Earth Sciences
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Focus
Cosmos Q&A: Caring for Country
Indigenous knowledge is vital to the health of our continent.
Australia is faced with multiple environmental crises. Catastrophic bushfires are becoming more frequent and intense,...
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Research
The not so simple life of barchans
Research uncovers their dynamics and interactions.
Sand dunes aren’t just simple piles of sand, as we’ve noted before in Cosmos. Earlier this year we reported on res...
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Discovery
Mapping the undersea landscape of the reef
Four researchers on a boat, despite the pandemic.
About 160 kilometres off the Queensland coast, the RV Falkor is exploring the deep blue waters of the southern Great ...
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Conversation
From small dry things bushfires grow
It’s vital to understand the flammability of litter beds.
By Jamie Burton, Alexander Filkov and Jane Cawson, University of Melbourne The 2020-21 fire season is well underwa...
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Secret of Australia’s volcanoes revealed
They bubbled rather than exploded, research shows.
Australia used to be quite a hotbed of volcanic activity. The east coast is littered with the remnants of hundreds of...
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Mapping the impact of soil salinity
Researchers track a big problem on a broad scale.
Turns out artificial intelligence can get its hands dirty: UK and German researchers have just used machine learning ...
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Fire and rain and the smoke that lingers
Scientists highlight the impact of huge pyrocumulonimbus clouds.
Wildfire-driven thunderstorms, such as those created in Australia a year ago, produce lingering impacts that may affe...
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How COVID-19 looks from above
Satellites show ‘dramatic’ changes during lockdown.
Scientists studying satellite images of the Earth have identified changes linked to COVID-19 lockdowns that may shed ...
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Can crystals tell us about volcanoes?
Scientists learn more from Kilauea’s debris.
Tiny crystals could provide new insights into past volcanic eruptions and help predict future ones, according to a ne...
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Continents ‘prone to destruction’ in infancy
Geologists model the origin of the cratonic mantle.
Digging deep into the planet’s past, Australian geologists have discovered why no trace remains of the continents for...
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Hawai’i has a hidden reservoir
Freshwater find raises hopes for volcanic islands worldwide
The Hawai’ian island chain has been a tropical holiday destination for decades, renowned for its warm waters, fine su...
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Conversation
We need to promote the right kind of fire
Changing patterns threaten species with extinction.
By Luke Kelly and Katherine Giljohann, University of Melbourne, Annabel Smith, University of Queensland, and Michael ...