 12 (UPI) -- Hidden in the ancient rocks of Greenland, scientists have found the geochemical signatures of Earth's early history, a time when the planet was one big ocean of magma. At some point during Earth's infancy, the molten ocean that covered the planet began to cool and crystalize, yielding Earth's earliest rocks and landforms. This process set the stage for Earth's tectonic evolution and the development of the planet's atmosphere. Advertisement Unfortunately, this process isn't well understood, as most all of the planet's rocks older than 4 billion years have been subsumed by Earth's interior and recycled. In a breakthrough discovery, however, the authors of a new study -- published Friday in the journal Science Advances -- claim to have found remnants of primordial Earth's m...

Mar32021 by adminNo Comments

Earth’s water cycle is increasingly dictated by humans

Science

March 3 (UPI) -- For the first time, scientists have quantified the influence of humans on surface water storage, a key component of the global water cycle. Most investigations of the impacts of human activities on hydrological patterns are focused on specific watersheds or freshwater bodies, but for the latest study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, scientists zoomed all the way out, adopting a global view. Advertisement The findings revealed the human species as the dominant regulator of surface water storage on Earth. Using surface water level measurements collected by NASA's ICESat-2 satellite altimeter, launched in 2018, scientists compiled a massive, global dataset for seasonal water level variability. The observations, captured by ICESat-2 and organized by the research t...

Feb262021 by adminNo Comments

Pyrite isn’t a reliable proxy for Earth’s oxygenation, study says

Science

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- When did Earth first acquire large amounts of oxygen? What did the planet's earliest microbial communities look like? Many of the secrets of primordial Earth -- its climate conditions and biochemical composition -- are hidden in layers of marine sediments. To reconstruct Earth's past, scientists rely on certain chemical signatures preserved in the grains of sedimentary rocks. Advertisement Now, new research suggests at least one of those signatures, a mineral called pyrite, is unreliable as a proxy for ancient oxygen levels. Pyrite, an iron sulfide formed in the presence of bacteria, operates as a strong control on oxygen accumulation in Earth's oceans and atmosphere, but it turns out that control is highly localized. According to a new study, published Friday in the jou...