Flume experiments show that a self-reinforcing cycle can strengthen the currents responsible for transporting large amounts of sediment to the deep oceans.
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
Regional Metamorphism Occurs Before Continents Collide
Evidence from collision zones suggests that the high temperatures that create regional zones of metamorphic minerals occur in wide, hot back arcs prior to continental collision deformation.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Volcano in Iceland Is One of the Largest Sources of Volcanic CO2
High-precision airborne measurements, in combination with atmospheric modeling, suggest that the Katla subglacial caldera may be one of the planet’s biggest sources of volcanic carbon dioxide.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Unraveling the Origins of Australia’s Ancient Mountain Chains
New data synthesis suggests that varying rates of trench retreat along the margin of the Gondwana supercontinent were responsible for the curvature of the Tasmanide mountain chains.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
A More Detailed Look at Earth’s Most Poorly Understood Crust
The second-generation Antarctic Digital Magnetic Anomaly Project offers a powerful new tool for probing the structure and evolution of the southernmost continent’s lithosphere.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Wind Speed Governs Turbulence in Atmospheric Inversions
Measurements made during a field campaign in Idaho indicate that the speed of winds 2 meters above Earth’s surface determines the type of turbulence present in nighttime inversions.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Autumn Warming No Longer Accelerating Carbon Loss in the North
An analysis of Point Barrow’s 40-year record points to the importance of calculating the carbon cycle’s response to temperature during the northern latitudes’ non-growing season.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Evidence of Regional Deposition in Mars’s South Polar Deposits
Shallow Radar correlation of discrete units in one of the Red Planet’s largest ice reservoirs suggests that its material was emplaced as a single, regional deposit.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Scraping Bottom: Iceberg Scours Reveal North Atlantic Currents
A 3-D seismic analysis of Pleistocene iceberg gouges indicates that surface currents in the Norwegian Sea flowed northward and remained consistent during numerous glacial cycles.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
How Are Sediment Pulses Generated?
A new long-term flume experiment shows that bed load gravel travels downstream in recurring, 10-hour pulses even when water flow and sediment supply are constant.