{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"Phys.org news tagged with:biogeochemistry","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/","language":"en-us","description":"Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine.","item":[{"title":"Calculating the true cost of a ton of mountaintop coal","description":"To meet current U.S. coal demand through surface mining, an area of the Central Appalachians the size of Washington, D.C., would need to be mined every 81 days.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2013-09-true-ton-mountaintop-coal.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Wed, 11 Sep 2013 17:00:08 EDT","guid":"news298132011"},{"title":"Extreme weather events fuel climate change","description":"When the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere rises, the Earth not only heats up, but extreme weather events, such as lengthy droughts, heat waves, heavy rain and violent storms, may become more frequent. Whether these extreme climate events result in the release of more CO2 from terrestrial ecosystems and thus reinforce climate change has been one of the major unanswered questions in climate research. It has now been addressed by an international team of researchers working with Markus Reichstein, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. They have discovered that terrestrial ecosystems absorb approximately 11 billion tons less carbon dioxide every year as the result of the extreme climate events than they could if the events did not occur. That is equivalent to approximately a third of global CO2 emissions per year.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2013-08-extreme-weather-events-fuel-climate.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Wed, 14 Aug 2013 13:00:01 EDT","guid":"news295672903"},{"title":"Nonnative salmon alter nitrification in Great Lakes tributaries","description":"Nonnative species can affect the biogeochemistry of an ecosystem. For instance, Pacific salmon have been introduced as a sport fishery in many streams and lakes beyond their native range, but their introduction may be altering nitrogen cycling in those ecosystems.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2013-04-nonnative-salmon-nitrification-great-lakes.html","category":"Ecology","pubDate":"Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:50:01 EDT","guid":"news284369230"},{"title":"Hydraulic fracturing produces less wastewater per unit of gas, but more overall","description":"(Phys.org)\u2014Hydraulically fractured natural gas wells are producing less wastewater per unit of gas recovered than conventional wells would. But the scale of fracking operations in the Marcellus shale region is so vast that the wastewater it produces threatens to overwhelm the region's wastewater disposal capacity, according to new analysis by researchers at Duke and Kent State universities.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2013-02-hydraulic-fracturing-wastewater-gas.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Fri, 01 Feb 2013 07:20:54 EST","guid":"news278925635"},{"title":"Analysis of fracking wastewater yields some surprises","description":"Hydraulically fractured natural gas wells are producing less wastewater per unit of gas recovered than conventional wells would. But the scale of fracking operations in the Marcellus shale region is so vast that the wastewater it produces threatens to overwhelm the region's wastewater disposal capacity, according to new analysis by researchers at Duke and Kent State universities.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2013-01-analysis-fracking-wastewater-yields.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:15:52 EST","guid":"news278072133"},{"title":"Oxygen's ups and downs in the early atmosphere and ocean","description":"Most researchers imagine the initial oxygenation of the ocean and atmosphere to have been something like a staircase, but with steps only going up. The first step, so the story goes, occurred around 2.4 billion years ago, and this, the so-called Great Oxidation Event, has obvious implications for the origins and evolution of the first forms of eukaryotic life. The second big step in this assumed irreversible rise occurred almost two billion years later, coinciding with the first appearances and earliest diversification of animals.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-10-oxygen-ups-downs-early-atmosphere.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Tue, 23 Oct 2012 13:40:01 EDT","guid":"news270215609"},{"title":"Human impact felt on Black Sea long before industrial era","description":"(Phys.org)\u2014Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution geologist Liviu Giosan and an international team of collaborators including environmental engineers, modelers, paleogeographers, and paleobiologists have pieced together a unique history of the Danube River delta and watershed that ultimately provides evidence for a transformative impact of humans on the Black Sea over hundreds, if not thousands of years.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-09-human-impact-felt-black-sea.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Tue, 04 Sep 2012 15:14:41 EDT","guid":"news265990460"},{"title":"Carbon release from collapsing coastal permafrost in Arctic Siberia","description":"In this week's issue of Nature a study lead by Stockholm University, with collaborators from Russia, US, UK, Switzerland, Norway, Spain and Denmark, show that an ancient and large carbon pool held in a less-studied form of permafrost (\"Yedoma\") is thaw-released along the ~ 7000 kilometer desolate coast of northernmost Siberian Arctic.\u00a0","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-08-carbon-collapsing-coastal-permafrost-arctic.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:19:14 EDT","guid":"news265551528"},{"title":"UNL discovery has implications for finding life on Earth, Mars","description":"(Phys.org) -- Moqui marbles, unusual balls of rock that can be found rolling around the southwestern U.S. sandstone regions, were formed roughly 2 million years ago with the help of microorganisms. This discovery by a University of Nebraska-Lincoln research team has implications for finding life on Mars and for better understanding Earth's past.