glacier Archives

Snowball Earth -- Grok via Astrobiology.com

Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The Neoproterozoic Glacial Broom

by Keith CowingMarch 10, 2025March 9, 2025

Neoproterozoic snowball Earth events reflect globally frigid conditions thought to have stimulated changes in geochemical cycling with planetary biotic response. We investigated the impact of these events on sediment dynamics, […]

Snapshot of surface speed in the ACCESS-OM2-01 model. The daily-averaged surface speed on 31 December 1990 in the final cycle of the RYF simulation is shown. -- Environmental Research Letters

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ice Planet, Ocean Planet: Melting Antarctic Ice Sheets will slow Earth’s Strongest Ocean Current

by Keith CowingMarch 4, 2025September 18, 2025

Melting ice sheets are slowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world’s strongest ocean current, researchers have found.

On its own, Earth would shift toward another ice age in about 10,000 years, scientists say. But humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions may have radically shifted the climates trajectory. CreditMatt Perko, UC Santa Barbara

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Matching Earth’s Ice Age Cycles With Orbital Shifts

by Keith CowingMarch 1, 2025March 1, 2025

Beginning around 2.5 million years ago, Earth entered an era marked by successive ice ages and interglacial periods, emerging from the last glaciation around 11,700 years ago. A new analysis […]

NISAR in Orbit Over Antarctica (Artist's Concept) Larger image

Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release

Using Orbital Radar To Explore An Ice Planet

by Keith CowingFebruary 5, 2025

This artist’s concept depicts the NISAR satellite orbiting Earth over Antarctica. Short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, the mission is an equal collaboration between the NASA and the Indian Space […]

Caption: At left: Steel is seen to corrode into siderite (FeCO3) when immersed in subcritical liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2). At right: Samples of albite (a plagioclase feldspar) and a sandstone core are observed to form red rhodochrosite (MnCO3) when exposed to supercritical CO2 in the presence of a water solution with potassium chloride and manganese chloride, with particularly strong reaction near the interface of the two solutions. In both experiments, water saturation is provided by floating LCO2 on the water. Under the lower pressure conditions characteristic of early Mars, the water would float on the LCO2. Credits: Photos courtesy of Todd Schaef/PNNL (left) and Earl Mattson/Mattson Hydrology (right).

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Cryobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Liquid On Mars Was Not Necessarily All Water

by Keith CowingDecember 7, 2024December 7, 2024

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet’s surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem […]

Photographs of Tava injectites within a darker-colored, red-brown to purple host comprising sandstone ridges. Outcrops (A) and (C) and their sketch overlays (B) and (D), respectively, showing 1st-(purple) and 2nd-(gold) generation injectites. Locations are North Cheyenne Canyon (A, B) and Manitou Springs (C, D). (A-B) are repeated from the main text figures but display further highlighted details. Study locations are shown in Fig. S2. -- PNAS

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Away Teams & Field Reports, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Extinction events, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Hematite U-Pb Dating Of Snowball Earth Meltwater Events

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2024December 2, 2024

The Snowball Earth hypothesis predicts global ice cover; however, previous descriptions of Cryogenian (720-635 Ma) glacial deposits are limited to continental margins and shallow marine basins.

Comparison of extraction conditions and chemical diversity of detected metabolic features. The dendrogram on the left of the heat map shows hierarchical clustering of similarly extracted metabolic features. The heat map displays the intensity of metabolites normalized to the most intense peak within each row (metabolic feature). Differences in metabolic feature peak intensity across extraction conditions are visible as top to bottom – based on polarity and left to right – based on solvents (from organic to aqueous). The line plot at the far left of the figure shows decreasing (magenta lines) and increasing (green lines) peak intensities in extraction conditions from left to right. Metabolic features were roughly divided into polar, midpolar, and relatively nonpolar and categorized into different metabolic classes. Each class is given a different color, as the figure legend shows. Confirmed and putatively confirmed metabolic features after MS/MS spectra match with the standards/predicted theoretical fragments match (via Mass Frontier software) are shown in bold. N = 4 for each extraction condition. -- biorxiv.org

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Cryobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Microbiology & Virology, Status Report

Evaluation of Extraction Solvents for Untargeted Metabolomics to decipher the Dissolved Organic Matter of Antarctic Cryoconite Holes

by Keith CowingNovember 19, 2024November 19, 2024

Cryoconite holes are biological hotspots with a high biogeochemical turnover rate, contributing significantly to the glacial ecosystem’s overall carbon cycles and net fluxes.

Kristen Bennett setting up a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (ground-based LiDAR) to acquire detailed topographic information for a complex esker system. The Breiðamerkurjökull glacier is visible in the background. -- USGS

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Astrogeology, Away Teams & Field Reports, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Fossils & Paleontology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Tricorders & Sensors

USGS Away Team: A Martian Landscape Right At Home

by Keith CowingOctober 18, 2024October 18, 2024

Sitting in the middle of a vast landscape, bordered by a ridge and filled with loose rocks, Lauren Edgar held a hand lens to her eye as she peered at […]

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Astrogeology, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Status Report

Icy Water World Orbital Survey: Frost-fringed Polygons On Mars

by Keith CowingOctober 16, 2024October 16, 2024

A slice of the martian surface shown in grey shades and lit from the lower left. The centre-right of the image is dominated by a circular, partially eroded crater filled […]

Thwaites Glacier and much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be lost by the 23rd century. -- British Antarctic Survey

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Iceworld Update: Grim Outlook For Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

by Keith CowingSeptember 21, 2024September 21, 2024

A vast area of the Antarctic Ice Sheet continues to retreat as a UK-US group of scientists reveal new findings about how and when it might suddenly move towards collapse.

glacier

The Neoproterozoic Glacial Broom

Ice Planet, Ocean Planet: Melting Antarctic Ice Sheets will slow Earth’s Strongest Ocean Current

Matching Earth’s Ice Age Cycles With Orbital Shifts

Using Orbital Radar To Explore An Ice Planet

Liquid On Mars Was Not Necessarily All Water

Hematite U-Pb Dating Of Snowball Earth Meltwater Events

Evaluation of Extraction Solvents for Untargeted Metabolomics to decipher the Dissolved Organic Matter of Antarctic Cryoconite Holes

USGS Away Team: A Martian Landscape Right At Home

Icy Water World Orbital Survey: Frost-fringed Polygons On Mars

Iceworld Update: Grim Outlook For Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier

NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,215 4 September 2026 (Space Life Science Research Results)

The Metallicity Of Giant Exoplanets Around Low-mass Stars And How Ariel Can Help

Two Extremely Irradiated Volatile-rich Sub-Neptunes With Companions In The TOI-426 And TOI-1839 Systems: Insights Into Arrival And Survival Near The Lower Edge Of The Neptunian Desert

Mapping the WISPIT2 Planet-Hosting Cavity at Sub-Hill-Radius scales

Contrasting C/O Ratios in Uranus and Neptune From Disequilibrium Chemistry: A Clue To Distinct Evolutionary Pathways?