Frontiers | Science News

Science News post list

29 news posts in Frontiers in Earth Science

Earth science

22 Feb 2021

Jingmai O’Connor: ‘I think people imagine we spend far more time digging up fossils than we actually do’

By Colm Gorey, Frontiers science writer/Jingmai O’Connor Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at Chicago’s Field Museum. Image: Jesse Goldberg Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at Chicago’s Field Museum, discusses a recent ‘bizarre’ ancient digestive discovery and the issue of diversity in paleontology. In a recently published study to Frontiers in Earth Science, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Field Museum in the US published findings on the discovery of quartz crystals in the stomach of a fossilized bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs. According to Jingmai O’Connor, the associate curator of fossil reptiles at Chicago’s Field Museum who contributed to the paper, it appeared to be “some kind of bizarre form of soft tissue preservation that we’ve never seen before”. She added: “Figuring out what’s in this bird’s stomach can help us understand what it ate and what role it played in its ecosystem.” O’Connor is an American paleontologist whose research focuses on the dinosaur-bird transition and the Mesozoic evolution of birds and other flying dinosaurs. Her research includes studies of exceptional soft tissues, such as lung and ovary traces preserved in specimens from Jehel Biota between 130 million and 130 million years ago. […]

Life sciences

01 Dec 2016

Researching one of the most disruptive volcanoes to forecast future eruptions

Researchers turn to specific volcanoes such as Etna in Sicily to gain insight into volcanic and non-volcanic activities of the Earth. By Fiona Boni, Science Writer A professor at the University of Roma Tre, Valerio Acocella focuses his research on understanding what triggers eruptions and what causes the propagation of the magma to the earth’s surface. He has a special interest in advancing what we know about the structure and pre-eruptive behaviour of the most disruptive type of volcanoes, known as calderas. These are large volcanic depressions formed when a magma chamber is emptied by a volcanic eruption. “Knowledge and prevention are the essential ingredients to mitigate risks,” says Acocella. “Understanding how calderas work is important when forecasting volcanic activity, and also in forecasting large eruptions.” Using similar mechanisms that have been used in studying calderas, Acocella and his team are now also trying to understand and forecast eruptions in composite volcanoes, such as Etna, using a combination of tools.   “Volcano Etna has had some interesting eruptions in the last decades. In close collaboration with colleague Marco Neri (INGV Catania), we have been researching how this volcano works along with other processes that are really aren’t strictly volcanic, such as the instability of the volcano flank,” he explains. Based on […]

Life sciences

02 Sep 2016

One vent just isn’t enough for some volcanoes

by Simon Watt, Frontiers Science Writer One vent just isn’t enough for some volcanoes: the curious case of Mount Etna’s wandering craters. Volcanoes are geology at its most exciting.  They seem so fiery, dangerous and thrillingly explosive. That may be true, but most old and mature volcanoes are surprisingly stuck in their ways and even if when they will blow is difficult to forecast, where they will blow from is often more predictable.   The majority of volcanoes look as they do in a child’s drawing; like a steep mountain with its head cut off.  They have a summit crater and, if they erupt, it is from this rocky orifice that lava and ash spews.  But this is not the case with Mount Etna on the Island of Sicily, Italy, a study published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Earth Science found. Etna has been collecting new summits as though they are Pokémon. It is as if the mountain has had an outbreak of acne, with multiple cones forming in a geologically short space of time. According to Professor Valerio Acocella, of Roma Tre University and his colleagues from Ingv Catania, this makes Etna “perfect for study”.   Valerio and […]

Climate action

18 Dec 2015

News from #AGU15: Heat stress in dense populations and impacts of the 2015-16 El Niño

Gearóid Ó Faoleán, Journal Manager of Frontiers in Earth Science, is representing Frontiers at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, the world’s largest earth and space science meeting. Here, in the 1st of a series of posts, he reports on some of the exciting press conferences he attended at the conference.  The impacts of heat stress on densely populated regions in the 21st century  Monday, 14 December 2015 Ethan Coffel, PhD candidate, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, New York, U.S.A Radley Horton, Associate Research Scientist, Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, New York, U.S.A. Noah Diffenbaugh, Associate Professor, Stanford University, and Senior Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford, California, U.S.A. The participants spoke of global exposure to heat stress for this coming century and the effects it will have on our health and, linking to that, economic performance; as well as global infrastructure. Ethan Coffel first gave an overview of his research on global wet-bulb temperature, a combined measure of temperature and humidity. It was noted that while recent global heatwaves, in this context, were in the range of 29-31 °C, human tolerance is estimated to be 35 °C maximum. Thus, a global temperature rise could have serious repercussions for humankind. Dr Radley Horton […]

Frontiers news

21 Oct 2015

Geochemistry section launches in Frontiers in Earth Science

We are very pleased to announce the launch of Frontiers in Earth Science latest specialty section, Geochemistry, led by Chief Editors Prof.Craig Lundstrom (University of Illinois) and Prof. Martyn Tranter (University of Bristol). This specialty section encompasses both high- and low-temperature aspects of the discipline, with an Associate Editorial Board currently composed of the following researchers (more to follow soon):  Kirsty C. Crockett (Scottish Association for Marine Science) Andrew Mitchell (Aberystwyth University) Mark Skidmore (Montana State University) Jean-Louis Vigneresse (Georesources Université de Lorraine) Mission Statement: Modern geochemistry often focuses on determining how elements are distributed between different reservoirs that make up the Earth, the Solar System or beyond. However, its ultimate goal is identification and in-depth understanding of the mechanisms by which these chemical reservoirs form and evolve, thus improving our understanding of how the Earth works as a geochemical system. Indeed, the flux of chemical species between these reservoirs – both in the past and at present, as well as in the future – provides an important constraint for modeling the past and predicting the future. As Prof. Tranter states: “Geochemistry is a fundamental means of understanding the operation, maintenance and evolution of ecosystems on earth, and very likely other habitats in our galaxy. […]