Caltech Researchers Find Ancient Climate Cycles Recorded in Mars Rocks

Submitted by ksvitil on Thu, 2008-12-04 08:00

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and their colleagues have found evidence of ancient climate change on Mars caused by regular variation in the planet's tilt, or obliquity. On Earth, similar "astronomical forcing" of climate drives ice-age cycles.

Potential for Large Earthquake Off the Coast of Sumatra Remains Large, Says Caltech-Led Team of Scientists

Submitted by lorio on Wed, 2008-12-03 08:00
The subduction zone that brought us the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and tsunami is ripe for yet another large event, despite a sequence of quakes that occurred in the Mentawai Islands area in 2007, according to a group of earthquake researchers led by scientists from the Tectonics Observatory at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Caltech Geobiologists Discover Unique "Magnetic Death Star" Fossil

Submitted by ksvitil on Mon, 2008-10-20 07:00

An international team of scientists has discovered microscopic, magnetic fossils resembling spears and spindles, unlike anything previously seen, among sediment layers deposited during an ancient global-warming event along the Atlantic coastal plain of the United States.

Caltech Scientists Offer New Explanation for Monsoon Development

Submitted by ksvitil on Mon, 2008-07-21 07:00
Geoscientists at the California Institute of Technology have come up with a new explanation for the formation of monsoons, proposing an overhaul of a theory about the cause of the seasonal pattern of heavy winds and rainfall that essentially had held firm for more than 300 years.

Giant Impact Explains Mars Dichotomy

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 2008-06-25 07:00
The surface landscape of Mars, divided into lowlands in the north and highlands in the south, has long perplexed planetary scientists. Was it sculpted by several small impacts, via mantle convection in the planet's interior, or by one giant impact? Now scientists at the California Institute of Technology have shown through computer modeling that the Mars dichotomy, as the divided terrain has been termed, can indeed be explained by one giant impact early in the planet's history.

Stress Buildup Precedes Large Sumatra Quakes

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-05-27 07:00
The island of Sumatra, Indonesia, has shaken many times with powerful earthquakes since the one that wrought the infamous 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Now, scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences are harnessing information from these and earlier quakes to determine where the next ones will likely occur, and how big they will be.

Partnerships of Deep-Sea Methane Scavengers Revealed

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2008-05-09 07:00
The sea floor off the coast of Eureka, California, is home to a diverse assemblage of microbes that scavenge methane from cold deep-sea vents. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a technique to directly capture these cells, lending insight into the diverse symbiotic partnerships that evolved among different species in an extreme environment.

A Grand Canyon as Old as the Dinosaurs?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2008-04-10 07:00
How the Grand Canyon was carved has been a topic of scientific controversy for nearly 140 years. Now, with new geochronologic data from the canyon and surrounding plateaus, geologists from the California Institute of Technology present significant evidence that the canyon formed nearly 50 million years earlier than previously thought.

Water Vapor Detected in Protoplanetary Disks

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 2008-03-18 07:00

Water is an essential ingredient for forming planets, yet has remained hidden from scientists searching for it in protoplanetary systems, the spinning disks of particles surrounding newly formed stars where planets are born. Now the detection of water vapor in the inner part of two extrasolar protoplanetary disks brings scientists one step closer to understanding water's role during terrestrial planet formation.

Tracking Earth Changes with Satellite Images

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 2007-12-14 08:00

Sebastien Leprince, a graduate student in electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, working under the supervision of geology professor and director of Caltech's Tectonics Observatory (TO), Jean-Philippe Avouac, wrote software that correlates any two optical images taken by satellite. It has proved extremely reliable in tracking large-scale changes on Earth's surface, like earthquake ruptures, the mechanics of "slow" landslides, or defining the fastest-moving sections of glaciers that, due to global warming, have recently increased their pace.

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