(Press-News.org) Alexandria, VA - In a field like earth science, adventures in the outdoors are commonplace. As this summer's field season comes to a close and the lanterns are extinguished one last time, EARTH Magazine explores the ritual of field camp as geoscientists' rite of passage from classroom learner to a workforce-ready scientist.
Earth science is just that, the study of the Earth. Thorough understanding of the surface expression of textbook concepts helps geoscientists provide protection and valuable resources to society. Thousands of U.S. college students participate in field camps each year, staying in accommodations varying from lodges with running water to nomadic tent camps — where they backpack into sites in the middle of nowhere to see, experience and comprehend the landforms people take for granted. No longer are students reading books, rather they're reading the rocks.
The history of geology field camps dates back to the days of great explorers and naturalists like John Muir and his contemporaries. Now young men and women gear up and pack out to geologically unique locations nationwide. While traditional skill of mapping rock units and structures onto a blank topographic map still represents a foundational skill set, faculty and industry professionals are finding ways to integrate relevant technology to keep students workforce-ready.
Students leave field camp with a varied toolkit that utilizes colored pencils as much as geophones and GPS. Share in the adventures of thousands in this month's EARTH Magazine cover story at: http://bit.ly/124d77x.
INFORMATION:
Stop by the digital newsstand http://www.earthmagazine.org/digital for full access to explore embargoed Cuba, investigate whether it was a comet or asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, and glimpse into the world of astronaut (and rock star) Commander Chris Hadfield at http://www.earthmagazine.org
Keep up to date with the latest happenings in Earth, energy and the environment news with EARTH magazine online at http://www.earthmagazine.org/. Published by the American Geosciences Institute, EARTH is your source for the science behind the headlines.
The American Geosciences Institute is a nonprofit federation of geoscientific and professional associations that represents more than 250,000 geologists, geophysicists and other earth scientists. Founded in 1948, AGI provides information services to geoscientists, serves as a voice of shared interests in the profession, plays a major role in strengthening geosciences education, and strives to increase public awareness of the vital role geosciences play in society's use of resources, resiliency to natural hazards, and interaction with the environment.
EARTH: Mapping field camp's past and present: Exploring a mainstay of geoscience education
2013-07-22
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
New study finds 'nighttime heat waves' increasing in Pacific Northwest
2013-07-22
CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study has found that heat waves are increasing in the western portions of the Pacific Northwest, but not the kind most people envision, with scorching hot days of temperatures reaching triple digits.
These heat waves occur at night.
Researchers documented 15 examples of "nighttime heat waves" from 1901 through 2009 and 10 of those have occurred since 1990. Five of them took place during a four-year period from 2006-09. And since the study was accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, another nighttime heat ...
Integrative medicine interventions found to significantly reduce pain, improve quality of life
2013-07-22
An integrative approach to treating chronic pain significantly reduces pain severity while improving mood and quality of life, according to a new study from the Bravewell Practice-Based Research Network (BraveNet) published last month in BioMed Central Complementary and Alternative Medicine journal. Researchers found a reduction in pain severity of more than 20 percent and a drop in pain interference of nearly 30 percent in patients after 24 weeks of integrative care. Significant improvements in mood, stress, quality of life, fatigue, sleep and well-being were also observed.
"Chronic ...
Greening of the Earth pushed way back in time
2013-07-22
EUGENE, Ore. -- (July 22, 2013) -- Conventional scientific wisdom has it that plants and other creatures have only lived on land for about 500 million years, and that landscapes of the early Earth were as barren as Mars.
A new study, led by geologist Gregory J. Retallack of the University of Oregon, now has presented evidence for life on land that is four times as old -- at 2.2 billion years ago and almost half way back to the inception of the planet.
That evidence, which is detailed in the September issue of the journal Precambrian Research, involves fossils the size ...
Sea level rise: New iceberg theory points to areas at risk of rapid disintegration
2013-07-22
ANN ARBOR—In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations from the University of Michigan.
"If this starts to happen and we're right, we might be closer to the higher end of sea level rise estimates for the next 100 years," said Jeremy Bassis, assistant professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at the U-M College of Engineering, and first author of a paper on the new ...
Ancient ice melt unearthed in Antarctic mud
2013-07-22
Global warming five million years ago may have caused parts of Antarctica's large ice sheets to melt and sea levels to rise by approximately 20 metres, scientists report today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The researchers, from Imperial College London, and their academic partners studied mud samples to learn about ancient melting of the East Antarctic ice sheet. They discovered that melting took place repeatedly between five and three million years ago, during a geological period called Pliocene Epoch, which may have caused sea levels to rise approximately ten metres.
Scientists ...
Sex chromosome shocker: The 'female' X a key contributor to sperm production
2013-07-22
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Painstaking new analysis of the genetic sequence of the X chromosome—long perceived as the "female" counterpart to the male-associated Y chromosome—reveals that large portions of the X have evolved to play a specialized role in sperm production.
This surprising finding, reported by Whitehead Institute scientists in a paper published online this week in the journal Nature Genetics, is paired with another unexpected outcome: despite its reputation as the most stable chromosome of the genome, the X has actually been undergoing relatively swift change. ...
Study links mental illness to early death in people with epilepsy
2013-07-22
People with epilepsy are ten times more likely to die early, before their mid-fifties, compared with the general population, according to a 41 year study in Sweden published today in the Lancet and part-funded by the Wellcome Trust.
The findings reveal a striking correlation between premature death and mental illness in these patients and people with epilepsy were four times more likely to have received a psychiatric diagnosis in their lifetime compared with the general population.
The figures are considerably higher than previously thought and have important implications ...
Making big 'Schroedinger cats'
2013-07-22
Since Erwin Schroedinger's famous 1935 cat thought experiment, physicists around the globe have tried to create large scale systems to test how the rules of quantum mechanics apply to everyday objects.
Researchers at the University of Calgary recently made a significant step forward in this direction by creating a large system that is in two substantially different states at the same time. Until this point, scientists had only managed to recreate quantum effects on much smaller scales.
Professor Alex Lvovsky and associate professor Christoph Simon from the Physics and ...
A bad alliance: Rare immune cells promote food-induced allergic inflammation in the esophagus
2013-07-22
PHILADELPHIA – Food is an integral part of life; but, for some, it can be harmful. Allergic inflammation caused by inappropriate immune responses to some types of food has become a major public health issue. Over the past ten years, the prevalence of food allergies has increased by nearly 20 percent, affecting an estimated six million people in the U.S.
Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a food allergy-associated disease that affects children and adults and is caused by inflammation in response to such trigger foods as eggs, nuts, milk, wheat, and soy. Inflammation of ...
Common stem cell in heart and lung development explains adaption for life on land
2013-07-22
PHILADELPHIA – The evolution of adaptations for life on land have long puzzled biologists – are feathers descendents of dinosaur scales, how did arms and legs evolve from fins, and from what ancient fish organ did the lung evolve?
Biologists have known that the co-development of the cardiovascular and pulmonary systems is a recent evolutionary adaption to life outside of water, coupling the function of the heart with the gas exchange function of the lung. And, the lung is one of the most recent organs to have evolved in mammals and is arguably the most vital for terrestrial ...