Researchers reverse engineer river landscapes on Earth and beyond

The Rock River running through Rockford, Illinois next to a 3D rendering of Titan.
Taking apart a watch and reassembling it is one thing. Rebuilding an entire river landscape from scratch is another.A collaboration among researchers across the United States and China is offering scientists a new way to understand how river landscapes form — not only on Earth, but also on worlds...

Team tracks vegetation recovery from sudden permafrost collapse

Mark Lara and Zhuoxuan Xia standing in front of a digital display.
Some Arctic regions regain their “greenness” within a decade of a sudden permafrost collapse, while others can take a century or more to recover, researchers report in a new study. The difference is directly related to each site’s gross primary productivity, a measure of its photosynthetic capacity...

Meet Sarah Austin: New lecturer in Earth Science and Environmental Change

Sarah Austin. A woman sitting on rocks by the sea.
Sarah Austin didn’t set out to become a geologist. In fact, she jokes that she “messed up” when she first enrolled at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, mistakenly thinking the College of Education and Human Development was the right path to medical school. But one introductory geology course...
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