Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding the origins of non-meteoric water in natural spa waters located in central Japan. Based on numerical modeling, their results suggest that this water has been confined within the lithosphere for an extensive period of 1.5–5 million years. They identified three primary sources for this ancient water: the Philippine Sea Plate, the Pacific Plate, and ancient seafloor sediments, particularly in the Niigata and southwest Gunma regions. Although most natural spa waters primarily originate from atmospheric precipitation, such as rain and snow (known as meteoric water), the new study, now published in the Journal of Hydrology, explored the unique qualities of certain spa waters. By analyzing the stable isotope compositions of hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules, researchers have identified distinct characteristics that indicate the presence of long-trapped lithospheric water.

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Human activity has changed Earth’s spin axis By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, AGU’s journal for short-format, high-impact research with implications spanning the Earth and space sciences. Based on climate models, scientists previously estimated humans pumped 2,150 gigatons of groundwater, equivalent to more than 6 millimeters (0.24 inches) of sea level rise, from 1993 to 2010. But validating that estimate is difficult. One approach lies with the Earth’s rotational pole, which is the point around which the planet rotates. It moves during a process called polar motion, which is when the position of the Earth’s rotational pole varies relative to the crust. The distribution of water on the planet affects how mass is distributed. Like adding a tiny bit of weight to a spinning top, the Earth spins a little differently as water is moved around. “Earth’s rotational pole actually changes a lot,” said Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University who led the study. “Our study shows that among climate-related causes, the redistribution of groundwater actually has the largest impact on the drift of the rotational pole.” Water’s ability to change the Earth’s rotation was discovered in 2016, and until now, the specific contribution of groundwater to these rotational changes was unexplored. In the new study, researchers modeled the observed changes in the drift of Earth’s rotational pole and the movement of water — first, with only ice sheets and glaciers considered, and then adding in different scenarios of groundwater redistribution. The model only matched the observed polar drift once the researchers included 2150 gigatons of groundwater redistribution. Without it, the model was off by 78.5 centimeters (31 inches), or 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches) of drift per year. “I’m very glad to find the unexplained cause of the rotation pole drift,” Seo said. “On the other hand, as a resident of Earth and a father, I’m concerned and surprised to see that pumping groundwater is another source of sea-level rise.” “This is a nice contribution and an important documentation for sure,” said Surendra Adhikari, a research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in this study. Adhikari published the 2016 paper on water redistribution impacting rotational drift. “They’ve quantified the role of groundwater pumping on polar motion, and it’s pretty significant.” The location of the groundwater matters for how much it could change polar drift; redistributing water from the midlatitudes has a larger impact on the rotational pole. During the study period, the most water was redistributed in western North America and northwestern India, both at midlatitudes. Countries’ attempts to slow groundwater depletion rates, especially in those sensitive regions, could theoretically alter the change in drift, but only if such conservation approaches are sustained for decades, Seo said. The rotational pole normally changes by several meters within about a year, so changes due to groundwater pumping don’t run the risk of shifting seasons. But on geologic time scales, polar drift can have an impact on climate, Adhikari said. The next step for this research could be looking to the past. “Observing changes in Earth’s rotational pole is useful for understanding continent-scale water storage variations,” Seo said. “Polar motion data are available from as early as the late 19th century. So, we can potentially use those data to understand continental water storage variations during the last 100 years. Were there any hydrological regime changes resulting from the warming climate? Polar motion could hold the answer.” IMAGE....Here, the researchers compare the observed polar motion (red arrow, “OBS”) to the modeling results without (dashed blue arrow) and with (solid blue arrow) groundwater mass redistribution. The model with groundwater mass redistribution is a much better match for the observed polar motion, telling the researchers the magnitude and direction of groundwater’s influence on the Earth’s spin. CREDIT Seo et al. (2023), Geophysical Research Letters

The absolute immense joy I just experienced to be able to see an image on our chapter powerpoint and immediately identify it as Half Dome at Yosemite before even opening the slide notes

Daniel Torobekov

I HATE MAPS I HATE HAVING TO LEARN HOW TO BUILD A MAP IVE BEEN DOING THIS FOR 14 hOURS AND IT WAS ONLY SUPPOSED TO TAKE 2 hours max

3.3: Carbon Capture and Storage with Prof Mike Bickle

In this ep, Christina talks to Dr. Mike Bickle, professor emeritus at the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Cambridge about carbon capture and storage: methods, dangers, what it would take to deploy at necessary scale. Join us!

