Earth articles from February 1996

Earth archives from February 1996

Virtual dynamo.
February 1, 1996... Albert Einstein called the origin of Earth's magnetic field one of physics' most important unsolved problems. Today, scientists think they have the general problem licked, but they remain perplexed by the details, especially the behavior of...

How climate changed our history.
February 1, 1996... About 2.5 million years ago, an event occurred that would radically alter the course of Earth history: The evolution of the first human. As profound as this event was, however, scientists aren't certain why it happened. For years,...

T. Rex gets tougher: last august, amateur paleontologist Steven Sacrison ... discavered the fifth Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton found near Hill City, South Dakota.
February 1, 1996... When people imagine a Tyrannosaurus rex attack, the hapless victim is usually a poor defenseless herbivore. But evidence from recently unearthed T. rex bones indicates that these beasts frequently turned their six-inch-long teeth and lethal...

Veggie croc (fossilized snout of a plant-eating crocodile that lived in the Cretaceous Period, about 120 million years ago).
February 1, 1996... This is the fossilized snout of a plant-eating crocodile that lived in the Cretaceous Period, about 120 million years ago. (The nose end points left.) The croc is believed to have been a vegetarian because its teeth had many surfaces and the...

Earth's early evolution.
February 1, 1996... When did terra firma firm up? And what happened to it once it did? These are among the great unanswered questions in earth science. Prevailing wisdom holds that the bulk of Earth's continental crust didn't form until at least 2.5 billion...

Pesticides spread around globe.
February 1, 1996... Pesticides have spread far enough to pollute even the least-developed parts of the globe -- despite industrialized nations' having banned some of the compounds. Staci Simonich and Ronald Hites of Indiana University have discovered traces...

Earth chronicles.
February 1, 1996... This earth science dateline covers the period from September 7 to November 1, 1995. It includes all reported earthquakes of magnitude 6.5 and higher. September 14 -- Hurricane Ismael kills at least 91, mostly fishermen unprepared for the...

Bacteria that build mountains: geologist now think that lowly bacteria may have played a crucial role in forming dolomite, the mineral that makes up most of the Italian range known as the Dolomites.
February 1, 1996... From a distance, the Dolomites are an impressive sight: a wall of serrated peaks made of dazzlingly bright rock. If new research by Swiss and Brazilian scientists is right, the raw material for these massive mountains may have been...

(World's oldest droppings have been found in Wales).
February 1, 1996... THE WORLD'S OLDEST DROPPINGS have been found in Wales. The coprolites, fossil feces, date back as much as 412 million years, to a time when ecosystems on land were just getting established. The coprolites contain traces of undigested land...

(Past july was one of the warmest on record in Antartica).
February 1, 1996... THIS PAST JULY was one of the warmest on record in Antarctica, according to John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Some areas experienced temperatures as much as 5.5 degrees Celsius (about 8 degrees...

(Some dinosaur eggs from southern France may in fact be bird eggs).
February 1, 1996... SOME DINOSAUR EGGS from southern France may in fact be bird eggs, warn French paleontologists. They recently discovered the fragment of a pelvis of a bird from the Cretaceous Period that could have been as large as a modern ostrich. Thus they...

(Greatest extinction in the history of life is now further linked to massive volcanic eruptions).
February 1, 1996... THE GREATEST EXTINCTION in the history of life is now further linked to massive volcanic eruptions that spewed out millions of square miles of lava. New research has precisely dated colossal lava flows in Siberia to near the end of the...

Some like it hot: ... scientists have recovered subterranean bacteria that may have originated deep underground.
February 1, 1996... New findings by French and American researchers are just the latest evidence that the biosphere -- the realm of living organisms on Earth -- extends much deeper than the planet's surface [see "The Biosphere Below," June 1995]. ...

Layers of beauty.
February 1, 1996... The picturesque layering of agate is one of the most spectacular examples of nature's patterning ability. Now scientists have figured out exactly what causes the iridescent patterns of "iris" agate. Peter Heaney of Princeton University and...

