Category Archives: Earth sciences
Humboldt Award for work on past and future climate change
Professor Howard Spero, chair of the Department of Geology, has received a Humboldt research award from the German government. Spero will use the award of 60,000 Euros (about $78,000) towards a sabbatical in Germany next academic year. Spero studies changes …
Continue reading about Humboldt Award for work on past and future climate change
Old is new: Inaugural symposium for Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
The Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics is holding a symposium next Tuesday, May 7, to mark its recent name change. Headline speakers are David Botstein, Anthony B. Evnin professor of genomics and director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute at Princeton …
Continue reading about Old is new: Inaugural symposium for Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics
Tour campus museums on Super Science Saturday, Feb. 2
The day before Super Bowl Sunday, take an afternoon for some super science museums. UC Davis’s second annual Biodiversity Museum Day will take place Saturday, February 2, from 1 to 4 pm. The event is a special opportunity to go …
Continue reading about Tour campus museums on Super Science Saturday, Feb. 2
The natural beauty of Mars
The Mars Curiosity rover took this photo of Mt. Sharp, Mars on Aug. 27. It’s the cover art for the journal Astrobiology, with a note by UC Davis geologist Dawn Sumner, who is working with the Curiosity science team. You …
Continue reading about The natural beauty of Mars
Hunting meteor fragments, older than the Earth
The minivan-sized meteorite that broke up over the Sierra on Sunday, April 22 was not just any old space rock. It was one of the rarest types of meteorites to fall to Earth — a carbonaceous chondrite, the earliest solid …
Continue reading about Hunting meteor fragments, older than the Earth
Oaxaca earthquake, one day later
A major earthquake struck Mexico just after 11 a.m. Pacific Time yesterday. Initial reports put the magnitude at 7.9 and relatively close to the surface, which would be a very serious earthquake. However, news reports from Mexico City and then …
Continue reading about Oaxaca earthquake, one day later
Verosub teaches emergency response in Italy
Ken Verosub, Distinguished Professor in the geology department, spent two weeks in September in Pavia, Italy, teaching a short course on Earth Sciences and Natural Disasters in a masters program on risk and emergency management. (Photo: Verosub, center leads the …
Continue reading about Verosub teaches emergency response in Italy
Nat Geo special features UC Davis Keck CAVES
A National Geographic Channel special feature, ‘X-Ray Earth,’ will air Tuesday, May 24 at 1 PM featuring work by UC Davis geophysicist Magali Billen and the Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences. Billen and the Keck CAVES are …
Continue reading about Nat Geo special features UC Davis Keck CAVES
Bizarre ‘traffic cone’ life in an Antarctic Lake
In an upcoming issue of the journal Geobiology, UC Davis geologist Dawn Sumner, Dale Andersen of the SETI Institute and colleagues will describe strange and unique life forms under the ice of Lake Untersee in Antarctica. They are stromatolites, a …
Continue reading about Bizarre ‘traffic cone’ life in an Antarctic Lake
Geological record holds clues to modern climate change, experts say
The distant past could hold clues to how the Earth’s future climate would respond in an environment with high levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, says a new report from the National Research Council. The report, written by a committee chaired …
Continue reading about Geological record holds clues to modern climate change, experts say