Conquering climate change for our survival and that of much of the rest of the biosphere calls for more than attaining net zero emissions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. We also need to actively remove much of the 140 extra parts per million of carbon dioxide currently up there in the atmosphere thanks to our burning of fossil fuels and destruction of so much of Earth’s biosphere. Both…

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thesis things (pt. 1?)

hiya, so i'm working on my thesis right now, and a lot of things intimidate me but it's going alright. i want to quickly jot down some things i have notices in my work process that might be helpful to think about yourself if you're working on a thesis or larger project yourself.

keep track of what you want. this might seem so simple, but don't get caught up in the details and communicate with yourself clearly. If you're a very organised person this might be simpler, but i am bad at following lists. how i approached this is having pen and paper in front of me at all times and jotting down small lists. might sounds just like a to do list but it is not. it is to orient yourself. 'what do i want to get out of this data collection?' jot that down. while collecting your data, if you feel yourself slipping in, refer back to the paper in front of you and recognise if you are doing something you need to do or not.

do not do everything at once. be kind to yourself, this is a longer process. every step will take time, and not having words on paper in week two when you've been collecting data all of week 1 is okay, normal, where would you have found the time? that was not what that time was for.

keep track of the date, how much work have i delivered in how much time?

clear communication with your coach, don't serve them all your material on a silver platter but plan meetings and talk through some interesting things. if you find something curious (and you've established you want to keep contact up between meetings) message them about it, let them know what you think, what you find curious, ask them what they think. this is your project, yes, but you also get judged by them on your end product and your behaviour throughout the project. make sure you deliver the type of work they expect and figure out what they want.

take breaks. you are getting a headache from staring at the screen and thinking too much. go take a walk, drink some water, in this state you will not deliver anything.

backup your documents and data. every night.

if you cannot figure out how to write something (the discussion) immediately, sometimes it is good to just start. in my case, i just started as if i am having a little discussion on how i'm not clear on anything yet but i do have some ideas. no one is reading this yet. this is all for me and i need to keep track of what i think. that will not stay in your head until you're at the deadline.

be flexible in your time where you can. if you are having a rough morning, but you usually take walks at night after your work, switch it up. take a walk in the morning and work a little later if you need to.

there is more but i feel confident in working again now, part 2 at some point?

nothing’s wrong- i’m just a STEM student…

[i rarely see stem rep- so here’s the extended edition of ‘stoners in stem’ that highlights the parts of this life that i find myself loving ;p]

- swerving around countertops and oblivious peers- doing your best to keep the various beakers balanced on top of the books you’re holding 

- all eyes being drawn to you when something arises that stumps the rest of your friends

- falling into the habit of a heavy step- never wanting to sneak up on someone in the lab (still getting ‘oh! you startled me!’ comments, nonetheless)

- avoiding small-talk like the plague

- the constant gathering of three or more students (and the occasional staff) out behind the building- trading cigarettes and spectating on arguments that couldn’t wait five minutes for someone to finish their smoke

- ‘do you have a lighter?’ ‘no...? just- light yours on mine.’

- unfortunate clashes between the scientific mind and the scientific heart

- calculated actions, then second-guessing your results; maybe just one more test...

- the static in the air as everyone watches an experiment expectantly, pencils and graph paper ready for if it succeeds- a fire extinguisher and open doors for if it fails miserably 

- dark and smudged eye makeup to compliment the ever-omnipresent dark circles you wear like a badge of honor

- harboring a distaste for bottles and containers made with material that has no translucence whatsoever (how are we supposed to see how much is in there if holding it to the light does nothing?) 

- panicked glances at your peers when you hear the jingle of keys coming down the hall (you should get rid of the evidence)

- narrowed eyes at the calculations in front of you, feeling like the visual representation of ‘?!?!’ 

- ‘what were you trying to accomplish?’ ‘i don’t know- not this!’

