A study of deformed and metamorphosed rocks exposed in Tibet’s Lopu Range suggests that episodes of crustal shortening and extension during the evolution of the Himalaya are related to subduction processes.
Terri Cook
Terri Cook is an award-winning freelance writer whose career has focused on exploring and explaining the 4.5-billion-year-history of the remarkable planet we live on. Cook, who has an M.S. degree in Earth science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, writes about geology, ecology, and the environment—as well as wine, tea, hiking, and biking—for a diverse group of publications, including Eos, Scientific American, NOVA Next, Science News, and EARTH magazine, as well as Avalon Travel and numerous other travel-related publications. Her reporting has taken her to 25 states and 20 countries scattered across 5 continents, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the sandy Australian Outback to the mist-shrouded summit of Bali’s Mount Batur. As the coauthor of three popular guidebooks, including Hiking the Grand Canyon’s Geology and Geology Underfoot Along Colorado’s Front Range, Cook gives frequent presentations about geology and science communication. She is the recipient of a 2016 European Geosciences Union Science Journalism Fellowship and is based in beautiful Boulder, Colo.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Diagnosing Cryptic Remagnetization in Sedimentary Rocks
To understand the ancient movement of Earth’s tectonic plates, comprehensive magnetic and petrographic studies are needed to detect secondary magnetization in carbonates and other sedimentary rocks.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Do Rivers Flow over Bedrock?
A study questions whether the hydraulics of rivers that lack loose sediments along their bottoms can be accurately depicted by standard equations for flow over sediment.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Reinterpreting the Age and Origins of Taiwan’s Yuli Belt Terrane
Uranium-lead dating of zircons from Taiwan’s east central metamorphic belt offers robust evidence that this uplifted terrane is some 90 million years younger than previously thought.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
What’s the Average Methane Isotope Signature in Arctic Wetlands?
Aircraft measurements confirm that methane emissions from northern European wetlands exhibit a uniform regional carbon isotopic signature, despite considerable ground-level heterogeneity.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
What Causes Rock Avalanches?
Experimental studies of frictional weakening beneath a deadly rock avalanche in China help to clarify the mechanisms that cause these devastating natural disasters.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
An Improved Model of How Magma Moves Through the Crust
Researchers have developed a new numerical model that can, for the first time, solve for both the speed and the path of a propagating dike.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A Mountain Range's History Preserved in Ocean Sediments
Fission track dating core samples from the Gulf of Alaska demonstrates that offshore sediments can be used to reconstruct a mountain range's changing exhumation patterns.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Stream Network Geometry Correlates with Climate
A "big data" analysis of nearly 1 million river junctions in the contiguous United States shows that branching angles in dendritic drainages vary systematically between humid and arid regions.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Why Do Great Earthquakes Follow Each Other at Subduction Zones?
A decade of continuous GPS measurements in South America indicates that enhanced strain accumulation following a great earthquake can initiate failure along adjacent fault segments.