Earth Science

Riparian restoration involves returning an area to a quality of habitat that will sustain life, enhance life, or cause a return of living things. A riparian or habitat zone is associated with water and the adjoining soil that has a high…
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Electricity Electricity drives our modern lifestyle. It always surprises me how few people understand where electricity comes from and how it is generated. There are two fundamental ways to generate electricity. One of these, photovoltaic cells, is still in its…
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The eruption of Mt. Saint Helens on May 18, 1980 caused a disturbance to the surrounding landscape that graded from complete sterilization to remnant late successional legacies. The resulting biological succession that almost immediately started to unfold became a fascinating…
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The tropics are defined as the area of the earth running from the Topic of Cancer in the north to the Tropic of Capricorn in the south. Within this area, there are many types of ecosystems and their associated soils. Soils…
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The current trends towards the globalization and integration of human society are dramatically affecting the environment around the world. The forests that once housed many native species here in the northwest are being cleared and paved for the further expansion…
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Before I became an English nerd, I used to be extremely interested in science. I was fascinated with bugs and often kept a collection of live ones, despite my mother’s protests, and was always found playing in the dirt and…
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There is a lot of hype being given lately to the debate, “Should I eat organic foods or not?”  The answer, in my opinion, is yes, absolutely!  In fact, I’ll take it a little further: You need to learn to…
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To contain an offshore oil leak, its source must be known. If the leak is directly from the wellhead, it must be capped or otherwise closed off as soon as possible. If it is from the riser, as in the…
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The food chain actually rings itself back to its first link upon reaching the decomp stage. All things naturally consume from the simplest form, i.e. plants to insect to rodent to animal and so on, but upon death a new…
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A sustainable environment is an environment in which all of the plants, animals, and other forms of life in it are able to exist in the ecosystem without any exterior aid or interference. Granted, this doesn’t mean that every single…
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