- watching in disgust and amusement as someone lights a joint with a bunsen burner and gestures for you to follow- making a dash towards the staircase that leads to the back exit; you and a few others aren’t far behind

- the type of laugh that echos through the building- loud and sudden as it’s ripped from your chest

- bouts of blank stares as you work through something in your mind- only coming-to when the person in front of you shifts uncomfortably under your empty gaze

- the heavy silence that rests in the darkness when you know you aren’t falling asleep anytime soon

- the first part of your notebook being neat and color-coded

- the rest being vaguely sectioned and underlined instead of highlighted (all your highlighters and pens have been lost or lended out- you had to borrow this one)

- playlists that range from loud and angry, to gentle and repetitive- both help you focus

- ‘did you see that?’  ‘no, i... blinked...? on accident.’  ‘... fine- let’s start over.’

- screeching when a concoction begins to overflow- everyone gathering like a flock of birds to lend a hand or screeches of their own 

- going out for a smoke one day and noticing a stolen handheld torch on the fire extinguisher- ‘communal lighter’ is scrawled on a piece of graph paper taped to the brick above it. thank god for the engineers

- wishing you had payed attention in second grade when learning your times tables

- slippery cobblestone that shocks you awake when you lose your footing in the mornings 

- constantly looking around- startling your friends when you stop mid-sentence to glance alarmingly over your shoulder (‘what...?’  ‘...’   ‘seriously- what?!’   ‘mmm... it’s nothing- never mind,’) 

- staring blankly at people as they tell you their deepest darkest secrets (a reoccurring phenomena)

- the cold in the morning, the heat in the afternoon, and the chill returning in the evening- all telling you that fall has arrived; sweaters beginning to show up under lab coats

- someone sprinting intensively across campus- papers flying from their grasp and out of the stacks of books, binders, and folders clutched in their arms; another person following close behind- picking everything up and quickly chasing after them

- the inked mustaches and tattoos drawn onto the plastic model skeleton that’s older than you are 

- the burning feeling in your chest when someone mentions a theory or standpoint that you despise; sending them a glare and a shake of your head- but not having the energy to debate them on it (if they want to be wrong, that’s their problem)

- tapping your fingers on things to count instead of outright holding your hand in front of you 

- being described as ‘intimidating’ despite often feeling uneasy around people yourself (they think that you know something they don’t) (and they’re right) 

- vocal changes in tone being the height of comedy- there aren’t many other ways to safely express humor when dealing with dangerous substances

- ‘check this out-’ -sets off fire alarm-

- the suffocating pause after hearing ‘did someone leave the gas on?’

- the mixed reactions when a spider appears- everyone moves to crowd around it or to the other side of the room; one person is grabbing a torch while others scream at them to leave the poor thing alone- eventually someone just scoops it up and leaves the room. they’re gone for the rest of class

- the feeling of utter despair as you realize that the page you need has been ripped out of your textbook 

- developing the immediate response of dropping to the floor when something explodes near you 

- the unanimous hope that at least one person near you understands the topic just a little more than you do

- growing to find comfort in the constant aura of secrecy that surrounds everything around you (but hoping you never get used to the rush of being let in on those secrets)

- the buzz of the first few minutes of class- when everyone is stashing away their jewelry and comparing notes from the previous session; someone is laughing out in the hall, and the countertops feel like snowmelt under your arms

[i could go on and on... but i’m not gonna <3]

imagine being an aspiring geologist and going to school of rock,, like you're so excited because nobody cares about rocks let alone enough to make a camp about it and you hear about the rock camp and you're like finally an actual geology program and you go there and it's just Disney Channel kids

having not one nor two but THREE doctors say to me different versions of "you're the brains here" is such a confidence boost I've never had in any other human interaction in my life

A team of scientists found that carbon dioxide becomes a more potent greenhouse gas as more is released into the atmosphere. The new study, led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, was published in Science and comes as world leaders meet in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28. "Our finding means that as the climate responds to increases in carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide itself becomes a more potent greenhouse gas," said the study's senior author Brian Soden, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the Rosenstiel School. "It is yet further confirmation that carbon emissions must be curbed sooner rather than later to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change." In this study, the researchers used state-of-the-art climate models and other tools to analyze the effect increasing CO2 has on a region of the upper atmosphere—known as the stratosphere—that scientists have long known cools with increasing CO2 concentrations. They found that this stratosphere cooling causes subsequent increases in CO2 to have a larger heat-trapping effect than previous increases, causing carbon dioxide to become more potent as a greenhouse gas.

