ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

Scientists report new evidence that some 5,000 years ago, a sloth smaller than a black bear roamed the forest floor of what is now the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea, living a lowland life different from its cousins on the other side of the island.

A multidisciplinary team of materials physicists and geophysicists combine theoretical predictions, simulations, and seismic tomography to find spin transition in the Earth's mantle. Their findings will improve understanding of the Earth's interior, and help elucidate the impact of this phenomenon on tectonic events including volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

For more than a decade, a team of researchers and students have studied the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet as it responds to a warming climate. But while much of their focus has been on the importance of water in controlling processes occurring on the ice sheet, their most recent research findings have flipped the order of their thinking. Researchers discovered that changes to the ice sheet have an immediate impact on the groundwater underlying the Greenland island, an area larger than the state of Alaska.

Islands are hot spots of evolutionary adaptation that can also advantage species returning to the mainland, according to a new study.

The more water is dissolved in the magma, the greater the risk that a volcano will explode. A new study now shows that this simple rule is only partially true. Paradoxically, high water content significantly reduces the risk of explosion.