Recent Headlines

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November 13, 2009 | New York Times
"We got more than just a whiff,” Peter H. Schultz, a professor of geological sciences at Brown University and a co-investigator of the mission, said in a telephone interview. “We practically tasted it with the impact.” Image courtesy NASA.

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November 12 , 2009 | Today at Brown
Brown geologists are braving subfreezing temperatures for three months to visit “the oldest ice on Earth.” Their goal? A better understanding of our planet’s climate history – and current conditions on Mars.

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October 29, 2009 | European Geoscience Union
Jim Head has been awarded the European Geophysical Union's Runcorn-Florensky Medal. The medal citation reads: "This medal has been established by the Division on Planetary and Solar System Sciences in recognition of the scientific achievements of Keith Runcorn and Cyril Florensky. It is reserved for scientists for their exceptional contributions to planetology, defined in its widest sense." Image courtesy EGU.

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October 9, 2009 | Agence France-Presse
A story featuring professor Peter Schultz’s analysis of the LCROSS impact mission was carried worldwide. Image courtesy NASA.

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September 23, 2009 | Brown Press Release
Brown University scientists have made a major discovery: The moon has distinct signatures of water. The discovery came from a paper published in Science detailing findings from the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), a NASA instrument aboard the Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1. Carle Pieters is the principal investigator of the M3 instrument and the lead author of the Science paper.

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September 16, 2009 | Today at Brown
Women in the male-dominated earth sciences often experience isolation and low self-confidence. Now, a Brown-based peer support network is helping them succeed. The network, Assistant Professor Meredith Hastins (pictured left) says, will act as a sounding board for early-career women geoscientists, whom she calls “the voice of a generation.”

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August 31, 2009 | National Geographic
India’s first moon exploration mission was cut short Sunday after the country’s national space agency lost radio contact with Chandrayaan-1, an unmanned spacecraft orbiting the moon. Despite the mission’s premature end, the probe has already yielded a treasure trove of useful data, said Carle Pieters, the principal investigator of the Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3), a NASA instrument on Chandrayaan-1. For more information, please contact Richard Lewis at 401-863-3766. