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Earth Science

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Jun-2025 12:09 ET (15-Jun-2025 16:09 GMT/UTC)

SwRI-led PUNCH mission images huge solar eruption

Southwest Research Institute
Reports and Proceedings

SAN ANTONIO — June 10, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Craig DeForest discussed the latest accomplishments of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission during a media event at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. As the spacecraft constellation completes commissioning, early PUNCH data showed coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, as they erupted from the Sun and traveled across the inner solar system.

First Ohio State professor named CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar

Ohio State University
Grant and Award Announcement

Melisa Diaz, an associate professor in earth sciences and the principal investigator of the Polar and Environmental Geochemistry Lab at The Ohio State University, has been named a 2025–2027 CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar.

Isobaric enzymatic assays reveal depth-dependent variation in microbial ectoenzyme activities in the deepest ocean on Earth

Science China Press

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a team of researchers performed comparative analyses of the microbial ectoenzyme activities under atmospheric and in situ pressure conditions in the water column of the Mariana Trench, by conducting pressure-retaining sampling, isobaric transfer, and enzymatic assays in the Challenger Deep. It highlights the importance of pressure-retaining sampling and isobaric enzymatic assays and provides valuable insights into microbial ectoenzymatic activities in the deep ocean.

Journal: Science China Earth Sciences

Fossilized dinosaur gut shows that sauropods barely chewed

Cell Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Plant fossils found in the abdomen of a sauropod support the long-standing hypothesis that these dinosaurs were herbivores, finds a study publishing June 9 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. The dinosaur, which was alive an estimated 94 to 101 million years ago, ate a variety of plants and relied almost entirely on its gut microbes for digestion.

Journal: Current Biology
Funder: Australian Research Council

Can AI accurately detect live oysters?

University of Delaware
Peer-Reviewed Publication

With oyster populations down 85%, researchers are racing to monitor reef health more efficiently. A new study tests ODYSSEE, an AI trained to detect live oysters from underwater images. Research found that ODYSSEE was far faster than humans but not as accurate.

Journal: Frontiers in Robotics and AI

Protected Antarctic oceanic life threatened by ships anchoring, first underwater videos show

Frontiers
Peer-Reviewed Publication

As decreasing sea ice allows ships to enter previously inaccessible regions, cruise ships and other vessels are now advancing into the most remote waters. When anchors are dropped, seafloor marine life is impacted. In the Antarctic Peninsula, ocean scientists have recorded crushed sponge colonies, disturbed soft sediment, and striations caused by anchor chain movement for the first time. Recognizing anchor damage as a pressing conservation issue is critically important to protect ocean life and develop mitigation strategies, the team said.

Journal: Frontiers in Conservation Science

Hurricanes create powerful changes deep in the ocean, study reveals

University of California - Merced
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A group of researchers on an oceanic research expedition ran into a hurricane and turned it to their advantage, studying the water in the storm's wake. Professor Michael Beman and his team discovered that powerful storms draw deep-water low-oxygen zones closer to the ocean's surface, along with the organisms that inhabit them, creating smorgasbords for some sea creatures but potentially endangering those that depend on higher oxygen concentrations for survival.

Journal: Science Advances

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