Energy, Resources and the Environment

Earth Sciences: ‘Rocks for Jocks’, or hard science?

ERE Matters May 29, 2015

According to some Republicans in the US, Earth Sciences cannot be regarded as one of the ‘pure sciences’, or hard science. Is Earth Sciences simply Rocks for Jocks, or do the earth sciences actually encompass some fundamental work here? Suggestions have been made that NASA should steer its focus away from Earth Sciences and more onto space exploration and research. If NASA complies, it would most likely mean that will be redirected from Earth Sciences to Planetary Sciences, leaving less budget to study our own planet. A final vote still needs to be made, but what should the outcome be?

“Earth sciences are a fundamental part of science. They constitute hard sciences that help us understand the world we live in and provide a basis for knowledge and understanding of natural hazards, weather forecasting, air quality, and water availability, among other concerns.”

– American Geophysical Union CEO Christine McEntee –

I wholeheartedly agree with Christine McEntee, without Earth Sciences we would definitely not be able to study and better understand some of the most challenging issues society is facing these days: climate change, earthquakes, and energy production, to name a few. Less money automatically will mean less research being done to know more about our own planet. Knowing more about Earth will also help us to understand those other far-away inhabitable planets we are after.

Read the whole article on Science Insider, as well as one of the replies at the AGU Blogoshere. How do you feel about Earth Sciences as a pure science? Do you agree? What research are you doing to help us forward in understanding the Earth (or other planets)? Let us know 🙂

Total Solar Eclipse from the Perspective of Space (by Maximilian Reuter, taken from ImagGeo)

Words on Wednesday: Cobalt, chromium and nickel contents in soils and plants from a serpentinite quarry

ERE Matters May 27, 2015

Words on Wednesday aims at promoting interesting/fun/exciting publications on topics related to Energy, Resources and the Environment. If you would like to be featured on WoW, please send us a link of the paper, or your own post, at ERE.Matters@gmail.com.

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Lago-Vila, M., Arenas-Lago, D., Rodríguez-Seijo, A., Andrade Couce, M. L., and Vega, F. A., 2015. Cobalt, chromium and nickel contents in soils and plants from a serpentinite quarry, Solid Earth, 6, 323-335.

Abstract:

The former serpentinite quarry of Penas Albas (Moeche, Galicia, NW Spain) left behind a large amount of waste material scattered over the surrounding area, as well as tailing areas. In this area several soils were studied together with the vegetation growing spontaneously over them with the aim of identifying the bioavailability of heavy metals. The potential of spontaneous vegetation for phytoremediation and/or phytostabilization was evaluated. The pH of the soils ranges from neutral to basic, with very low organic matter and nitrogen contents. There are imbalances between exchangeable cations like potassium (K) and calcium (Ca), mainly due to high magnesium (Mg) content that can strongly limit plant production. Moreover, in all of the studied soils there are high levels of cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr) and nickel (Ni) (>70, >1300 and >1300 mg kg^-1, respectively). They exceed the intervention limits indicated by soil guideline values. Different soil extractions were performed in order to evaluate bioavailability. CaCl₂⋅0.01M is the most effective extraction reagent, although the reagent that best predicts plant availability is a mixture of low molecular weight organic acids. Festuca rubra, L. is the spontaneous plant growing in the soils that accumulates the highest amount of the metals, both in shoot and roots. Festuca also has the highest translocation factor values, although they are only >1 for Cr. The bioconcentration factor is >1 in all of the cases, except in the shoot of Juncus sp. for Co and Ni. The results indicate that Festuca is a phytostabilizer of Co and Ni and an accumulator of Cr, while Juncus sp. is suitable for phytostabilization.

Extraction efficiency. In each soil, bars with different letters
indicate significantly different EF values (p <0.05) for each
metal. Hanging bars are the standard deviation.

ERE Division Outstanding Young Scientist Award: who would you nominate?

ERE Matters May 25, 2015

Every year the EGU rewards outstanding young or early career scientists with the Arne Richter Outstanding Young Scientist Award (OYSA), or one of the Division Outstanding Young Scientist Awards. These awards are granted for an outstanding research contribution in the Earth, planetary and space sciences, and are intended to identify the awardees as role models for the next generation of young scientists.

If you know an outstanding YS, who has made a significant contribution to Energy, Resources and the Environment, please consider nominating them for the ERE Division OYSA! 🙂

For more information on the awards and medals awarded by EGU, check here. Please be aware that all nominations must be submitted online by the 15th of June! Go to the EGU website for a checklist on what to do before you submit.

Award Ceremony at the EGU GA 2015. Will you be on stage next year?

The Sound of Climate Change: ‘Planetary Bands, Warming World’ by Daniel Crawford

ERE Matters May 22, 2015

For scientists, it can often be challenging to convert all our numbers and figures into something that is understandable for laymen. How can you make all these findings and knowledge we have tangible, speaking to people’s emotions? Daniel Crawford from the University of Minnesota translated NASA‘s climate change data to a musical composition. Each of the four zones in the Northern Hemisphere, the equator, midlatitudes, high latitides and arctic, are represented by an instrument, while the relative temperature shift in each zone is represented by the pitch range of the instrument.

Read the whole article on EOS. Or watch the video below 🙂

https://vimeo.com/127083533

The Late Holocene Fever by Christian Massari (Winner in the EGU Photo Contest 2015; taken from ImagGeo)

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Doesn’t the music of the world sound beautiful and scary at the same time? I can’t help but noticing the increasing pitch of the arctic, which means that temperature changes in this already delicate area are increasing faster than in any of the other regions…

Are we going to curb the trend? Tell us if you are working on any climate related research, or what your thoughts are on the issue of climate change.