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AGU Media ContactsFeatured Stories
Pakistan floods last summer could have been predicted
31 January 2011
Forecasters could have crunched raw data from computer models at a European weather-forecasting center to predict the impending rainfall with extreme accuracy 8–10 days ahead (findings to be published by Geophysical Research Letters).
Image courtesy of Horace Murray, U.S. Army
OSTP Director Dr. John Holdren gave inaugural Science and Policy Union Lecture at Fall Meeting 2010
13 December 2010
The inaugural lecture was given by Dr. John Holdren, who is the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), and Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), Executive Office of the President of the United States. The title of Holdren's presentation is "Scientists, Science Advice, and Science Policy in the Obama Administration". The lecture was held at 1230h–1330h on Monday, 13 December, in the San Francisco Marriott Marquis hotel.
Ocean Drilling: Forty Years of International Collaboration
October 2010
Scientific ocean drilling represents one of Earth science's longest-running and most successful international collaborations. The strength of this collaboration and its continued success result from the realization that scientific ocean drilling provides a unique and powerful tool to study the critical processes of both short-term change and the long-term evolution of Earth systems.
Photo courtesy of JAMSTEC and IODP
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AGU Embassy Lecture Event Focuses on Carbon Capture and Storage Technology
September 2010
AGU co-hosted the inaugural event in its Embassy Lecture Series at the German Embassy in Washington, DC, on 9 September 2010. Here, Dr. Frank Schilling of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology speaks on the science of carbon capture and storage.
Image courtesy of Colin Schultz, AGU
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Dangerous dependence on virtual water deepens
September 2010
New research says the rate of global groundwater depletion has doubled over the last 50 years. The non-sustainable use of this precious resource could pose problems for global food security.
Photo Credit: Lars Plougmann
Haiti earthquake: It wasn't the fault of Enriquillo
August 2010
It wasn't the fault of Enriquillo Scientists initially identified the Enriquillo fault as the source of the 12 January 2010 earthquake that struck Haiti, killing more than 200,000 people and leaving 1.5 million homeless. But they had the wrong suspect. Geophysicist Eric Calais explains how new evidence shows that it was another fault that was responsible for the earthquake.
Drilling Into Faults Quickly After Earthquakes
July 2010
For a few years after a major earthquake, the fault that ruptured is observably changing. A quickly drilled deep borehole along this fault can help scientists advance from current empirical models of earthquake initiation and fault slip to a full physics-based understanding of rupture processes.
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Gulf Gusher: Oil-spill science has advanced, but data are sparse
July 2010
The Geohazards blog spoke recently with marine geochemist John Farrington, who studied the Ixtoc oil spill as a member of a shipboard research mission 20 years ago. Farrington was one of a group of scientists assembled by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership at Louisiana State University to make recommendations for how scientists can best respond to the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Science, Space, and Shuttles: Interview With Astronaut/AGU Member Piers Sellers
May 2010
In the week before the final launch of space shuttle Atlantis, crew member Piers Sellers discussed the specifics of his mission and his experiences as an astronaut.
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Mount St. Helens 30-year anniversary
May 2010
The spectacular eruption of Mount St. Helens on 18 May 1980 remains a seminal historical event—studying it and its aftermath revolutionized the way scientists approach the field of volcanology. Lives lost and the impact of the eruption on people and infrastructure downstream and downwind made it imperative for scientists to work to lessen losses from future eruptions.
When volcanic ash chokes the air (and grounds your airplane)…
April 2010
Scientists are getting better at detecting and predicting volcanic ash eruptions and where the gritty plumes will go. But there's still a lot of work to be done. Grounded in Paris by the ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano and reached there by phone, John Eichelberger, Volcano Hazards Program Coordinator at the USGS (and an AGU member), puts the ash emergency into perspective.
Future Scientific Drilling of Oceanic Crust
April 2010
Scientific drilling could provide a wealth of new information about crustal processes occurring at mid-ocean ridges.
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Solar wind pressure drives away Mars's atmosphere
April 2010
A new analysis of solar wind data and satellite observations shows how solar wind pulses contribute to the loss of atmosphere from Mars. The study should help scientists better understand the evolution of Mars's atmosphere.
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Research Spotlight: Directly measuring ocean acidification
March 2010
Researchers have reported the first high-precision, basin-wide, direct observations of recent ocean acidity changes.
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Magnitude 8.8 earthquake strikes Chile, February 2010
March 2010
The central coast of Chile experienced a magnitude 8.8 earthquake Saturday 27 February. A 500 km section of the Peru-Chile Trench, where the oceanic Nazca Plate descends beneath the continental South America plate, moved suddenly during the earthquake. A tsunami warning was issued for the Pacific Ocean. From March 17–24, an international team of scientists mapped the seafloor off Chile to learn about the rupture.
Photo: Available on Wikimedia Commons (taken by Jorge Barrios)
A hectic weekend at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
March 2010
Brian Shiro is a geophysicist who has worked at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center for over four years. On the weekend of Feb. 27, after a 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit Chile and a Pacific-wide tsunami alert was issued for the first time since 1964, Brian spent about 40 hours working (almost) non-stop at PTWC. In an interview with AGU, Brian tells us about his experience during the emergency.
AGU's continuing success depends on dedicated members who volunteer to serve the union
February 2010
Dedicated volunteers represent an essential ingredient of every Union program. Union staff works flexibly and responsively in partnership with volunteers to achieve Union goals and objectives. AGU members are invited to volunteer for any committee based on their skill set and knowledge.
Magnitude 7.0 earthquake strikes Haiti, 12 January 2010
January 2010
Haiti was struck by a major earthquake that toppled the presidential palace and hillside shanties alike and killed possibly thousands of people. The earthquake occurred in the boundary region separating the Caribbean plate and the North America plate.
International Cooperation in Geophysics to Benefit Society
December 2009
Each year earthquakes, drought, storms, volcanoes, and other natural hazards affect communities in ways that range from inconvenience to mass destruction. These processes know no political boundaries and therefore have required organized international cooperation in research and management.
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AGU Congressional Science Fellows at work on Capitol Hill
December 2009
Congressional Science Fellows Maeve Boland and Maggie Walser working in the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Room in Washington, DC.
Nor'easters Strike Mid-Atlantic U.S.
December 2009
Three Nor'easters struck the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States within a 6-week period in October–November 2009. Entire dunes were wiped out. In a recent Geophysical Research Letters article by Frazer et al. (2009) reports that they “make storms part of the shoreline change model by means of a storm function.” Photograph of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Geoscience Field Education: A Recent Resurgence
October 2009
During the past several decades, many geoscience departments have moved away from traditional geologic fieldwork and toward a broader theoretical and laboratory-intensive focus that encompasses a range of subdisciplines. However, recent trends in geoscience education and research do not support de-emphasis of field education, the authors note.
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Fiftieth Anniversary of the First Incoherent Scatter Radar Experiment
August 2009
In the 11 November 2008 issue of Eos (89(46), 458), Henry Rishbeth asked whether the years 2008–2010 feature any important anniversaries in solar-terrestrial physics other than those he mentioned. One such milestone is the fiftieth anniversary of the first incoherent scatter radar (ISR) experiment.
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