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Tag: "glaciers" at biology news

Antarctic ice shelf retreats happened before

...adual removal of this ice shelf may be causing the glaciers inland to flow faster, which could lead to enhanced drainage of part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and a consequent rise in sea level. ...

Low level of extinction during ice age linked to adaptability

..." Powell looked at extinctions during an age when glaciers reached to within 35 degrees of the equator, roughly as far south as a line between present-day Raleigh, Memphis and Albuquerque or nearly as far north as Buenos Aires. Powell tackled the question of why extinction rates were so low during that great...

To sea or not to sea: When it comes to salmon sex, size sometimes doesn't matter

...esent range of Pacific salmon was covered by thick glaciers some 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, so most current populations were founded by strays since then. Thus straying is just as fundamental an attribute of salmon as homing," he says. "Perhaps the offspring should be called strays only if they are unsucces...

Study casts doubt on 'Snowball Earth' theory

...s dropstones (continental rocks dropped by melting glaciers into marine deposits) and glendonites (minerals that only form in near-freezing water). Objections aside, the paper's main contribution may be the application of new techniques to an old chestnut. "Geologists don't necessarily think of looking for...

Freeze-dried mats of microbes awaken in Antarctic streambed

...under study feature intermittent streams that link glaciers to frozen lakes on the valley floor, she said. The streambeds contain photosynthetic microbes known as cyanobacteria, which collectively occur as thin, rubbery mat-like structures that can spread several meters across the streambed surface. The expe...

Students discover 11,000 year old remains of Irish Elk

...hern Europe at the end of the last Ice Age, as the glaciers retreated northwards. The students who found the elk were taking part in a field trip examining the Manx landscape. Dr Peter Davey, Director of the Centre for Manx Studies and Reader in Archaeology at the University who was leading the group at the...

New dwarf buffalo discovered by chance in the Philippines

...swimming short distances between islands. Once the glaciers melted and sea levels rose, these mammals became isolated on their respective islands. Over the years, they evolved into the unique species found there today. According to Heaney, about 200 native mammal species currently live in the Philippines, ...

Climate change creates dramatic decline in red-winged black bird population

...ts. "There are long-term records that show melting glaciers and altered ecological patterns like earlier migration and earlier nesting of birds. "When you first start out, you don't set out to get 25 years of data on a topic," he said. "But when you're in the field long enough like I have been, that's what...

Finding an answer to Darwin's Dilemma

...the researchers say. They hypothesize that melting glaciers increased the amount of nutrients in the ocean and led to a proliferation of single-celled organisms that liberated oxygen through photosynthesis. This began an evolutionary radiation that led to complex communities of filter-feeding animals, then mo...

Satellites shed light on global warming

...se any increase in the melt rate of ice sheets and glaciers has the potential to greatly increase sea level, r.... After the collapse event in 2002, the outlet glaciers from the Antarctic Peninsula that previously nourished the ice shelf retreated many kilometres above...

Antarctic warming to reduce animals at base of ecosystem, shift some penguin populations southward

...n lake levels rise, more melt from the surrounding glaciers and more aquatic ecosystems replacing soil-based ecosystems." Lyons sees what is happening now looking similar to what existed during the Eemian warming period ?a time 130,000 years ago before the last major glacial stage. "We know that the clima...

Warming oceans threaten Antarctic glaciers

Scientists have identified four Antarctic glaciers that pose a threat to future sea levels using sate...e Greenland ice sheet, the research shows that its glaciers are changing too erratically to establish a trend with confidence. In contrast, four major glaciers ...

Ancient DNA traces the woolly mammoth's disappearance

...ifteen to twenty-five thousand years ago, when the glaciers reached their fullest extent. The findings also offered early human hunters a potential alibi; they didn’t come on the scene in large numbers until even later. In search of a general pattern in the new study, Barnes and Lister’s team looked to the...

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