September Geology and GSA Today media ...( Boulder CO USA - Topics include: d...)

Boulder, CO, USA - Topics include: discovery of Sudbury impact event debris in Michigan; climate change and dispersal of early modern humans out of Africa; relationship of mantle plumes and supercontinent cycles; relationship of San Andreas fault system activity and the eastern California shear zone; and ramifications of sediment mixing in studying the Great Barrier Reef. An open-access Research Focus on paleoseismology addresses earthquake prediction. The GSA TODAY science article examines climate change, Ethiopian Plateau development, and human evolution.

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The Late Paleozoic ice age, one of the most severe glaciations in Earth history, came to an end in the Permian. Poulsen et al. use numerical climate-biome models to demonstrate that the deglaciation of high-latitude Gondwana likely had an enormous impact on tropical climate and environments. Climate model results indicate that the deglaciation of Gondwana may have led to warming, aridification, and desertification of equatorial Pangea. These model results are consistent with Late Paleozoic proxies of climate change, and imply a tight linkage between high- and low-latitude climate change.