AGI OUTREACH & NEWS
 The
AGI Outreach and Communications Program, established in 2000, focuses
on increasing understanding of the important contributions the earth sciences
make in the lives of people throughout the world. AGI sponsors an annual
Earth Science Week and a “popular” web site, Earth Science World, in cooperation
with its Member Societies and the U.S. Geological Survey to provide public
gateways to earth science information. The Outreach Program also works
to improve the flow of geoscience information to the news media, policy-makers,
AGI Member Societies, and the geoscience
community.
For a look at current news and happenings,
check out EARTH magazine!
| 2013 News Releases |
EARTH: Why U.S. Energy Security is Increasing
To what extent is the United States energy independent? In recent years, Americans have heard a lot about the need to be unconstrained from foreign energy sources, but what do the numbers really tell us about our current state of independence?
Posted 04/29/2013 |
AGI Announces 2013-2014 William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow
Congratulations to Kristen Mitchell, the 2013-2014 William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow for the American Geosciences Institute (AGI). The William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellowship offers geoscientists the unique opportunity to spend 12 months in Washington, D.C. working as a staff member in the office of a member of Congress or on a congressional committee. Every year, the AGI fellow joins more than two dozen other scientists and engineers for an intensive orientation program on the legislative and executive branches, organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which also guides the placement process and provides educational and collegial programs for the fellows throughout the year.
Posted 04/23/2013 |
EARTH: Widely Used Index May Have Overestimated Drought
For decades, scientists have used sophisticated instruments and computer models to predict the nature of droughts. With the threat of climate change looming large, the majority of these models have steadily predicted an increasingly frequent and severe global drought cycle. But a recent study from a team of researchers at Princeton University and the Australian National University suggests that one of these widely used tools — the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) — may be incorrect.
Posted 04/08/2013 |
EARTH: Community College at Sea – Research Experiences for Community College Students Build the STEM Pipeline
It's 3 a.m., and students from two Oregon community colleges are struggling to keep their sea legs as they work on the deck of a research vessel that is pitching and rolling in rough seas. Their objective is to recover an ocean-bottom seismometer that has been lying 160 meters underwater off the west coast of Vancouver Island, where it has been steadily recording seismic signals and long-period pressure trends for the past year. These students are experiencing what earth scientists do for a living, as a part of the Cascadia Initiative's CC@Sea program.
Posted 04/01/2013 |
The 48th Edition of the Directory of Geoscience Departments is Now Available in Print or eBook
The newest edition of the Directory of Geoscience Departments is now available for purchase in print and as an eBook. As the cornerstone reference publication of the American Geosciences Institute, the 48th edition of the Directory of Geoscience Departments is an invaluable resource for those working in the geosciences, those who must identify experts with specialties in various geoscience fields, or students investigating potential programs to apply to.
Posted 03/27/2013 |
EARTH: Scientists Reopen a Lunar Cold Case
When Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 19, 1972, it ended an era of manned spaceflight to the moon. The science, however, continues. Armed with analytical techniques not available in the 1970s, researchers around the country have been re-examining the more than 380 kilograms of lunar rocks collected four decades ago during the Apollo missions.
Posted 03/25/2013 |
EARTH: Well-healed Faults Produce High-Frequency Earthquake Waves
Much like our voices create sound waves with a variety of low and high pitches, or frequencies, earthquakes produce seismic waves over a broad spectrum. The seismic waves' frequencies determine, in part, how far they travel and how damaging they are to human-made structures. However, the inaccessibility of fault zones means that very little is known about why and how earthquakes produce different frequencies. With the help of a new tabletop model, scientists have now identified how a process known as fault healing can shape seismic waves and potentially alter their frequencies.
Posted 03/11/2013 |
EARTH: Releasing a Flood of Controversy on the Colorado River
As the Colorado River winds through the Colorado Plateau's soft sedimentary strata, it picks up a tremendous amount of sediment. This sediment – which once left the river's waters so muddy that Spanish explorers christened it El Rio Colorado "the reddish river" – is a vital component to the unique ecosystems of the river. However, with the construction of the Hoover and Glen Canyon dams, which trap the sediment, the once-turbid waters have become a dazzling blue-green, signaling major changes with serious implications for the health of the river's native ecosystems.