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-08-unl-discovery-implications-life-earth.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Thu, 16 Aug 2012 06:56:59 EDT","guid":"news264319002"},{"title":"Plant species living in urban backyards are closer related to each other and live shorter than species in the countrysid","description":"Cities in both, the US and Europe harbour more plant species than rural areas. However, plant species of urban areas are closer related to each other and often share similar functions. Consequently, urban ecosystems should be more sensitive towards environmental impacts than rural ecosystems. This is concluded by German and US scientists based on a field study in Minneapolis (Minnesota) led by Jeannine Cavender-Bares, Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota. The new study confirms results obtained by Dr. Sonja Knapp and colleagues of Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in a study on the German flora in 2008. The new results have been published as a preprint in Ecology and have been highlighted in the renowned science magazine Nature.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-04-species-urban-backyards-closer-shorter.html","category":"Ecology","pubDate":"Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:13:44 EDT","guid":"news253966415"},{"title":"New study queries interactions of metal-reducing bacteria with plutonium oxide","description":"(PhysOrg.com) -- Recent work by scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has shed new light on the perplexing environmental chemistry of plutonium. They demonstrated that under anaerobic, or oxygen-free, conditions, plutonium(IV) hydrous oxide, the most common subsurface form of plutonium, does not become very soluble. In fact, this amorphous Pu solid becomes more crystalline when it contacts dissimilatory iron-reducing bacteria (DIRB).","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-03-queries-interactions-metal-reducing-bacteria-plutonium.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:52:52 EDT","guid":"news251369550"},{"title":"Report seeks to integrate microbes into climate models","description":"The models used to understand how Earth's climate works include thousands of different variables from many scientific including atmospherics, oceanography, seismology, geology, physics and chemistry, but few take into consideration the vast effect that microbes have on climate. Now, a new report from the American Academy of Microbiology, \"Incorporating Microbial Processes into Climate Models\", offers a plan for integrating the latest understanding of the science of microbiology into climate models.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2012-02-microbes-climate.html","category":"Cell & Microbiology","pubDate":"Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:25:56 EST","guid":"news248455546"},{"title":"The high winds of the upper atmosphere contain less renewable energy than previously assumed","description":"It seems that the energy mix of the future will have to differ from the current suggestions of some visionaries. This is because the jet streams that sweep the upper atmosphere with high winds would yield about 200 times less energy than previously estimated, according to calculations by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. The high winds were thought to be a rich potential source of renewable energy. However, their speed is due to the near absence of friction and not to strong propulsion, which would be necessary for high-output wind turbines. Using climate simulations, the researchers also discovered that the climate system could be subjected to massive change if large amounts of energy were taken from the jet streams.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-12-high-upper-atmosphere-renewable-energy.html","category":"Energy & Green Tech","pubDate":"Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:33:53 EST","guid":"news242897623"},{"title":"Evidence for a persistently iron-rich ocean changes views on Earth's early history","description":"Over the last half a billion years, the ocean has mostly been full of oxygen and teeming with animal life. But earlier, before animals had evolved, oxygen was harder to come by. Now a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside reveals that the ancient deep ocean was not only devoid of oxygen but also rich in iron, a key biological nutrient, for nearly a billion years longer than previously thought -- right through a key evolutionary interval that culminated in the first rise of animals.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-09-evidence-persistently-iron-rich-ocean-views.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:00:01 EDT","guid":"news234618821"},{"title":"Global plant database set to promote biodiversity research and Earth-system sciences","description":"The world's largest database on plants' functional properties, or traits, has been pub-lished. Scientists compiled three million traits for 69,000 out of the world's ~300,000 plant species. The achievement rests on a worldwide collaboration of scientists from 106 re-search institutions. The initiative, known as TRY, is hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena (Germany). Jointly coordinated with the University of Leipzig (Germany), IMBIV-CONICET (Argentina), Macquarie University (Australia), CNRS and University of Paris-Sud (France), TRY promises to become an essential tool for biodiversity research and Earth-system sciences.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-07-global-database-biodiversity-earth-system-sciences.html","category":"Ecology","pubDate":"Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:28:41 EDT","guid":"news228734900"},{"title":"U of M researchers contribute to global plant database, expanding ecosystems research","description":"A new database of plants' traits will help scientists around the world learn more about how climate change is affecting ecosystems.