Evidence has mounted for nearly 20 years that a great earthquake ripped the seafloor off the Washington coast in 1700, long before there were any written records in the region. Now, a newly authenticated record of a fatal shipwreck in Japan has added an intriguing clue.
Author: Vince Stricherz
I spent more than 20 years as a reporter and editor in broadcast, print and wire service news, and have been covering physical sciences at UW for more than a decade. I currently cover Earth and space sciences, chemistry and physics, and also handle some editing duties for UW Today and the Faculty & Staff Insider Web pages.
New laws protected salmon spawning grounds in 17 rivers, prohibiting the streams from being blocked with dams or fishing nets and imposing stiff fines for violations.
The year was 1715, and King George I of England enacted laws in an effort to protect salmon runs throughout Great Britain.Today few salmon ply British waterways, the victims of overfishing, degraded habitat, harnessing water power for industry, and misguided use of hatcheries to restore salmon runs, which ultimately hurt more than helped. Strikingly, much the same scenario began playing out 100 years later in the rivers of northeastern North America.
New findings by a UW researcher studying the Amazon River reverse conventional wisdom about flood plains. He shows that La Niña is responsible for moving enormous amounts of sediment from the Andes Mountains into the Amazon’s flood plain.
A four-member panel will discuss how seismic faults are located, what faults look like above and below ground, the types of earthquakes the faults have produced and will produce in the future, and where scientists next will search for faults.
Conventional wisdom says a river’s flood plain builds bit by bit, flood after flood, whenever the stream overflows its banks and deposits new sediment on the flood plain. But for some vast waterways in South America’s Amazon River basin, that wisdom doesn’t hold water.
Scientists will present cutting-edge geological research and discuss geology topics of specific interest in the Pacific Northwest when the Geological Society of America holds its annual meeting in Seattle in November.
It’s been a hot summer in Washington, but it’s a dry heat. Literally. The state is experiencing its driest summer since at least 1900, with local rain amounts from 70 percent to 85 percent below normal.
Researchers studying physical and chemical processes at the smallest scales, smaller even than the width of a human hair, have found that fluid circulating in a microscopic whirlpool can reach radial acceleration more than a million times greater than gravity, or 1 million Gs.
Late this month, the night sky will brighten with the closest approach of Mars since human ancestors were still living in caves 60,000 years ago.
In late August and early September, the red planet will appear closer and brighter than it has throughout all of recorded history, and astronomers with the University of Washington and the Seattle Astronomical Society will provide front-row seats for the public during a special “Mars Party” on Sept. 3.
Just in time for the American Association of State Climatologists meeting this week in Portland, the state of Washington has someone fulfilling those duties for the first time since the late 1990s.
Spending time with 13 Nobel Prize winners would be an exhilarating experience for any young scientist, and Summer Lockerbie Randall is no exception.
Just in time for the American Association of State Climatologists meeting next week in Portland, the state of Washington has someone fulfilling those duties for the first time since the late 1990s.
Daniel Chiu does research at the tiniest scales, but he hopes he can help unlock some of medical science’s biggest puzzles.
The group that proposed creating a National Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory at a closed South Dakota gold mine has completed a detailed engineering plan for the conversion, replacing the initial proposal sent to the National Science Foundation two years ago.
Through many decades, stories about earthquakes raising or lowering water levels in wells, lakes and streams have become the stuff of folklore.
The relationship between seismic activity and hydrology is not well understood and is ripe for serious examination by scientists from the two disciplines, said David Montgomery, a University of Washington professor of Earth and space sciences.
Atmospheric aerosols, airborne particles that reflect the sun’s heat away from Earth and into space, are part of everyday life.
Atmospheric aerosols, airborne particles that reflect the sun’s heat away from Earth and into space, are in air pollution, in plumes of smoke from forest fires and in ash clouds from erupting volcanoes. A new study says the cooling effect of man-made aerosols could throw a monkey wrench into the current understanding of climate change.
The UW and three other organizations are joining forces to build a world-class telescope to search the heavens for supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, near-Earth asteroids and dark energy, the mysterious force behind the expansion of the universe.
PHILADELPHIA — When Gerald A.
University of Washington astronomy department’s annual open house
At this moment, parts of Washington and British Columbia are having an earthquake, but it is a slow-moving temblor that can’t be felt and won’t cause any injuries or damage. Still, by the end of the event, which already has lasted more than two weeks, it is likely to have released about as much energy as the Nisqually earthquake did in February 2001.
The University of Washington has a biology department.
Earth’s most ancient fossils are hard to find.
Glitzy tools such as the Hubble Space Telescope let modern astronomers peer deeper and deeper into space, billions of light years from Earth.
Glitzy tools such as the Hubble Space Telescope let modern astronomers peer deeper and deeper into space, billions of light years from Earth. But it’s a small special-purpose telescope on a New Mexico mountaintop that is shedding new light on what lies in our celestial neighborhood.
Earth’s most ancient fossils are hard to find.
When members of two species compete directly with each other, scientists believe the one that rolls with the evolutionary punches and adapts most quickly has the upper hand. But new evidence suggests that in relationships that benefit both species, the one that evolves more slowly has the advantage.
For several years it has been widely believed that increased ultraviolet-B radiation because of thinning of atmospheric ozone was a major culprit in deforming amphibian offspring and dwindling populations. Now two new studies cast serious doubt on that assumption, and the lead author of one says the belief could have had negative impacts on efforts to save amphibians.
Margon, a popular astronomy lecturer for more than 20 years at the UW, will discuss astronomical discoveries and achievements of the Hubble Space Telescope, emphasizing how the observatory has helped scientists understand the origins of stars, galaxies and the universe itself. His talk will include many of the stirring images captured by Hubble.
New research suggests that Jupiter-like planets form in as little as a few hundred years.
It will be a moment tinged with history when the Stardust spacecraft makes an encounter with Asteroid 5535 Annefrank this weekend. The flyby will test many of the systems and procedures to be used when Stardust makes its encounter with comet Wild 2 in little more than a year.
A free, public lecture on the search for extraterrestrial life
It is virtually impossible for a river or stream to first stop its flow and then reverse course. But an ice stream in Antarctica has done precisely that during the last 2½ centuries, and scientists are trying to figure out exactly why.
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