Posted 03/05/2013 |
AGI Supports National Groundwater Awareness Week
The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is proud to support National Groundwater Awareness Week, March 10-16, 2013. National Groundwater Awareness Week—sponsored by AGI member society, the National Ground Water Association (NGWA)—promotes the responsible stewardship of groundwater through education and outreach initiatives that help make society aware of this life-sustaining resource.
Posted 03/04/2013 |
Videocast on Legal Issues Related to Field Trips and Field Courses Released on YouTube
The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) and American Geophysical Union (AGU) have released a recording of the latest AGU/AGI Heads and Chairs webinar. This month's session focuses on legal issues related to field trips and field courses. The webinar, led by panelists David Mogk from Montana State University and Steven Whitmeyer from James Madison University, serves as a guide for reducing risk and liability for geoscience departments, and reviews tips for properly planning a safe and enjoyable field trip.
Posted 03/01/2013 |
Impact Assessment: How the Sequester Is Affecting the Geosciences
Beginning March 1, 2013, the Federal Government's discretionary spending accounts will be cut by $85 billion through the rest of the fiscal year. These across-the-board spending reductions, known as the sequester, were first proposed in 2011 as a penalty so severe they would force Congress to work together to solve the nation's deficit woes. Unfortunately, no agreement on a package of replacement cuts or additional revenue in time to avoid the sequester has been made. We now face substantial cuts to critical programs, and want to know how the sequester is affecting geoscientists.
Posted 03/01/2013 |
EARTH: Setting Sail on Unknown Seas – The Past, Present and Future of Species Rafting
On June 5, 2012, a massive dock made landfall on Oregon's Agate Beach, just north of Newport. The dock carried with it a host of castaways, including as many as a hundred species of mollusks, anemones, sponges, oysters, crabs, barnacles, worms, sea stars, mussels and sea urchins. A placard on the side written in Japanese revealed that the dock had been unmoored from the Japanese coastal city of Misawa during the catastrophic tsunami on March 11, 2011, bringing with it an essentially intact subtidal community of Asian species to the Pacific Northwest. Although natural rafts have likely been ferrying organisms around the planet since the very beginning of life of Earth, the geologically recent advent of human settlement, culture and infrastructure is fundamentally changing the rafting game, as EARTH explores in our March issue.
Posted 02/26/2013 |
AGI Announces First Recipient of the Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship for Women in Geoscience
Congratulations to Kelly M. Deuerling, the first recipient of AGI's new Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship for women in geoscience. Given annually in honor of Harriet Evelyn Wallace, a founding member of the Geoscience Information Society (GSIS), a national organization and AGI member society that facilitates the exchange of information in the geosciences, the new Harriet Evelyn Wallace Scholarship is awarded to a female student pursuing a thesis-based Master's or Doctoral degree in the Earth sciences.
Posted 02/19/2013 |
AGI Releases Faces of Earth Series in HD on YouTube
The American Geosciences Institute is pleased to announce that it has released its award-winning Faces of Earth series on YouTube in full High Definition. Delve into the Faces of Earth and rediscover the wonders behind our dynamic planet. From the resounding cacophony that bore Earth 4.6 billion years ago, to the steady and resolute changes that affect our surroundings even today, the Faces of Earth series explores the vibrant, forceful, and ever-changing facets of planet Earth.
Posted 02/19/2013 |
Nathan Shotwell to Receive the Edward C. Roy, Jr. Award for Excellence in K-8 Earth Science Teaching
Nathan Shotwell, a teacher at Holman Middle School in Glen Allen, Virginia, has been named the 2013 recipient of the Edward C. Roy, Jr. Award for Excellence in K-8 Earth Science Teaching. Shotwell, who earned his Master's degree in Education from Virginia Commonwealth University, has spent his career challenging middle- and junior-high school students with what he calls "authentic problems" and inquiry-based learning in the Earth sciences.
Posted 02/12/2013 |
Geoscience Currents #69: U.S. Female Geoscience Enrollment and Degree Rate is Mixed in 2011-2012
Geoscience Currents #69 explores how female geoscience enrollments and degrees changed in the 2011-2012 academic year. New data collected shows that female geoscience enrollments and degrees in the U.S. dropped sharply at both the Bachelor's and Master's levels, but increased slightly at the Doctoral level.
