Interesting

i was fliping through the usgs website…after I realized that the web site was not usgs.com (wierd).  There are trees randomly dieing in western foresets.  These deaths have been related to a steady one degree temperature rise in the last decade.  I just think that it is absolutely amazing that trees die if the climate rises one degree.  You would think they would have a better tolerance level.

Neat stuff.

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2115&from=rss_home

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When Mountains Move

How can mountains move. In West Virgina moutains do move. The coal companies have started a new way of mining the coal in the area. This method is called mountaintop removal. They cut down the trees and than blast the top with explosives so that they overlaying rock is shattered. Once they have done this they drag all the rocks away and just drop them in a valley to move the mountains. Here is the full article to read more about it http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/surface-of-the-earth/when-mountains-move.html. This could be a new method that could affect more and more people.

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The Human Impact of Evolution of “Prey” Species.

I read this interesting article about how human fishing, hunting and agricultural practices are causing negative evolutionary traits to form in many species of plants and animals.  This article is primarily focused on studying fish populations and how over fishing is causing genetic changes in fish populations.  Fish are now becoming smaller and are becoming less healthy in general; this is because the fisherman are killing off the larger healtherfish.  This means that the remaining fish are small and have unfavorable characteristics.  Since only these weak fish are left to reproduce the population gets weaker as a whole.  One may think that it would take thousands of years for this to have a huge impact; but studies show that this genetic change in the fish population happens 300% faster than in natural systems and 50 times faster than in environments altered by pollution.  This study showed this phenomenon is happening to interridal invertabrates, bighorn sheep, and in two different plant species as well.  Here is a link to the news article and not the actual study: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090112201123.htm.  If I can find the actual paper that this article is about I will post it.

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Mercury Content of Rainfall in Indiana State

I just read this articule in the news section of the USGS website.   This article said that there are excessive amounts of mercury in the precipitation in multiple areas in Indiana.  The mecury in the atmosphere comes from indrustrial activities.  In the past few years the amount of mercury in the hydrologic cycle has decreased.  It was previously thought that this is due to remedeation efforts in the area; now it was discovered that the decreased mercury levels were in fact only due to a decrease inthe overall amount of precipitation not the remediation.  In the media the issue of global warming is front page news and is thought to be the biggest threat to the environment.  Global warming seems to be a small environmental problem in comparison to the fact that a seriously dangerous metal is raining from the sky over an entire state.  Link to the article: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2099

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