Roughly 34 million years ago, the Earth started transitioning from a greenhouse to an icehouse state — defined by long-term cooling trends that resulted in ice sheets in the planet’s polar regions. During this time, continental carbon reservoirs expanded as carbon dioxide decreased...READ MORE
Earthquake faults deep in the Earth can glue themselves back together following a seismic event, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis. The work, published Nov. 19 in Science Advances and supported by grants from the National Science...READ MORE
Around 252 million years ago, the Earth experienced its largest mass extinction. Known as the “Great Dying,” this cataclysmic event wiped out more than 81% of marine species and 70% of life on land. Currently, the prevailing theory is that the extinction both in the oceans and on...READ MORE
The outer planets of the Solar System are swarmed by ice-wrapped moons. Some of these, such as Saturn’s moon Enceladus, are known to have oceans of liquid water between the ice shell and the rocky core and could be the best places in our solar system to look for extraterrestrial life...READ MORE
The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences is proud to celebrate Emeritus Professor Cathy Busby, whose distinguished career in volcanology, sedimentology, structural geology, and tectonics has been honored with the publication of a new Geological Society of America Special Paper...READ MORE
Fourth-year UC Davis geology student Sonia Somasundaram was studying in the Cadet Hand Library at the Bodega Marine Laboratory when a fellow student burst through the library’s doors. “This one student came running into the library, screaming about a whale,” recalled Somasundaram, who’s minoring...READ MORE
Featured in the LA Times article below, Dr. Nicholas Pinter, Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, emphasized the critical role that federal flood insurance plays in protecting vulnerable communities. Without NFIP support, he warns, many properties in low-lying areas could...READ MORE
New results from the Hayabusa-2 space probe show that asteroids formed at the very beginnings of our Solar System retained substantial amounts of water for hundreds of millions of years, potentially delivering water to Earth and other planets for much longer than previously thought...READ MORE
We are excited to share that David Gold, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has been elected Chair of the Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division of the Geological Society of America (GSA). GSA’s Geobiology and Geomicrobiology Division promotes...READ MORE
We are thrilled to announce that David Gold, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, has been elected Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. This is a prestigious honor recognizing outstanding contributions to the natural sciences, highlighting Dr. Gold's broad...READ MORE
New research from the University of California, Davis, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Texas A&M University reveals that massive emissions, or burps, of carbon dioxide from natural earth systems led to significant decreases in ocean oxygen concentrations some 300 million years ago...READ MORE
We are delighted to share that Lena Anderson, an undergraduate student in Earth and Planetary Sciences, has been awarded the American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) National Undergraduate Scholarship. This scholarship recognizes outstanding geology students across the country...READ MORE
Did Al Capone have an outpost in the Everglades? How do inanimate stones manage to slide across the flat landscape of Death Valley National Park? And what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke? For UC Davis alum and outdoor writer Mike Bezemek, these tantalizing...READ MORE
Claris Nyuysoni Sunjo knows firsthand the dangers of living in a place with unsafe drinking water. Growing up in Mbah in Cameroon, Sunjo was once rushed to the hospital and even lost a friend due to waterborne illnesses. Those experiences triggered a desire within her. She...READ MORE
Take a deep breath in. Hold it in for a second. And now, let it out. While that simple, measured way of breathing can instill calm in us, it also connects us to our home planet. “That oxygen that you just absorbed comes from billions of years of evolution of photosystems...READ MORE
