Seattle Fault gets 5,000 more years of sleep

Just over 1,100 years ago an earthquake on the Seattle fault rocked — and reshaped — the Puget Sound region. It lifted the sea floor and sent a powerful tsunami through the sound. Researchers have estimated that this fault, which runs east to west beneath the middle of the city, will produce a large earthquake every 5,000 years or so. However, a UW analysis, recently published in Geology, pushes that estimate back to 11,000 years. ESS Research Scientist Elizabeth Davis is lead author and ESS Associate Professor Juliet Crider is co-author.

Read more on UW News April Research Highlights

Can arid planets keep their cool?

The geologic carbon cycle has been an important tool for balancing carbon dioxide and stabilizing the climate of Earth over billions of years. The authors of today’s bite, ESS graduate student Haskelle White-Gianella and Assistant Professor Joshua Krissansen-Totton, explore why dry planets may be missing this critical climate-stabilizing thermostat.

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Researchers discover the fossil of a new hamster-sized mammal that lived alongside dinosaurs on the Pacific Coast

A research team, led by UW Biology Professor and ESS Adjunct Professor Gregory Wilson Mantilla, has identified a new species in the Cimolodon genus from a fossil the team discovered at a research site in Baja California.

Read more at UW News

The PNW has many rivers, but no system for gauging landslide dam risk

Scientists have a new tool for estimating lesser known hazards in the Pacific Northwest: landslide dams and outburst floods. In a new study, published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences and led by ESS Graduate Student Paul Morgan, UW researchers debut a mathematical approach to mapping landslide dam hazards based on valley width and projected slide size.

Read more on UW News April Research Highlights

New research uses fiber optic cables to predict glacier loss in Greenland

 

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2026 Geochemistry Fellow David Catling reflects on a career spent trying to answer science’s biggest questions

 

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Leveraging mathematical models to uncover Antarctica’s role in sea-level rise

Recent ESS Colloquium speaker Assistant Professor Ching-Yao Lai (Stanford University) is interviewed.

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UW study on soil structure helps explain the ‘why’ in plowing debate

 

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On the Seattle Fault, the biggest quakes aren't the most likely

Smaller quakes from secondary faults occur more frequently than previously thought, says new study published in Geology by ESS researchers Elizabeth Davis and Juliet Crider. PNSN Director Harold Tobin is also quoted.

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Planets need more water to support life than scientists previously thought

In a new study, Haskelle White-Gianella and Joshua Krissanen-Totton show that an Earth-sized planet likely needs at least 20 to 50% of the water in Earth’s oceans to maintain a critical natural cycle — the geologic carbon cycle — that keeps water on the surface. These new parameters could exclude many exoplanets in the so-called habitable zone and help narrow the search for life.

Read more on UW News