PMEL in the News
This Drone Once Fought Wars. Now It’s Fighting Climate Change
THIS MARCH, A truck pulled onto a runway in Oregon, towing a miniature plane for a test flight. At 650 pounds, the plane was too large to be a toy, but too small to fit a pilot. That’s because the ArcticShark isn’t a toy, and it doesn’t need a pilot. It’s a drone.
The Bloop: An Underwater Mystery That Took Nearly 20 Years to Solve
In 1997, while searching for underwater volcanoes off the coast of South America, scientists recorded something they couldn't explain: a strange, exceptionally loud noise. They called it "the bloop." The bloop was one of the loudest underwater sounds ever recorded: hydrophones (underwater microphones) more than three thousand miles apart all captured the same noise.
Island County least sunny locale of lower 48 states
It’s not your imagination, it’s really gloomy around here. In fact, we’re No. 1 in glum. Island County is the least sunniest county in the lower 48, according to a federal study that measures solar radiation — the rays of energy emitted by the sun that hit the earth.
Geophysics society hopes to define sexual harassment as scientific misconduct
A major U.S.-based scientific society is on the verge of expanding its definition of research misconduct to include sexual harassment. The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is making the change to emphasize the serious threat that harassment and other forms of discrimination pose to the scientific enterprise, say society officials.
Listening to Icebergs’ Loud and Mournful Breakup Songs
In March 2000, the iceberg B-15 broke off from the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. It was the largest iceberg ever documented, with a surface area of more than 4,200 square miles—more than twice the size of the state of Delaware. After it started breaking up, the largest of its pieces, B-15a, drifted along the coast of Antarctica, lingered on a shallow seamount, and collided with an ice tongue, before running aground and breaking again.