World News

EARTH SCIENCE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION

Registered charity number 1005331

Supporting the teaching of Earth sciences at all levels

British Geological Survey - new on-line resource                                                                                                          The BGS's new on-line resource Open Geoscience is now available. bringing together existing resources with new items inclding photographs can that be downloaded free for educational use. The address is: www.bgs.ac.uk/opengeoscience/

The Aerial Reconnaisance Archives                                                                                                                                Initally there will be about 4000 images in this archive, but more will be added later. The archive can be viewed at: http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/

In Service Training Workshop for secondary school teachers in Italy The GIFT Conference in Vienna in April next year is free to teachers and it's theme is 'Natural Hazards' .  For more information follow the links below: http://www.tsn.org.uk/GIFT.htm http://www.egu.eu/media-outreach/gift/gift-workshops.html  

Applications for 2013 AGI Award Applications for 2013 AGI Award The AGI is accepting applications for the '2013 Edward C. Roy 2013 Award for Excellence in Earth Science Teaching'.  Information about this Award is given in the pdf copy of the ED Roy press release below. Further details about the competition requirements, application procedures and deadlines are available at: http://www.agiweb.org/education/awards/ed-roy/    

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FURTHER NEWS (See ESTA Facebook page for similar items)

Climate change  Less gloopy oceans will slow climate change. Permafrost thaw exacerbates climate change. Ancient forests stabilized Earth's CO 2  and climate. The importance of soil carbon conservation in mitigating global climate change. 'Climate change is more certain than ever'. Will the costs of inaction on climate change be "catastrophic"? Earthquakes Earthquake lights linked to rift environment and sub-vertical faults. Mine landslide triggered earthquakes. Strong earthquake - Indonesia's Java island. Chilean earthquake may be part of a cascade. What has happened to the tsunami debris from Japan? Clue to earthquake lightning mystery. Earthquakes Caused by Clogged Magma a Warning Sign of Eruption. Magnitude 7.6 quake off Solomon Islands. Great Alaska Earthquake shook Alaska 50 years ago. Great earthquakes, water under pressure, high risk. Puente Hills Fault Quake 'Could Cause Disaster'. Experts: Chile's M8.2 quake not 'the big one'. Energy  Sustainable nuclear fusion breakthrough raises hopes for ultimate green energy. America's natural gas system is leaky and in need of a fix. Fracking is turning the US into a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia. Shell shelves plan to drill in Alaskan Arctic this summer. 'Orphan' oil wells warning for fracking. Exxon Valdez oil spill, 25 years later. Trailblazing power plant is first to bury its carbon. Renewable energy from rivers and lakes could replace gas in homes. Fossils  Methane-producing microbes blamed for biggest ever mass extinction. Dinosaur chase reconstructed 70 years after excavation. Rare fossilized embryos more than 500 million years old found. Ancient 'spider' images reveal eye-opening secrets (w/ video). Reconstructing the New World monkey family tree. First animals may have lived with almost no oxygen. 250 million-year-old fossil is earliest example of a marine reptile giving birth. Evolution stuck in slime for a billion years. Flesh-eating dinosaur - the 'most ferocious to ever roam Europe'? First animals oxygenated the ocean, research suggests. Dinosaur-killing impact acidified oceans. Skull fragments reveal new ancient crocodile species. 180 million-year-old fossilized fern. What killed off the giant beasts - climate change or man? 'Chicken from hell' dinosaur discovered. Fossilised shark nursery. The oldest evidence of sexual reproduction in a flowering plant. Colour of ancient sea creatures revealed. Did a comet wipe out the woolly mammoth? Substance in photosynthesis was at work in ancient, methane-producing microbes 2.5 billion years ago 'Animal Pompeii' wiped out China's ancient creatures. 'Steak-knife' teeth reveal ecology of oldest land predators. Volcanic mayhem drove major burst of evolution. How did the dinosaur cross the road? End-Permian extinction happened in 60,000 years. Fossil fish offers clues to jawed vertebrates origins. Revision to rules for colour in dinosaurs. Global warming  Newly discovered microbe holds key to global warming. Global warming felt to deepest reaches of ocean. Watch 27 years of 'old' Arctic ice melt away in seconds (video). Eight reasons to worry about global warming. Greenland's fastest glacier reaches record speeds. Pacific trade winds stall global surface warming—for now. Methane hydrates and global warming. Plan to avert global warming by cooling planet artificially 'could cause climate chaos'. Statistical analysis rules out natural-warming hypothesis with more than 99 percent certainty. Igneous rocks Granite research revises heat under Perth's surface. Internal structure of Earth  Oldest bit of crust firms up idea of a cool early Earth. Earth's mantle plasticity explained. Scientists identify a plasma plume that naturally protects the Earth against solar storms. Computer model shows continents sometimes push others out of the way - video. New model shows components of Earth's deep mantle being carried up to the surface. Europe's Goce gravity satellite probes Earth's mantle. Hot mantle drives elevation, volcanism along mid-ocean ridges. Earth's core reveals an inner weakness. Continents set the pace. Landslides Animation shows how Washington landslide hit 100 km/h. Washington mudslide death toll reaches 16. Mudslides could be predicted with acoustic sensors. Natural disasters California tests natural disaster early warning system. Marine processes How rip currents work (video). The ocean's hidden waves show their power. Minerals and mining  Mineral targeting made easy with database. Kiruna: How to move a town two miles east. Subduction zones reveal sulphur cycle and mineral potential. Mining in Greenland - a country divided. Scientists warn over coming era of deep sea mining. Mountains Atlas Mountains in Morocco are buoyed up by superhot rock. Lightning can shape mountains. Plate tectonics  New model shows components of Earth's deep mantle being carried up to the surface. Subduction zones reveal sulphur cycle and mineral potential. Study of Earth's crust tells of first plate tectonics and life on Earth. New study reveals insights on plate tectonics. Flimsy rocks allowed Earth's plates to start moving. Systematic shifts in subducting slab behaviour with depth. Researchers build model that may explain how plate tectonics got its start. Scientists explore one of Earth's deepest ocean trenches. Sediments and sedimentary processes  The torrents that flow on the seabed - video. Iron-bearing minerals in sediments naturally reduce contaminant levels. Charting the slopes of sediment transport. Geophysicist teams with mathematicians to describe how river rocks round. Volcanoes  Volcanic islands merge in Pacific Ocean. A satellite view of volcanoes finds the link between ground deformation and eruption. Risk of supervolcano eruption underestimated? Indonesian volcano Mount Sinabung erupts, thousands evacuated - video. Buoyant magma behind calamitous supervolcano eruptions. From the archive: Krakatoa eruption. How a one-inch plastic pipe could stop an inland tsunami and power a village. Geologists identify trigger for apocalyptic 'super eruptions'. Volcanoes, including Mt. Hood, can go from dormant to active quickly. Study finds existence of large, deep magma chamber below Kilauea volcano. A satellite view of volcanoes finds the link between ground deformation and eruption. Volcano kills 16 - after they were told it was safe. Volcanoes helped species survive ice ages, research says. Volcanoes helped offset man-made warming. Hekla could erupt soon! Mass evacuation in Indonesia as Java volcano erupts. Yellowstone supervolcano unlikely to erupt for 1 to 2 million years. Off-rift volcanoes explained Water World's groundwater increasingly at risk. Parched California hunts for water in unusual places. Huge water pulse to bring Colorado river back from dead. Researchers calculate how river networks move across a landscape.