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For decades, scientists have theorized that the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates is driven largely by negative buoyancy created as they cool. New research, however, shows plate dynamics are driven significantly by the additional force of heat drawn from the Earth’s core.

The new findings also challenge the theory that underwater mountain ranges known as mid-ocean ridges are passive boundaries between moving plates. The findings show the East Pacific Rise, the Earth’s dominant mid-ocean ridge, is dynamic as heat is transferred.

David B. Rowley, professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago, and fellow researchers came to the conclusions by combining observations of the East Pacific Rise with insights from modeling of the mantle flow there. The findings were published Dec. 23 in Science Advances.

Rainfall patterns in the Sahara during the 6,000-year "Green Sahara" period have been pinpointed by analyzing marine sediments, according to new research led by a UA geoscientist.

What is now the Sahara Desert was the home to hunter-gatherers who made their living off the animals and plants that lived in the region's savannahs and wooded grasslands 5,000 to 11,000 years ago.

Pioneering new research has provided a fascinating new insight in the quest to determine whether temperature or water availability is the most influential factor in determining the success of global, land-based carbon sinks.

The research, carried out by an international team of climate scientists including Professors Pierre Friedlingstein and Stephen Sitch from the University of Exeter, has revealed new clues on how land carbon sinks are regulated on both local and global scales.

El próximo 21 de febrero de 2017 dará inicio el Primer Congreso Internacional de Ingeniería Ambiental en Tabasco, México, organizado por el Colegio de Ingenieros Ambientales de México, A.C. (CINAM) y tendrá su sede en el Centro de Convenciones de la Ciudad de Villahermosa, Tabasco, México.

Este evento es el primero en su tipo en México y con él se busca fomentar el desarrollo y la excelencia de la Ingeniería Ambiental en México mediante la difusión de la investigación científica y de los avances tecnológicos en Ingeniería Ambiental en todo el mundo.

También se trata de informar y orientar a la opinión pública y privada, a los tres niveles de gobierno en México y al público en general, sobre las posibles soluciones a los problemas ambientales del país y que estas soluciones sirvan como referencia para la solución de problemas ambientales similares en otras partes del mundo.

En este evento estarán presentes el Gobierno del Estado de Tabasco, el Ayuntamiento del Municipio de Centro (Villahermosa) Tabasco, la Secretaría del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales de México (SEMARNAT), la Comisión Estatal de Agua y Saneamiento de Tabasco y otras organizaciones públicas y privadas.

Sediment found at the site of one of the largest lakes in Earth’s history could provide a fascinating new insight into how inland regions responded to global climate change millions of years ago.

A pioneering new study, carried out by a team of British-based researchers, has analysed sediments from the site of the vast lake which formed in the Sichuan Basin, in China, around 183 million years ago in the Jurassic period.