Earth And Environmental Sciences

Elizabeth Chamberlain, a U.S. National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow in earth and environmental sciences, has been awarded the 2021 Dr. Richard Faas Research Prize by the International Association of Sedimentologists. Read More

Chemical signatures and microscopic wear patterns in dental fossils show that the diet of sabertooth cats included mammoths. Read More

Dental analysis from Larisa DeSantis shows that polar bears may not be able to compete for food sources as their environment melts away. 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

Isotope analysis of ancient Peruvian teeth gives anthropologists a clearer image of how cooperating societies function. Read More

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

Kids and lifelong learners can hear directly from paleontologists about bizarre creatures of the past during a free virtual National Fossil Day event on Saturday, Oct. 10, at 10 a.m. CT. Registration is required. 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

When COVID-19 threw a wrench in their plans for meeting up in person, graduate students in Earth and Environmental Sciences decided to take their weekly hangout online.  Read More

Elizabeth Chamberlain, a U.S. National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow in earth and environmental sciences, has been awarded the 2021 Dr. Richard Faas Research Prize by the International Association of Sedimentologists. The early-career award, conferred every other year, recognizes outstanding work in the field of marine sedimentology and particularly research… Read More

The quokka, a small marsupial native to Australia, is an example of a species vulnerable to extinction in the country’s harsh surroundings. In a new study, researchers at Vanderbilt University demonstrate evidence for the dramatic decline of quokkas over the past century. Read More

Researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Vanderbilt University have identified a new species of thalattosaur, a marine reptile that lived more than 200 million years ago.  Read More

Dan Morgan, faculty head of Memorial House and principal senior lecturer of earth and environmental sciences, leads with optimism. Read More

“They are behaving like animals, and that’s a link between them and what we recognize as animals," says paleontologist Simon A.F. Darroch. Read More

Guilherme Gualda, associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences, has spent much of his career working to find out what causes volcanic super-eruptions. Read More

In the remote mountains far beyond Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, Vanderbilt geologist Dan Morgan and undergraduate Andrew Grant lived in tents for more than a month while they hunted in the glow of an ever-present sun for the oldest ice ever found. Read More

When Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Larisa DeSantis was 9 years old, she had the opportunity to meet with then-President George H.W. Bush in the Oval Office. The interaction with the 41st president would have a profound effect on her life. Read More