Earth Sciences in the News

The Department of Earth Sciences stands at the forefront of pressing global issues, such as climate change, resource management and environmental protection. Learn more about how our expert faculty and fearless students conduct research that impacts the world around us. 

  • Greenland Ice Sheet's secrets
    2/6/25
    07/20/2020: UB is co-leading GreenDrill, a project that will bring teams to the Greenland Ice Sheet to investigate one of Earth’s largely unexplored frontiers: the bedrock that lies below the ice.
  • UB class helps cut carbon footprints - with eye toward post-pandemic life
    2/6/25
    05/13/2020: Students in the Carbon Reduction Challenge course work in small groups to create proposals for local businesses and government agencies to reduce their carbon footprints. When the pandemic reached Western New York mid-semester, the class turned much of its focus to helping partners retain unexpected carbon savings created as a result of social distancing.
  • Study: Mapping 16 years of ice sheet loss
    2/6/25
    04/30/2020: UB Climate scientist Beata Csatho is co-author of a new study that makes precise, detailed measurements of how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.
  • Even a hurricane, or two, can't stop regrowth in parts of the coral forest
    2/6/25
    03/16/2020: Soft corals at three sites in the U.S. Virgin Islands were able to recover from the destructive effects of nearly back-to-back Category 5 storms in 2017, but the story of these apparently hardy communities of colorful marine life is part of a larger, rapidly shifting narrative surrounding the future of coral reefs, according to a new study led by a UB marine ecologist
  • Geology is a 3D Science
    2/6/25
    02/20/2020: Scissors. Purple glue sticks. Paper designs to cut out and fold. Chris Lowry teaches advanced geology college courses at UB. But some of the tools he brings to class evoke the joy of grade school. Lowry is creator of the Foldable Aquifer Project — a series of 3D paper models of aquifers, which (in real life) consist of layers of permeable rock, sand and gravel that hold water underground.