Earth articles from June 1998

Earth archives from June 1998

Death in the dunes.(Earth News)(hundreds of dinosaurs buried in Mongolia's Gobi Desert 70 million years ago)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... A howling desert drowns dinos. Drenched to death in a desert? That improbable fate befell hundreds of dinosaurs and mammals some seventy million years ago in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. Avalanches of water-soaked sand buried the animals...

Planet waves.(Earth News)(water levels change as Earth spins)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... A little rocking can get the oceans rolling. Our planet is like a water balloon. As it spins, Earth jiggles and wobbles, sloshing its oceans around. And that, says geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica, can cause sea level surges and dips of more...

Waiting to exhale.(Earth News)(trapped fluids under Wyoming's Yellowstone caldera might cause hydrothermal explosion)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... Volcanic sighs may cause the rise and fall of Yellowstone National Park. Five breaths in the last nine thousand years may not seem like much, but when the breather has the lung capacity of a whale five times the size of Manhattan, those...

Well-healed faults: the wounds of a quake-shocked crust fix themselves.(Earth News)(cracks caused by 1992 Landers earthquake along Johnson Valley Fault closing with time)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... The wounds of a quake-shocked crust fix themselves. Time heals all wounds -- even forty-mile-long ones. When the Johnson Valley Fault ruptured in 1992, setting off the Landers earthquake, it ripped open cracks and fissures that stretched...

Salt of the sea.(Earth News)(A warmer Mediterranean Sea could cause global weather changes)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... A warm, salty Mediterranean could chill Europe. The poet Homer described the Mediterranean as a "wine-dark sea." But it's fast becoming a warm, salty pond. This new look, oceanographers now say, is causing changes in water circulation...

Walking across water.(Surface Realm)(a land bridge may have connected Madagascar to Africa 45 to 26 million years ago)
June 1, 1998... A short-lived land bridge may have carried bizarre mammals to an islands hideaway, leaving ordinary animals behind. Madagascar is a world apart. Two hundred fifty miles to the west, across the Mozambique Channel, the African mainland teems...

Rivers of change.(Water World)(where, if at all, rivers flow into the sea can impact ocean temperatures)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... Plunk a drop of fresh water into a bucket of seawater, and you get a bucket of seawater. But change the course of a river flowing into the ocean, and you could kick off a worldwide heat wave. So says oceanographer Karen Bice of...

Deep impressions.(Ancient Lives)(bumpy skin in dinosaurs may have functioned as mechanism to purge excess body heat)
June 1, 1998... Dinos with bumpy skin may have been the world's biggest radiators. You've got a hungry predator hot on your heels. You dash into a dense stand of palms to evade the large-toothed beast. Now you're safe, but you've heated up from your...

Through dinosaur eyes.(research points to wide stereoscopic vision in meat eating dinosaurs)(Cover Story)
June 1, 1998... Stevens is seeing what dinosaurs saw. His view flesh or spied its dinner with the eyes of a killer. Ten pairs of beady reptilian eyes stare placidly at Kent Stevens as he works to uncover the sixty-five-million-year-old secret they...

Storm warning.(new computer weather forecasting model predicts storms hours in advance)
June 1, 1998... A model atmosphere is letting forecasters predict dangerous weather hours before it even exists. Heavy weather moves fast. On April 29, 1995, a vicious thunderstorm formed near the Red River in Texas and within the hour had ripped into...

Tilt-a-world.(more than half a billion years ago, continents may have slipped 90 degrees)
June 1, 1998... Half a billion years ago, continents may have gone screaming around the planet, and their collisions may have created a new era of evolution. Bullwinkle J. Moose scratched his horns in amazement. His home town, the perpetually frozen...

Exploded mountain: Alaska's Aniakchak caldera is remote, sometimes violent - and beautiful.
June 1, 1998... Alaska's Aniakchak caldera is remote, sometimes violent--and beautiful. Bleak and blasted. It's hard to think of other words, looking out the window of a small plane flying over the mountain boundary surrounding the Aniakchak caldera. The...

Magnificent moments: 5th annual reader photo contest.(5th annual photo contest winners are presented)
June 1, 1998... It was dawn in the Sierra Nevada, halfway between Los Angeles and Mammoth Lakes. Inside his cozy sleeping bag, Gary Morris had just awakened to a crisp November morning. He was camped alone near and old volcanic cinder cone that, thanks to...

Electric sky.(Weather Eye)(lightning bolts still a mystery)
June 1, 1998... One of nature's most deadly phenomena -- lightning -- remains one of science's greatest unsolved mysteries. A strange tingling sensation runs over your skin; your arm and neck hairs stand on end. Your trek along the steep mountain path had...

Shapers of Time: the Evolution of Growth and Development.
June 1, 1998... By Kenneth J. McNamara (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), ISBN 0-8018-5571-3, 342 pages, hardcover, $34.95. It would be fair to say that evolution and Darwin are inextricably linked. By contrast, evolutionary biology and the...

The Wonders of Rocks and Minerals.
June 1, 1998... Written by E. J. Tarbuck, F. K. Lutgens, and E. Greaney, TASA Graphic Arts, 9301 Indian School Road NE, Suite 208, Albuquerque NM 87112-2861, 505-293-2727, tasagraph@aol.com, $59. Need a geologic spark in your classroom? Consider this...

Privileged Hands: a Scientific Life.
June 1, 1998... By Geerat Vermeij (W. H. Freeman and Company, 1997), ISBN 0-7167-2954-7, 297 pages, paperback, $14.95. Geerat Vermeij is an evolutionary biologist at the University of California in Davis. He is an expert on the evolution of snails. He is...

Zap Science.
June 1, 1998... By John Cassidy, Paul Doherty, and Pat Murphy (Klutz, 1997), ISBN 1-57054-108-6, 100 pages, hardcover, $19.95. The publishers call this book a scientific playground because -- as you'll discover at first glance -- it's not just for...

Hard-hearted beauty.(Elements)(diamonds are extremely dense, with short chemical bonds)(Brief Article)
June 1, 1998... The allure of diamonds boils down to a lot of atoms in a very small space. Picture a diamond, and your mind will flood with associations. Power. Wealth. Mystery. Durability. Greed. Romance. Baseball. All the best and worst of life's...

Up golden stairs.(Expeditions)(a description of a hike on the Chilkoot Trail, which borders Oregon and Canada, is presented)(includes related article on how and when to plan a hike)
June 1, 1998... The rugged trail leading to Canada's Klondike gold still holds many treasures. The seasoned prospectors had a name for them: cheechakos. It meant greenhorn, and thousands of these inexperienced miners swarmed the cold North one hundred...