Showing results for "Science Year" in Earth Sciences

How well do you know the ground beneath your feet? A primer for every Earth resident, by Harvard’s acclaimed geologist. “A sublime chronicle of our planet."" –Booklist, STARRED review Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering...

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites - such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty.

1816 was a remarkable year - mostly for the fact that there was no summer. As a result of a volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, weather patterns were disrupted worldwide for months, allowing for excessive rain, frost, and snowfall through much of the Northeastern US and Europe in the summer of 1816.

The concept of Leap Year and Leap Day has existed for over 2000 years, with the extra day added to our calendars in February every four years to account for the fact that the actual length of a year does not perfectly align to the 365 days of our modern Gregorian calendar. This misalignment means calendar dates would slowly drift from their intended seasons if no adjustment was made over time. In this article, we will explore the science behind Earth’s actual orbit around the sun and rotation on its axis that necessitates the need for a Leap Year. We will detail the history of previous ...