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Bouncing seismic waves reveal distinct layer in Earth's inner core Data captured from seismic waves caused by earthquakes has shed new light on the deepest parts of Earth’s inner core, according to seismologists from The Australian National University (ANU). By measuring the different speeds at which these waves penetrate and pass through the Earth’s inner core, the researchers believe they’ve documented evidence of a distinct layer inside Earth known as the innermost inner core -- a solid “metallic ball” that sits within the centre of the inner core. Not long ago it was thought Earth’s structure was comprised of four distinct layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. The findings, published in Nature Communications, confirm there is a fifth layer. “The existence of an internal metallic ball within the inner core, the innermost inner core, was hypothesized about 20 years ago. We now provide another line of evidence to prove the hypothesis,” Dr Thanh-Son Phạm, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said. Professor Hrvoje Tkalčić, also from ANU, said studying the deep interior of Earth’s inner core can tell us more about our planet’s past and evolution. “This inner core is like a time capsule of Earth's evolutionary history – it’s a fossilised record that serves as a gateway into the events of our planet’s past. Events that happened on Earth hundreds of millions to billions of years ago,” he said. The researchers analysed seismic waves that travel directly through the Earth’s centre and “spit out” at the opposite side of the globe to where the earthquake was triggered, also known as the antipode. The waves then travel back to the source of the quake. The ANU scientists describe this process as similar to a ping pong ball bouncing back and forth. “By developing a technique to boost the signals recorded by densely populated seismograph networks, we observed, for the first time, seismic waves that bounce back-and-forth up to five times along the Earth’s diameter. Previous studies have documented only a single antipodal bounce,” Dr Phạm said. “The findings are exciting because they provide a new way to probe the Earth’s inner core and its centremost region.” One of the earthquakes the scientists studied originated in Alaska. The seismic waves triggered by this quake “bounced off” somewhere in the south Atlantic, before travelling back to Alaska. The researchers studied the anisotropy of the iron-nickel alloy that comprises the inside of the Earth’s inner core. Anisotropy is used to describe how seismic waves speed up or slow down through the material of the Earth’s inner core depending on the direction in which they travel. It could be caused by different arrangement of iron atoms at high temperatures and pressures or preferred alignment of growing crystals. They found the bouncing seismic waves repeatedly probed spots near the Earth’s centre from different angles. By analysing the variation of travel times of seismic waves for different earthquakes, the scientists infer the crystallised structure within the inner core's innermost region is likely different to the outer layer. They say it might explain why the waves speed up or slow down depending on their angle of entry as they penetrate the innermost inner core. According to the ANU team, the findings suggest there could have been a major global event at some point during Earth’s evolutionary timeline that led to a “significant” change in the crystal structure or texture of the Earth’s inner core. “There are still many unanswered questions about the Earth’s innermost inner core, which could hold the secrets to piecing together the mystery of our planet’s formation,” Professor Tkalčić said. The researchers analysed data from about 200 magnitude-6 and above earthquakes from the last decade. IMAGE....An earthquake in Alaska causing seismic waves to penetrate the Earth's innermost inner core. Credit: Drew Whitehouse, Son Phạm and Hrvoje Tkalčic. Credit: Drew Whitehouse, Son Phạm and Hrvoje Tkalčic.

This is photosynthesis

15-06-2022

Spent so long on this assignment in the last few days, it feels so good to finally submit it. Got a little marked quiz in there between things too, so now I only have one assignment left for the semester!

Giving myself a little break for the rest of the evening and starting my planning for next semester <3

More than 5 feet has fallen in New York snowstorm and 2 people have died while clearing paths in Erie County | CNN

More than 5 feet has fallen in New York snowstorm and 2 people have died while clearing paths in Erie County | CNN

CNN  —  Heavy snowfall is pounding parts of western New York state as a potentially historic storm that’s halted traffic on major roadways threatens to topple trees, damage property and knock out power as temperatures plunge. Snowfall totals have now reached 5 feet in at least one location. Orchard Park, where the Buffalo Bills had been scheduled to play their now-relocated NFL game Sunday, had…

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