Earth Science

Why Io Erupts: Gravitational Tidal Forces Io, a moon of Jupiter, is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. It is so hot and fluid that it turns itself entirely inside out ever few hundred millennia. How a…
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The topography of the ocean floor is a vast and diverse as the topography of the land. The world ocean contains four basins each which contain its share of ridges, trenches, volcanoes, shelves and continental rise. They are the Atlantic,…
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In the beautiful and verdant far eastern section of the Democratic Republic of Congo (“the DRC”), the green mountainous area along the border with Rwanda lies close to a potentially serious geologic threat: towering Mount Nyiragongo remains one of the…
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Earthquakes are some of the least predictable and most deadly of all natural disasters. Scientists know that they are coming sometime in the future, but the earth pretty much has a mind of its own when it comes to shifting…
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Lake Assal is a small East African lake in central/east Djibouti. It lies within the Great Rift Valley. When the nineteenth century geographer John  Walter Gregory first used the phrase Great Rift Valley he used it to describe a geological…
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Oceans are large bodies of saltwater. Life on this wonderful planet earth began in these huge bodies of water. Oceans are unique in this galaxy. No other planet on the Solar System has water on its surface. Oceans cover approximately 71 percent…
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As everyone knows, plants use photosynthesis to convert light, water and nutrients into usable food. However, photosynthesis is not the only way that organisms have found to create the materials they need to survive. Chemosynthesis uses chemical processes that occur…
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Lake Assal is a crater lake that is located in Djibouti and this is a saline lake that rests below sea level at 509 feet. This lake has no outflow because of high evaporation. Lake Assal is located in the…
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Chemosynthesis is the process by which organisms use chemical energy to create organic molecules. Unlike photosynthesis, which converts sunlight into energy, deep ocean organisms utilize chemosynthesis to manufacture carbohydrates and other molecules from the oxidation of sulfates. Chemosynthesis occurs in…
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Coral fluorescence is a common phenomenon among corals and other marine animals. Fluorescen occurs only when the target is stimulated by a certain type of light. A coral may appear to glow in shades of green, red or blue under…
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