Deep inside the Earth are two huge blobs of dense rock splayed across the core-mantle boundary. A computer model from UC Davis project scientists Juliane Dannberg and Rene Gassmoeller, members of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, offers new insights into the relationship between the mantle blobs and the lava erupted at some Pacific islands.
As the first anniversary of the March for Science approaches, researchers continue to reflect on the relationship between science and society. Four scientists with strong UC Davis connections discuss whether society is witnessing a fundamental change in how scientific researchers perceive their interaction with the public and policymakers. Read more in The Conversation.
As a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and now scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Mike Poland (B.S. '97, Geology) is on the front line during hazardous volcanic events. Poland credits his "amazing professors" at UC Davis for teaching him how to communicate science clearly and vividly - an essential part of a career with the USGS.
A new explanation for the moon’s origin has it forming inside the Earth when our planet was a seething, spinning cloud of vaporized rock, called a synestia.
Some species have always been rare — occurring in small densities throughout their range — throughout their evolutionary history. A perspective paper from in the journal Ecology Letters suggests that for many species, rarity is not a guarantee of impending extinction.
As the Juno space probe approached Jupiter in June last year, researchers with the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics’ Dynamo Working Group — headquartered at UC Davis — were starting to run simulations of the giant planet’s magnetic field on one of the world’s fastest computers. While the timing was coincidental, the supercomputer modeling should help scientists interpret the data from Juno, and vice versa.
Although life arose in the sea, some of its most astonishing evolutionary leaps happened after organisms conquered land, according to UC Davis paleobiologist Geerat Vermeij. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of evolutionary change in the fossil record, Vermeij has identified 11 major innovations that appeared first among terrestrial creatures.
Field camp is one of geology’s enduring rites of passage. In this capstone course from UC Davis, juniors and seniors spend six weeks in the wilderness learning how to document complex geological phenomena.
