For a while, crocodile April 17, 2024 Above: Some 215 million years ago in what is now northwestern Argentina, the terrestrial crocodylomorph Hemiprotosuchus leali prepares to devour the early mammal relative Chaliminia musteloides. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez The ancestors of today’s crocodylians survived two mass extinction events. A new study uncovered a secret to their longevity, which could help conservationists […]
Read MoreFrom Curious Volunteer to Dinosaur Discoverer Jul 08, 2024 Above: Savhannah Carpenters running the fossil touch table at the Natural History Museum of Utah’s annual Dino Fest. Savhannah Carpenter’s route to being the only student listed on the research team credited with finding the world’s newest horned dinosaur didn’t follow a straight line. As a […]
Read MoreMeet Lokiceratops: A Giant Blade Wielding Dinosaur June 21, 2024 Above: Reconstruction of Lokiceratops surprised by a crocodilian in the 78-million-year-old swamps of northern Montana, USA. Image ©Andrey Atuchin for the Museum of Evolution in Maribo, Denmark. A remarkable, new species of horned, plant-eating dinosaur is being unveiled at the Natural History Museum of Utah. The […]
Read MoreBacktracking Core : Earth’s Inner Dynamics Unveiled June 18, 2024 Above: Banner Illustration by Edward Sotelo, courtesy of the University of Southern California. For the past two decades, the movement of this solid yet searing hot metal sphere, suspended in the liquid outer core, has been studied closely and debated by the scientific community For […]
Read MoreCool science: Monitoring Earthquakes in Utah April 22, 2024 Above: Keith Koper, director of the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, looks at quake evidence. Credit: Remi Barron, University of Utah It’s easy to forget that the Wasatch back is very near an active fault. Earthquakes are continually happening around us, maybe not close enough to […]
Read MorePlacing geology at foundation of essential discoveries March 29, 2024 | Carleton College by Daniel Myer Above: Professor Bereket Haileab leads a geology field trip in 2023. Bereket Haileab, MS’88, PHD’95, chair and professor of geology at Carleton College, is a researcher and teacher animated by his passion for geology. Haileab has been a cornerstone […]
Read MoreCataract Canyon Comes Back to Life February 18, 2024 | Rolling Stone Damming the Colorado River wiped out a magnificent stretch of rapids for half a century. Now, incredibly, they’re returning — on their own “I cannot emphasize how amazing, and important, it is that Returning Rapids [a small group of river-rafting enthusiasts who consider […]
Read MoreA Utah fossil’s journey to Harvard The 500-million-year-old fossil doesn’t stick out in Carrie Levitt-Bussian’s memory. Why would it? It looks like an unassuming, light gray, palm-sized rock with a thick “Y” on it. That “Y” is, in fact, an animal — the ancestor of a modern sea squirt. It’s much older than any […]
Read MoreVolcanism that Drove ANCIENT Global Warming Geological evidence extracted from the floor of the Atlantic Ocean affirms a long-standing theory that greenhouse gas emissions associated with volcanism drove catastrophic climate change 56 million years ago. A new study by an international team of scientists—including University of Utah geologists—examined hundreds of core samples in search of […]
Read MoreGeoscience and football meet at Rice-Eccles U seismologists share seismic data from the Utah-Florida game in real time on Twitter. “Loudest Stadium” according to science? Yup. U geoscientists are now measuring the actual seismic impact of Big Time college football on the Salt Lake City campus and live tweeting the measurements during games, starting with Thursday’s […]
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