Earth Science

In light of what has happened in Haiti, we can all see how devastating an earthquake can be. You may be asking yourself, “How do I get prepared for a quake if I don’t know that it’s coming? There are some…
Read more

A squall line looks pretty much the same as a thunderstorm rolling in, the clouds are dark, moving quickly and the temperature will sudden drop creating a noticeable difference and the wind will pick up speed quickly. A squall line…
Read more

The announcement during 2010 that vast reserves of minerals were found in Afghanistan was made with great fanfare. The public was led to believe that a “small” cadre of US geologists and military officials “suddenly” discovered the mineral deposits. In…
Read more

Roughly 74,000 years ago, a super volcano erupted in Sumatra. This super volcano is known as Mount Toba. The eruption was on a scale that modern man can scarcely imagine. Volcanic ash was spread all over southern Asia. The ash…
Read more

Particulate pollution is all about small, light-weight, harmful particles floating about in the air of our communities. These, often virtually invisible, particulates frequently have negative impacts on not only our adult respiratory (breathing) systems, but the far more vulnerable respiratory…
Read more

The adult emerald ash borer beetle has been destroying the ash trees of North America since the early 1990s when it first arrived on our shores, probable in a cargo ship from an Asian country. The adults do little harm…
Read more

Imagine a perfectly innocent quartz crystal that has grown to considerable size. It is lying there, at the bottom of a shallow sea, when a meterorite rudely invites itself to crash into the Earth’s surface with considerable noise, pressure, heat….
Read more

NASA recently celebrated the ten year birthday of the Terra Satellite, which was put to work on February 24, 2000. The Terra Satellite is one of the Earth Observing System (EOS) group of satellites, with the title EOS AM-1. Terra’s mission…
Read more

Have you ever wondered why the United States are so strict on importing goods from other countries? Did you ever fly over seas and once on the flight back had to fill one of those custom/agricultural declaration forms stating that…
Read more

Not all volcanoes are created equal. Nor do they erupt equally. As hurricanes have the Saffir-Sampson scale, tornadoes have the Fujita scale, and earthquakes have the Richter scale, volcanoes have the Volcanic Explosivity Index.  The VEI was first proposed in 1982 by…
Read more