Posted 02/11/2013 |
EARTH: Moon Could Have Formed From Earth After All — Revising and Revisiting the Giant Impact Theory
The idea of a moon-forming collision is not new: The Giant Impact Theory put forth in the 1970s suggested that the moon resulted from a collision with a protoplanet approximately half the size of ancient Earth. But the physics underlying such a collision implied that the moon should be made up of debris mostly from the protoplanet. Since then we've discovered the moon is instead very chemically similar to Earth. Now, scientists have come up with two new models that explain how an impact could have resulted in a moon formed from Earth material.
Posted 02/05/2013 |
EARTH: Drinking Toilet Water – The Science (and Psychology) of Wastewater Recycling
Would you drink water from a toilet? What if that water, once treated, was cleaner than what comes out of the faucet? Although the imagery isn't appealing, as climate change and population growth strain freshwater resources, such strategies are becoming more common around the world — and in the United States.
Posted 01/28/2013 |
EARTH: The Dangers of Solar Storms
Throughout history, humanity has steadily increased its dependence upon technology. Although technology has vastly improved the quality of life for billions of people, it has also opened us up to new risks and vulnerabilities. Terrorism and natural disasters might be at the forefront of the minds of policymakers and the U.S. population, but a significant threat lurks over our heads: the sun. A massive solar storm, the size last seen a century and a half ago, could easily leave hundreds of millions of people in the dark for days, weeks or even months.
Posted 01/22/2013 |
Earth Science Week 2013 Theme Announced: "Mapping Our World"
The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is pleased to announce that the theme of Earth Science Week 2013 will be "Mapping Our World." This year's event will promote awareness of the many exciting uses of maps and mapping technologies in the geosciences.
Posted 01/15/2013 |
AGI Past-President Completes Successful Tour for STIEP Speaker Series
Dr. Wayne D. Pennington, AGI Past-President, recently concluded a successful tour for the new Science, Technology and Innovation Expert Partnership (STIEP) speaker series. Part of the U.S. Department of State's Targets of Opportunity Program, the STIEP speaker series promotes science diplomacy abroad by connecting traveling scientists with local embassies and other community networks in the region. Participants have the opportunity to exponentially increase the reach of their research while simultaneously promoting key issues for science diplomacy, including the importance of innovation, the scientific peer review process, and promoting women in STEM fields. Pennington was one of the first speakers to participate in the series.
Posted 01/14/2013 |
EARTH: Superquakes, Supercycles, and Global Earthquake Clustering
The size and type of earthquakes a given fault system may produce remain poorly understood for most major fault systems. Recent superquakes, such as the March 2011 magnitude-9 off Japan and the December 2004 magnitude-9-plus off Sumatra, have been far larger than what most scientists expected those faults to produce. The problem is that current models rely on short historical records, and even shorter instrumental records. Today, scientists are working to rewrite these models based on new paleoseismic and paleotsunami data to create a more comprehensive picture of earthquake activity through time. What they're finding might alarm you.
Posted 01/08/2013 |
AGI Announces Appointment of Dr. Maeve Boland as Director of Geoscience Policy
The American Geosciences Institute is pleased to announce Dr. Maeve Boland as AGI's new Director of Geoscience Policy. AGI's Geoscience Policy program serves as a link between the geosciences community and policymakers by sustaining communication, ensuring quality information flow, and representing the voices of AGI Member Societies.
Posted 01/08/2013 |
EARTH: Famous Fossils and Spectacular Scenery at British Columbia's Burgess Shale
The Burgess Shale provides us with a rare glimpse into the softer side of paleontology. Most fossils are preserved hard parts – bones, teeth and shells – but one of the most famous fossil locales in the world, the Burgess Shale, reveals subtle soft body structures like gills and eyes delicately preserved between the layers of dark rock. For more than 100 years, the Burgess Shale has been giving us a unique perspective on what life was like in the Cambrian seas. This month, EARTH Magazine contributor Mary Caperton Morton reminds us that no matter how well we think we know a fossil locality, it can still surprise us.
Posted 01/02/2013 |
| Last Updated: |
April 29, 2013 |
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