Scientific Ocean Drilling

An international expedition including University of Sydney researchers pieced together the clearest picture yet of how the Great Barrier Reef responded to dramatic environmental change over the past 30,000 years. Multiple studies since the expedition more than 10 years ago traced the reef’s retreat, regrowth and repeated collapse from the last ice age to the dawn of the modern reef.

To understand where the Earth might be headed, it’s important to know where it’s been. Throughout its existence, especially over the last couple million years, the Earth has experienced periodic cold and warm intervals, known as glacial and interglacial time periods. These cycles used to occur every 41,000 years. But somewhere between 1.2 million and 700,000 years ago, the cycle shifted to occurring every 100,000 years, a transition period known as Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT).

The eastern tropical Pacific Ocean is known for its large low-oxygen zones that are increasing in size, putting marine life at risk. New research shows that 15 million years ago, the opposite was true. A Michigan State University study found that oxygen-deficient waters were distributed very differently during the mid-Miocene Epoch than they are today.

A new international scientific study has uncovered a previously unknown geological structure beneath the Santorini–Kolumbo volcanic complex, offering fresh insight into the evolution of one of Europe’s most active volcanic systems. The research was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, a journal of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

The meteorite which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs also created an underground environment suited to supporting new life, and new research suggests it lasted for millions of years longer than previously suspected. The finding has surprised the international team of researchers behind it, who came to their conclusions by pairing sophisticated new analysis of samples taken from the ...