earth and environmental sciences
A VU Inside: Professor explores caves for clues to climate change
Sep. 1, 2015—VIDEO» For Vanderbilt Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Jessica Oster, getting data means getting dirty. Oster and her team are collecting mineral deposits deep inside caves to find clues to climate change.
Enroll now in Vanderbilt Osher Lifelong Learning fall classes
Sep. 1, 2015—The Osher Lifelong Learning classes at Vanderbilt this fall draw from professors' research in areas that include earth science, Hebrew Bible, music history, urban planning and more.
Eight Vanderbilt researchers named ‘Inspiring Women in STEM’
Aug. 17, 2015—The award honors highly accomplished women working in science, technology, engineering or mathematics who have made a positive impact on the trajectories of other women thinking about or newly embarking on STEM careers.
Deciphering clues to prehistoric climate changes locked in cave deposits
May. 22, 2015—Jessica Oster and her colleagues have shown that the analysis of a stalagmite from a cave in north east India can detect the link between El Nino conditions in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian monsoon.
Vanderbilt University honors 28 as emeriti faculty
May. 8, 2015—Twenty-eight retiring faculty members were recognized during Vanderbilt’s Commencement ceremony May 8, when the university honored their years of service and bestowed on them the title of emeritus or emerita faculty.
Evolutionary history of whales, dolphins and sea turtles
Apr. 17, 2015—The evolutionary history of whales, sea turtles and other land animals that have returned to the sea details the radical changes to their life style, body shape, physiology that they made to survive in an aquatic environment.
This Easter weekend, hunt for fossils, not colored eggs
Mar. 24, 2015—Vanderbilt students will give visitors a glimpse of Tennessee’s ancient past April 4 by guiding fossil hunts, identifying fossils and giving presentations and guided tours.
Time when climate was topsy-turvy in Western U.S. aids climate prediction efforts
Feb. 23, 2015—Researchers have reconstructed the climate in the Western United States 21,000 years ago and are using the data to improve climate models that forecast future precipitation patterns.
Flood control efforts in Bangladesh exacerbate flooding, threaten millions
Jan. 5, 2015—A low-lying island in Southwest Bangladesh provides a dramatic foretaste of the impact facing 10 percent of the world's population in terms of global sea level rise due to unforeseen consequences of last century's flood control efforts, according to a new Vanderbilt interdisciplinary study.
The most popular research news stories of 2014
Dec. 26, 2014—Electricity, learning, marijuana, outer space and planet Earth were the hot topics of 2014.
Early Earth Less Hostile than Previously Thought
Dec. 23, 2014—Conditions on Earth for the first 500 million years after it formed may have been surprisingly similar to the present day, complete with oceans, continents and active crustal plates.
VU paleontologist appears on Nat Geo Wild’s ‘Future Cat’ Nov. 30
Nov. 28, 2014—Larisa DeSantis, assistant professor of Earth and environmental sciences, is a featured expert on Nat Geo Wild’s Future Cat, part of the network’s Big Cat week.