DALLAS (SMU) – Leaf fossils from Ethiopia’s Mush Valley that date back nearly 22 million years have been found by SMU’s Earth Science professors Bonnie Jacobs and Neil J. Tabor and a dozen other international scientists. The Mush Valley is the first site in Africa to produce an assemblage of some 2,400 leaves from that time [...]
Leakage in Ken Regan field could have contaminated groundwater for livestock and irrigation between 2007 and 2011 DALLAS (SMU) – Geophysicists at SMU say that evidence of leak occurring in a West Texas wastewater disposal well between 2007 and 2011 should raise concerns about the current potential for contaminated groundwater and damage to surrounding infrastructure. [...]
A new analysis of historical seismic data conducted by The University of Texas at Austin, SMU and other academies has found that earthquake activity in West Texas around Pecos has increased dramatically since 2009. The study, published Nov. 4, 2019, in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, is important because it leverages old, unmined [...]
Volcanic eruptions and their ash clouds pose a significant hazard to population centers and air travel, especially those that show few to no signs of unrest beforehand. Geologists are now using a technique traditionally used in weather and climate forecasting to develop new eruption forecasting models. By testing if the models are able to capture [...]
Study sheds light on how the way our ancestors fed themselves changed our ecosystem DALLAS (SMU) – Humans started making an impact on the global ecosystem through intensive farming much earlier than previously estimated, according to a new study published in the journal Science. Evidence of the earliest domesticated plants and animals dates back to [...]
Study by SMU, UT Austin and Stanford scientists rates faults for potential earthquakes; Faults under DFW urban area viewed as lower quake hazard DALLAS (SMU) – Scientists from SMU, The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University found that the majority of faults underlying the Fort Worth Basin are as sensitive to forces [...]
A comprehensive catalog of earthquake sequences in Texas’s Fort Worth Basin, from 2008 to 2018, provides a closer look at how wastewater disposal from oil and gas exploration has changed the seismic landscape in the basin. In their report published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Louis Quinones and Heather DeShon of [...]
Sea Monsters Unearthed: Life in Angola’s Ancient Seas opens Nov. 9 at National Museum of Natural History DALLAS (SMU October 15, 2018) – Once the exhibit opens, “Sea Monsters Unearthed: Life in Angola’s Ancient Seas” will allow visitors to visually dive into the cool waters off the coast of West Africa as they existed millions [...]
Study shows hunter-gatherers used active burning to improve grazing, drive bison, long before arrival of Columbus Blackfeet Burning Crow Buffalo Range, painting by Charles Marion Russell, 1905. DALLAS (SMU) – Native American communities actively managed North American prairies for centuries before Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World, according to a new study [...]