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Hurricanes, tornadoes and bigger bodies of water always go clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. This directional spinning has to do with the rotation of the earth and is called the Coriolis force. |
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Deep mystery: why sea turtles plumb the depths
Reads: 174 |
Posted by Thoth on Sunday, August 10, 2008 (CDT)
 Researchers say they have figured out why sea turtles that normally feed and breed in shallow water or on land will, very rarely, go deep sea diving: the reptiles are on reconnaissance. Scientists have long puzzled over why leatherbacks are built to plumb the icy depths.
Imagine someone donning a complete set of scuba gear -- tanks, buoyancy compensator, regulator -- only to paddle about the surface of a shallow lagoon. What's the point? The mystery deepens. Not only are the turtles equipped with myoglobin-rich blood ideal for stocking oxygen, they sometimes plunge more than a kilometer (three-quarters of a mile) below the surface.
Jonathan Houghton and colleagues from the University of Swansea in Britain conducted experiments to find out why the lumbering sea creatures make these rare forays, and published their findings Friday in the British Journal of Experimental Biology. The researchers fitted 13 leatherbacks with data loggers which recorded location, temperature, dive depth and duration, and transmitted the information to satellites as the animals surfaced.
(Read More... Nature & the Environment | Word Count: 687 | comments? | Score: 4) |
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Last Ice Age happened in less than year say scientists
Reads: 192 |
Posted by Thoth on Monday, August 04, 2008 (CDT)
 The last ice age 13,000 years ago took hold in just one year, more than ten times quicker than previously believed, scientists have warned.
Rather than a gradual cooling over a decade, the ice age plunged Europe into the deep freeze, German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam said.
Cold, stormy conditions caused by an abrupt shift in atmospheric circulation froze the continent almost instantly during the Younger Dryas less than 13,000 years ago – a very recent period on a geological scale. The new findings will add to fears of a serious risk of this happening again in the UK and western Europe – and soon.
Dr Achim Brauer, of the GFZ (GeoForschungs Zentrum) German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam, and colleagues analysed annual layers of sediments, called "varves", from a German crater lake.
(Read More... Nature & the Environment | Word Count: 228 | comments? | Score: 4) |
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N.M. cavers chart unique `snowy' river of crystals
Reads: 178 |
Posted by Thoth on Friday, July 25, 2008 (CDT)
 Hundreds of feet beneath Earth's surface, a few seasoned cave explorers venture where no human has set foot. Their headlamps illuminate mud-covered walls, gypsum crystals and mineral deposits. The real attraction, though, is under their shoes.
A massive formation that resembles a white river spans the cave's floor. A closer examination reveals that the odd formation is an intricate crust of tiny calcite crystals. The explorers have reached Snowy River — thought to be the longest continuous cave formation in the world.
"I think Snowy River is one of the primo places underground in the world and there's still so much left that we haven't discovered. ... We don't even know how big it is," said Jim Goodbar, a cave specialist with the federal Bureau of Land Management.
(Read More... Nature & the Environment | Word Count: 842 | comments? | Score: 0) |
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Exclusive: No ice at the North Pole
Reads: 214 |
Posted by Isis on Friday, June 27, 2008 (CDT)
 It seems unthinkable, but for the first time in human history, ice is on course to disappear entirely from the North Pole this year. The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice, making it possible to reach the Pole sailing in a boat through open water, would be one of the most dramatic – and worrying – examples of the impact of global warming on the planet. Scientists say the ice at 90 degrees north may well have melted away by the summer.
"From the viewpoint of science, the North Pole is just another point on the globe, but symbolically it is hugely important. There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole, not open water," said Mark Serreze of the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado. If it happens, it raises the prospect of the Arctic nations being able to exploit the valuable oil and mineral deposits below these a bed which have until now been impossible to extract because of the thick sea ice above.
Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice-free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.
(Read More... Nature & the Environment | Word Count: 914 | comments? | Score: 5) |
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Hidden area beneath Antarctic ice revealed
Reads: 488 |
Posted by Isis on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 (CDT)
 With jagged mountain ranges, plunging valleys and majestic lakes, Antarctica has scenery to rival any beauty spot in the world – except that no-one has ever seen the continent's hidden landscape. For more than 25 million years, the fifth biggest continent on the planet has remained locked under a massive ice sheet that has concealed its secrets through out the whole of human history.
Entire mountain ranges, volcanoes, rivers, waterfalls and even new forms of life are waiting to be discovered beneath the ice. Now scientists are hoping to reveal the secrets of this hidden Antarctic landscape for the first time with one of the biggest exploration projects undertaken in more than three decades. Using new technology they aim to peer through the ice, which can be up to three miles thick in places, to create the most complete picture of what the ground beneath is really like.
Robotic submarines will also be sent down through shafts drilled into the ice to search the depths of lakes that have been found under the ice sheets for new forms of bacteria and other small organisms that scientists believe could be thriving there.
(Read More... Nature & the Environment | Word Count: 962 | comments? | Score: 4) |
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