Environmental and Earth Sciences
Off the grid(iron)
A 21st century Thoreau lives sustainably in the shadow of Beaver Stadium.
Secrets of ancient Iceland (July 2005)
Writer Nancy Marie Brown joins anthropologist Paul Durrenberger in the field as he digs into the Viking Age. Provides a ground-level (and underground) view of archaeologists at work and the thousand-year-old secrets they are laboring to reveal.
Future fuel?
The energy source of the future must be cheap, renewable, and environmentally clean. Is hydrogen the answer? Take a glimpse into the future-building activities of Penn State researchers, ranging from fundamental materials chemistry to collaborations with Pennsylvania's growing fuel-cell industry.
What is deep time?
Geoscientist Richard Alley explains deep time and how it tells the story of our planet.
Dispatches from Turkey: Digging for Energy in Distant Lands (October 2004)
A graduate student explores new ways to fuel the demands of her rapidly modernizing country. Suzan Erem reports from Turkey.
Penn State Road Rules: Industrial Revolution and Beyond (June 2003)
Follow what happens when sixteen students and three faculty members abandon the formality of the classroom for a chance to live and learn together in the real world. Their mission: to chart the significant role that energy resources have played in the transformation from the West's 18th-century rural economy to the post-industrial economy of the 21st century.
A Storm is Born (June 2002)
Where does a storm come from? What brings it on? Last month in Oklahoma — where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain — reporter Dana Bauer and a team of Penn State meteorologists worked as part of the 2002 International H2O Project. The mission: to understand the when, where, and how of a storm's formation.
Notes from the Deep (December 2001 - January 2002)
A mile and a half below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, hydrothermal vents — underwater hot springs — are home to some of the world's most exotic creatures. In December 2001, writer Joanna Lott joined Penn State biologist Charles Fisher and his students on a 23-day research cruise to explore hydrothermal vent sites and the communities that survive there.
A Season in Antarctica (November 2001)
What are the forces that formed Antarctica? In November of 2001, freelance-writer John Pollack joined a team of Penn State geoscientists on a project to better understand the crust and mantle beneath the Transantarctic mountains, the range that splits the continent into east and west.
Behind the Bulldozers
According to historian Adam Rome, the house-building boom that followed World War II caused an environmental catastrophe.
Fishy Disappearance
Why is the oldest living animal in North America disappearing from Pennsylvania 's rivers? Patrick Barry is hoping to answer this question.
An Alliance for Africa
For the people of Mpumalanga , South Africa , dealing with environmental wreckage and fear is part of their daily routine. But Michael Adewumi believes universities can help rebuild Africa 's depleted natural resources.
Seeing the Forest and the Trees
Jim Finley says too many people forget to look up while walking through forests, which he believes, is where the action is.
Breath of the Forest
Scientists believe that forests effect the cleansing of the Earth's air by releasing carbon dioxide. Kenneth Davis is working to determine exactly where and at what rate carbon dioxide is being stored in—or given off by—forests.
Lock it in Rock
Important chemical reactions occur in nature, but they take time, sometimes hundreds of millions of years. This is the case of binding serpentine with carbon dioxide to lower the emissions from vehicles, factories, and power plants.
Industrial Revolution and Beyond
Penn State undergraduates and faculty members spent two weeks traveling through Iceland and the United Kingdom with a single mission in mind: to chart the West's progress from rural to post-industrial economy and understand the effects of energy.
Brave New Map
Next-generation topography map users will soon be able to access features like vegetative cover type, transportation networks, hydrographical data, and trends of land use, thanks to the U.S. Geological Survey.
GIS Council
Geographers and environmental and agricultural scientists quickly spotted the usefulness of Geographic Information Systems, and social scientists are now beginning to see the benefits of the system, as well.
Beyond Earth
Next stop: Mars? In an era of renewed discovery, experts in space exploration and planetary science are starting to look closely at the technological, social, and political hurdles that remain before humans can live on other worlds.
Clay into Plastic
For decades, researchers have worked at boosting the properties of plastic by adding "fillers." Now Evangelos Manias is working on a new type of additive: natural clays.
Wakes on Lakes
Noise and turbulence caused by boats is bothersome to lakefront property owners, but it also stirs up lakebed sediment that can inhibit plant growth and kill fish.
A Storm is Born
It's not Twister . Rather than focusing on full-blown tornadoes, these researchers and their students prefer to track the birth of storms that produce lightning, hail, and enough rainfall to cause flash floods.
Flood Watch
Andrew Jones' latest film project takes him to Johnstown Pennsylvania , a city prone to flooding, where he seeks to both explore and influence people's views on this natural phenomenon.
The Waters of the Nile
Evidence suggests that Hierakonpolis may have been the first capital of unified Egypt . But before they dig for clues to this ancient culture, Penn State geosciences professors must investigate and resolve the problems posed by a rising local water table.
Earth: Our Role
No longer debating the question of whether or not human progress is harmful to the environment, scientists are now focusing on what exactly we can do to abate these effects.
A Season in Antarctica
The Transantarctic mountain range is what Penn State geologist Andy Nyblade likes to call a "geological puzzle." It is the only major mountain range whose formation did not originate from tectonic plate collision.
The Science of Spring Water
Dorothy Vesper, a doctoral student in geosciences at Penn State , tackles the mountains and caves of our country to study environmental effects on spring water.
Sun and Sand
The depletion of fossil fuels and their pollution to the environment have cast eager eyes on the prospects of solar power.
