News

Research presented by Earth Institute scientists at the 2011 American Geophysical Union fall conference generated a lot of attention from the media. Much of it came from a press conference held to discuss findings by Steve Goldstein from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and his colleagues on the potential for future drying up of the Dead Sea.

Oceanic plates are born at mid-ocean ridges, where hot mantle rocks are brought very close to the surface, partially melt, and then cool and crystallize. The newly formed rocks move outwards from the mid-ocean ridge, making way for the next batch of hot rock rising from below. Inch by inch, over millions of years, oceanic… read more

There was a nice article in the NY Times on the Adirondack State Park whose title initially focused readers on how climate change could alter the park’s ecosystems. However, by the time you get to the end of the article, and luckily for us, you get to know Jerry Jenkins, one of the best naturalists… read more

Oceans turned more acidic during a period of great warming some 56 million years ago, causing an extinction of bottom-dwelling marine species known as foraminifera, a scenario that may be happening again now, only much more quickly.

A half-dozen Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory scientists were to be honored by the American Geophysical Union at its annual fall conference in San Francisco tonight.

Along the Woodlark Rift in eastern Papua New Guinea, continents are breaking apart, “like a snake opening its mouth.” Geologic processes that are still a mystery are actively stretching the crust and pushing huge masses of rock, formed under immense pressures as deep as 100 kilometers below, to the surface.

      An international team of scientists drilling deep under the bed of the Dead Sea has found evidence that the sea may have dried up during a past warm period analogous to scenarios for climate change in coming decades. With nations in the volatile region already running short on water, the finding could be a… read more

The last major drought to hit the northeastern U.S. lasted three years and shrunk New York City’s reservoirs by nearly three quarters. But as bad as that drought was, the region has seen at least three dry spells in the last 6,000 years that were far worse, says Dorothy Peteet, a climate scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Peteet presented new results from her Hudson River work Monday at a press conference at the AGU’s fall meeting in San Francisco.

A well-traveled seismometer sits tucked inside a concrete chamber behind the Kent School chapel in Northwest Connecticut, recording earthquakes. It got here by chance.

Everything that we understand about the rhythms of the Earth’s surface – the slow growth of mountain chains, the creeping expansion of the ocean basins, the abrupt upheaval of a major earthquake, the explosive eruption of a volcano – is viewed through the context of plate tectonics.  This simple yet highly successful model for describing… read more

The first time I felt truly fanatical about coniferous trees was while walking among the great eastern white pine trees in the Adirondack State Park as an undergraduate research assistant and student.

“I was deeply saddened by the loss of one of our most beautiful trees on campus during the last storm. It had perfect symmetry and such a beautiful color display late in the fall,” wrote geochemist Martin Stute, after a highly unusual heavy October snow felled a 22-year-old Bradford pear at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where he… read more

What are the odds that this winter will be as snowy as the last two? Climate scientist Jason Smerdon and tree-ring scientist Rosanne D’Arrigo are working on an answer, looking at the long-term history of two important weather patterns—the North Atlantic Oscillation and La Niña state in the tropical Pacific—that similar to last year could collide this winter across the northeast.

By Kirsty Tinto & Mike Wolovick As little as a few decades ago you could ask a scientist what it was like to monitor the changing ice in Antarctica and the response might have been “Like watching paint dry” — seemingly no change, with no big surprises and not too exciting. Well times have changed…. read more

Modern society is awash in data. By one estimate, as much information today is created in 48 hours as was produced in the last 30,000 years. The challenge now is making all those megabytes public. This month, Elsevier, publisher of The Lancet and Cell, announced that it would establish reciprocal linking between its geochemistry journals and a data library managed by Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, called Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA).