Archive by category | Earth, environment & ecology

Outbreak of great quakes underscores Cascadia risk

The 18 great earthquakes that have struck Earth in the past decade hold ominous lessons for western North America, a top seismologist has warned. Many of these large quakes — including the 2004 Sumatra quake that spawned the Indian Ocean tsunami, and the 2011 Tohoku disaster in Japan — were surprisingly different from one another despite their similar geologic settings.  Read more

Geologists face off over Yukon frontier

Geologists face off over Yukon frontier

The walls of the Geological Survey of Canada’s Vancouver office are, not surprisingly, plastered with maps. There’s one of the country of Canada, one of the province of British Columbia, and even a circumpolar Arctic map centered on the North Pole.  Read more

World’s first ‘clean coal’ commercial power plant opens in Canada

World's first 'clean coal' commercial power plant opens in Canada

The world’s first commercial coal-fired power plant that can capture its carbon dioxide emissions officially launched today in Canada – marking a milestone for so-called ‘clean coal’ technology.  Read more

Prime numbers, black carbon and nanomaterials win 2014 MacArthur ‘genius grants’

Yitang Zhang, a mathematician who recently emerged from obscurity when he partly solved a long-standing puzzle in number theory, is one of the 2014 fellows of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.  Read more