Winter in paradise: the tropics may have cooled more during the last ice age than many scientists thought. Learning why is critical to predicting future global warming.
February 1, 1996... White sand beaches, waves hushing in and out, blue skies over the palm trees: It's an idyllic image of a tropical paradise where time seems to stop. Indeed, until recently, atmospheric scientists regarded the tropics as an island of climatic...

Blown away: ... violent windstorm gathered strength over southern Canada and then tore through northern New York State.
February 1, 1996... Last July, meteorologist John Cannon was working the graveyard shift at the National Weather Service forecast office in Albany, New York. For three nights he watched a natural disaster in the making, although he did not know it at the time....

Out of Africa: ... the latest evidence again suggests that modern humans evolved recently in Africa. But the case id far from settled.
February 1, 1996... We Homo sapiens just don't know how to treat family. Consider the fate of poor Java Man, an early human who lived some 700,000 years ago. In 1894, three years after his weighty skullcap and thigh bone were dug from the banks of an Indonesian...

Future evolution of Homo sapiens: an eminent biologist speculates about what the future may hold for our species.
February 1, 1996... Suppose that our species survives the next 1,000 years and is thus able to embark upon a journey of a million years. The human genus has changed radically over the past million years -- from Homo erectus into us. Would the next million bring...

Best of shuttle photography: ... we present a selection of some of the finest pictures taken by NASA astronauts since our last annual "Best of Shuttle Photography" feature.
February 1, 1996... When the space shuttle Endeavour roared off the launch pad on September 30, 1994, ash and hot gases were beginning to roar out of the mouth of Kliuchevskoi Volcano on Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula. Soon after launch, the astronauts were in...

Measure of a mountain: how high are the highest mountains in the world? Oddly enough, nobody really knows for sure.
February 1, 1996... There are certain superlatives about the planet that people are confident in. For instance, most school children can name the highest mountain in the world: Everest, of course. But a quick check in some reference books reveals a surprising...

Roving rocks of Racetrack Playa: ... in Death Valley, California, chunks of dolomite have somehow managed to move across a normally dry lake bed, leaving behind mysterious trails.
February 1, 1996... Among the most sought-after and never-witnessed phenomena in Death Valley National Park, California, is the roving of rocks on Racetrack Playa. By some freak of wind, ice and mud, large chunks of dolomite have been able to roam about, gouging...

Geodynamics multimedia database.
February 1, 1996... Geodynamics Multimedia Database, Multimedia CD-ROM or diskette-based software, Mac/Windows, $199, with 16-page guide. EME Corporation, 41 Kenosia Avenue, P.O. Box 2805, Danbury CT 06813. This program, a complement to the seismometer...

Raptor red.
February 1, 1996... Raptor Red, by Robert T. Bakker, (Bantam Books, 1995), ISBN 0-553-10124-4, 246 pages, hardcover, $21.95. To the list of memorable title characters in literature -- Doctor Zhivago, Emma, Oliver Twist -- it may seem a bit strange to add a...

Lost world.
February 1, 1996... The Lost World, Michael Crichton, (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1995) ISBN 0-679-41946-2, 393 pages, hardcover, $25.95 You're lying in the maw of an adult female T. rex. She holds you surprisingly gently between her teeth, though her breath...

Smoking mountain.
February 1, 1996... Popocatepetl, "smoking mountain" in the Aztec language, is Mexico's second highest peak. Soaring to 17,890 feet (5,426 m), the volcanic cone casts a mammoth shadow at dawn toward the 20 million people of Mexico City only 35 miles away. ...

Usshering in the Millennium.
February 1, 1996... The 6,000th anniversary of Earth's creation (4004 B.C. - A.D. 1997) is about to be celebrated by congregations that revere geochronology's founder, the good and great Archbishop Ussher. Their enthusiasm seems bound to spill over into their...