Latest Sedimentology Stories

The United Nation's World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, is launching an early warning system that can help Arizona and other states minimize hazards from intercontinental sand and dust storms. A University of Arizona research professor is leading the international team drafting the U.N. plan which will begin operation early next year.Storms generated in arid parts of the world can deposit thousands of tons of airborne sand and dust on cities and over continents. It exposes populations...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - More than 2 square miles of some of the world's largest underwater sand dunes were mapped in the Pacific Ocean off the San Francisco coast as part of a study to help researchers better understand beach erosion. The submerged dunes, called sand waves, are located just west of the Golden Gate Bridge, measuring more than 30 feet high and 700 feet long, according to researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey. The sand waves were created by the displacement of sediment by...

New research reveals that the dark coating known as desert varnish creates a record of life around it, by binding traces of DNA, amino acids and other organic compounds to desert rocks. Samples of Martian desert varnish could therefore show whether there has been life on Mars at any stage over the last 4.5 billion years.The research, published in the July edition of the journal Geology, reveals that the dark coating known as desert varnish creates a record of life around it, by binding traces...

NASA -- A new study suggests the steps a planet must go through for complex animal life to arise. Clay made animal life possible on Earth, a UC Riverside-led study finds. A sudden increase in oxygen in the Earth's recent geological history, widely considered necessary for the expansion of animal life, occurred just as the rate of clay formation on the Earth's surface also increased, the researchers report. "Our study shows for the first time that the initial soils covering the...

The Dutch dune area has dried out at a number of locations as a result of water extraction and drainage of adjacent polder areas. Wildlife managers are searching for favourable locations to restore the natural environment to the original wet dune valleys. Chris Bakker has compiled a number of characteristics that a dune valley must satisfy for a successful restoration project to be carried out. Chris Bakker investigated dune valleys in Zuid Kenemerland National Park. He discovered that the...

NASA -- Typically we think of rainfall as cleaning the air by removing dust as it falls through the atmosphere and helping plants grow that protect and hold the soil. But a new NASA-funded study looking at some of the world's dustiest areas shows that heavy downpours can eventually lead to more dust being released into the atmosphere. Typically drought reduces vegetation growth, increasing soil vulnerability to wind erosion, while rainfall tends to have the opposite effect. In the new study...

For many areas of the West, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMS) overestimate the amount of land area within the 100-year floodplain. New research suggests a way to improve the maps. The new three-pronged approach combines a new numerical computer model with two additional methods, satellite-image analysis and field observations. Each method serves as a check on the other two. The research team focused on the floodplains for a 10-year flood, a 100-year...

By Paul Hoskins DUBLIN (Reuters) - Future visitors to Mars in need of water may find large quantities stored away in sand dunes held together with ice, a leading geologist said on Monday. "I think I've discovered evidence for ice in sand dunes on Mars which could be used to produce fuel and help humans to survive on the planet," said Doctor Mary Bourke of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. While channels and ridges in the Martian landscape indicate that water once...

The Gulf of Mexico, 130 miles south of Galveston, Texas -- An international team of marine research scientists working for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) have found new evidence that links catastrophic sand avalanches in deep Gulf waters to rapid sea level changes. By analyzing downhole measurements and freshly retrieved sediment cores, IODP scientists are reconstructing the history of a basin formed approximately 20,000 years ago, when sea level fell so low that the Texas...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Global warming could drastically alter Africa's southern sand dune systems, spreading desert-like conditions and destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people before the end of the century, new research warns. Large parts of interior southern Africa stretching from northern South Africa to Angola, Zambia and beyond are made up of stabilized sand dunes. They are at least partially covered in vegetation and support a growing population of herders...