Earth And Environmental Science

Vanderbilt environmental scientists show that patterns found in fossil records of ancient ecosystems may be the key to combating today’s biodiversity crisis and making informed conservation decisions. Read More

Vanderbilt paleoclimatologists deploy first calcium isotope analysis of North American stalagmite to show how past weather extremes may predict events in California. Read More

Interdisciplinary Earth scientists explore how little-understood underwater volcanoes affect the atmosphere. Read More

Comparing risk of shipping along the Arctic and the Suez Canal through 2100 scientists weigh factors including climate change in their calculations. Read More

Paleoclimatologist Jessica Oster uses geological clues from stalagmites to explore implications for future climate change. Read More

International collaboration shows that marsupial saber-tooth cats were more closely related to possums than fearsome predators. Read More

Paleontologist and associate professor of biological sciences Larisa DeSantis finds answers about early hominin diets are with an unrelated group of mammals—tapirs. Read More

As part of its continuing commitment to understanding and combating climate change issues through education and action, Vanderbilt University is now an accredited, official observer of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change. Read More

The team, one of the first in the world to examine the ability’s origins, used a small CT scanner to look inside a 30-million-year-old ear bone fossil from a specimen resembling Olympicetus avitus. Read More

What is more daring—camping in a remote part of Antarctica for a month doing field research, or directing and performing in a musical revue about the environment? For Earth and Environmental Sciences major Andrew Grant, pushing boundaries to positively impact the Earth, and the people who call it home, are equally thrilling. Read More

The extinction of one of Australia’s top predators, the marsupial lion, was likely a result of changing weather patterns and loss of habitat rather than human impacts, a study led by Vanderbilt University paleontologist Larisa DeSantis has found. Read More

After studying layers of pumice, measuring the amount of crystals in the samples and using thermodynamic models, the team determined magma moved closer to the surface with each successive eruption. Read More

Paleontologist Larisa DeSantis' latest research confirms that the shape of tooth wear best indicates the kind of food koalas and kangaroos ate, not whether it was covered in dust and dirt. Read More

Vanderbilt environmental researchers developed an index of city water policies and gathered data on the climate, water sources, population, economy and political leanings. Read More

A prehistoric community in the Mississippi Delta may have abandoned a large ceremonial site after the bayou it sits on began to dry up. Read More

Before the Industrial Age, the Mississippi Delta grew at a rate of two to three square miles per year, suggesting that, even with current reclamation efforts, it is unlikely that it will be possible to offset the current rate of loss--15 to 20 square miles per year Read More

Vanderbilt geologist Dan Morgan and undergraduate Andrew Grant took immersion to an extreme, trekking all the way to Antarctica to hunt for the oldest ice ever found. Read More

A dozen Vanderbilt students went on a monthlong science adventure of a lifetime, studying super-eruptions, glaciers and earthquakes in New Zealand. Read More

Two Vanderbilt experts say evidence shows that progress can continue to be made on environmental issues regardless of what the government is doing. Read More