Feb 20, 2015

UW Environmental Career Fair: February 25, 2015

Some of the region’s most notable organizations working in environmental and natural resource capacities – including Forterra, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Corps, and the Washington State Department of Ecology – will be on-hand at the UW Environmental Career Fair on February 25. The event gives students a unique opportunity to connect with a tailored group of potential future employers and explore career options across nonprofit, government, and private sectors.

Washington Sea Grant explores relative sea-level rise to prepare Pacific Coast communities

Washington Sea Grant, a unit in the College of the Environment, works to restore and protect marine environments through addressing important issues, providing better tools for marine management, and supporting strategic partnerships within the marine community. Coastal hazards specialist and resident geologist Ian Miller embodies this approach, and is studying changes in local sea level over time in order to help coastal communities plan for rising seas along their shores.

World's oldest rocks show signs of life on Earth 3.2 billion years ago

3.2 billion year old sedimentary rock samples from Australia contain chemical evidence for nitrogen fixation by microbes.

Recent findings from Earth and Space Sciences‘ Roger Buick, Eva Stüeken, and Matt Koehler, with Bradley Guy from the University of Johannesburg, suggest that life on Earth may have flourished more than a billion years earlier than previously thought. Nitrogen is a building block of amino and nucleic acids, both essential for life on Earth. By studying some of the planet’s oldest rocks, which contain preserved chemical clues and are free of chemical irregularities, the team concluded that life was pulling nitrogen out of the air and converting it into a form that could support larger communities 3.2 billion years ago.

Seasonal cycles of maize, conflict and collaboration, submarine volcanoes, and more: This week's published research

Each week we share the latest peer-reviewed publications coming from the College of the Environment. Over the past week, eighteen new articles co-authored by members of the College of the Environment were added to the Web of Science database, including studies on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the effects of hunting and fragmentation on animals in Bolivia, climate change and land use in Oregon, and much more. Check them out!

UW researchers test Washington's first-ever earthquake detection system

An example of the software available to alert users of expected earthquake shaking.

Earth and Space Sciences’ John Vidale, Paul Bodin, and the University of Washington-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network team, will soon begin testing the region’s first early warning system for incoming earthquakes. Originally developed for use in California, the system will create an automated alert giving people anywhere from a few seconds to more than a minute’s warning before an earthquake’s S waves begin to shake the ground.