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-06-contribute-global-database-ecosystems.html","category":"Ecology","pubDate":"Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:13:32 EDT","guid":"news228568027"},{"title":"Biogeochemistry at the core of global environmental solutions","description":"If society wants to address big picture environmental problems, like global climate change, acid rain, and coastal dead zones, we need to pay closer attention to the Earth's coupled biogeochemical cycles. So reports a special issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, published this month by the Ecological Society of America.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-02-biogeochemistry-core-global-environmental-solutions.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:59:33 EST","guid":"news216475088"},{"title":"National study explores the reaction and transport of tungsten in drinking water","description":"A Kansas State University scientist is digging deep to solidify information about potential tungsten contamination in the nation's groundwater and aquifers.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-01-national-explores-reaction-tungsten.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:42:34 EST","guid":"news215358128"},{"title":"Oxygen-free early oceans likely delayed rise of life on planet","description":"Geologists at the University of California, Riverside have found chemical evidence in 2.6-billion-year-old rocks that indicates that Earth's ancient oceans were oxygen-free and, surprisingly, contained abundant hydrogen sulfide in some areas.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-01-oxygen-free-early-oceans-life-planet.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Mon, 10 Jan 2011 16:30:01 EST","guid":"news213899157"},{"title":"Oxygen's challenge to early life","description":"The conventional view of the history of the Earth is that the oceans became oxygen-rich to approximately the degree they are today in the Late Ediacaran Period (about 600 million years ago) after staying relatively oxygen-poor for the preceding four billion years. But biogeochemists at the University of California, Riverside have found evidence that shows that the ocean went back to being \"anoxic\" or oxygen-poor around 499 million years ago, soon after the first appearance of animals on the planet, and remained anoxic for 2-4 million years.  What's more, the researchers suggest that such anoxic conditions may have been commonplace over a much broader interval of time, with their data capturing a particularly good example.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2011-01-oxygen-early-life.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Wed, 05 Jan 2011 13:18:30 EST","guid":"news213455897"},{"title":"Catastrophe in Hungary was avoidable: researcher","description":"In Hungary, as in many parts of the world, toxic bauxite sludges created during aluminium production are stored in the open air. Prolonged rainfall probably pushed the collection pond to its limits. The dam failure has now caused the biggest environmental catastrophe in Hungary's history.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2010-10-catastrophe-hungary.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Wed, 13 Oct 2010 10:30:16 EDT","guid":"news206184549"},{"title":"A river flipped: Humans trump nature on Texas river","description":"A new study by geochemists at Rice University finds that damming and other human activity has completely obscured the natural carbon dioxide cycle in Texas' longest river, the Brazos.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2010-08-river-flipped-humans-trump-nature.html","category":"Biochemistry","pubDate":"Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:20:03 EDT","guid":"news201177268"},{"title":"Breath of the Earth: Cycling carbon through terrestrial ecosystems","description":"Two recent international studies are poised to change the way scientists view the crucial relationship between Earth's climate and the carbon cycle. These reports explore the global photosynthesis and respiration rates -- the planet's deep \"breaths\" of carbon dioxide, in and out -- and researchers say that the new findings will be used to update and improve upon traditional models that couple together climate and carbon.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2010-07-earth-carbon-terrestrial-ecosystems.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Mon, 05 Jul 2010 18:00:02 EDT","guid":"news197545620"},{"title":"International expedition investigates climate change, alternative fuels in Arctic","description":"Scientists from the Marine Biogeochemistry and Geology and Geophysics sections of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) organized and led a team of university and government scientists on an Arctic expedition to initiate methane hydrate exploration in the Beaufort Sea and determine the spatial variation of sediment contribution to Arctic climate change.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2009-11-international-climate-alternative-fuels-arctic.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:08:11 EST","guid":"news177948181"},{"title":"Earth's biogeochemical cycles, once in concert, falling out of sync","description":"(PhysOrg.com) -- What do the Gulf of Mexico's \"dead zone,\" global climate change, and acid rain have in common? They're all a result of human impacts to Earth's biology, chemistry and geology, and the natural cycles that involve all three.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2009-08-earth-biogeochemical-concert-falling-sync.html","category":"Environment","pubDate":"Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:09:20 EDT","guid":"news168598594"},{"title":"Ancient ecosystem thrives millions of years below Antarctic glacier","description":"(PhysOrg.com) -- A reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports hardy microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years, researchers report this week in the journal Science.","link":"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2009-04-ancient-ecosystem-millions-years-antarctic.html","category":"Earth Sciences","pubDate":"Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:46:18 EDT","guid":"news159111927"}]}}