In The News

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Inside of the Blue Ice Drill tent, drillers Tanner Kuhl (left) and Elizabeth Morton (right) work with graduate students Austin Carter, Jacob Morgan and postdoctoral fellow Sarah Shackleton in Antarctica in 2019.  Photo: John Higgins
Scientists Have Found Some Significant Ancient Ice, But Now They Want Ice That's Even Older
Dec. 29, 2020
Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR
The oldest ice on Earth probably is hiding somewhere in Antarctica, because this frozen continent holds ice that's hundreds of thousands and even millions of years old. Scientists are hoping to find it. (Higgins mention)
Hurricane Laura makes landfall in Cameron, LA. Photo: Courtesy of NOAA
2020 Was a Record Year for Hurricanes
Dec. 10, 2020
Tina Gerhardt, Sierra, Sierra Club Magazine
The 2020 season also forms part of a pattern that calls into question what even constitutes an “average” season. It is the fifth consecutive year with an above average hurricane season.
This diatom species, Fragilariopsis kerguelensis, photographed both alive (left) and fossilized (right)
What caused the ice ages? Tiny ocean fossils offer key evidence
Dec. 10, 2020
Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications
"The cause of the ice ages is one of the great unsolved problems in the geosciences,” said Daniel Sigman, the Dusenbury Professor of Geological and Geophysical Sciences. “Explaining this dominant climate phenomenon will improve our ability to predict future climate change.”
Artist’s representation of meteorites falling to Earth. Image by Shutterstock/Triff/NASA.
High-impact research: How meteorite strikes may change quartz on the Earth’s crust
Dec. 2, 2020
Andre Salles, Argonne National Laboratory
Scientists using a unique combination of capabilities at the Advanced Photon Source have learned more about how meteorites affect one of the most abundant materials in the Earth’s crust.
Webinar featuring Laure Resplandy
Webinar: Do you want to know more about deoxygenation in the ocean?
Nov. 30, 2020

Join Professor Laure Resplandy where she will present: "Will oxygen minimum zones expand or shrink? The crucial contributions of ocean mixing and biogeochemical feedbacks" on December 9th 2020 at 9am ET.  This new webinar series on ocean deoxygenation is organized by the UNESCO Global Ocean Oxygen Network and…

Bess Ward, William J. Sinclair Professor of Geosciences and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. Chair, Department of Geosciences.
Note From The Chair
Nov. 28, 2020
Bess Ward
I last wrote at the end of the Spring semester, when the students had vacated the campus and had completed the semester remotely.  Summer began with everybody working at home.  The University resumed research in early July, after every lab Principal Investigator provided a detailed plan for safe working in each lab space.
Hurricane Iota in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. (Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters)
Multiple rapidly intensifying hurricanes portends trouble in a warming world
Nov. 18, 2020
Andrew Freedman, Washington Post
Ten storms rapidly intensified this Atlantic season, some to a record degree. (Vecchi mention)
Virginia Beach hurricane. Photo Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images
Study: Climate change is pushing hurricanes deeper inland
Nov. 11, 2020
Nathanael Johnson, Grist

Well, it’s complicated, but a new study suggests that climate change makes some elements of destructive hurricanes even worse.

A boy rides a bicycle along a flooded street due to the heavy rains. Photo: Johan Ordonez, AFP and Getty Images
In most years, hurricanes and their activity would have wound down by now. Not in 2020
Nov. 6, 2020
Emma Newburger, CNBC
During most years, hurricanes and their activity would have long since waned by now. But in 2020, with about a month left of official Atlantic hurricane season, forecasters anticipate even more storms.

 

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Browse News Archive - 2020

Graduate School Shield
Congratulations to Dr. Danielle Schlesinger for successfully defending her Ph.D. Thesis
May 29, 2020
Georgette Chalker

The Department of Geosciences and Princeton University congratulates Dr. Danielle Schlesinger on successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis: “Salting the Earth: Biogeochemical Cycling of Chlorinated and Brominated Natural Organic Compounds in Coastal Ecosystems" on Monday May 4, 2020.

Graduate School Shield
Congratulations to Dr. Rachel L. Harris for successfully defending her Ph.D. Thesis
May 29, 2020
Georgette Chalker

The Department of Geosciences and Princeton University congratulates Dr. Rachel L. Harris on successfully defending her Ph.D. thesis: “Life on the Fringe: Surveying the Ecophysiological Tenacity of Methanogens and Anaerobic Methanotrophs in the Oligotrophic Deep Subsurface Biosphere" on Tuesday, January 28, 2020.

Congratulations to the Class of 2020 and Ph.D. Recipients
May 29, 2020
Georgette Chalker

Congratulations to the Class of 2020 and Ph.D. Recipients from all of us at the Department of Geosciences.

Cyclists on bike wearing a mask. Photo by Victor He on Unsplash
Local climate unlikely to drive the early COVID-19 pandemic
May 18, 2020
Morgan Kelly
Local variations in climate are not likely to dominate the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Princeton University study published May 18 in the journal Science.
Room 10, Guyot Hall
To all of our friends and colleagues from GEO-at-home
May 15, 2020
Bess Ward
Princeton sent the students home at the time of the spring semester break (13 March) and soon we were all working and teaching from home. Now that classes are over, and only finals and grading remain, we can evaluate our adaptation to the changed circumstances and start to look ahead.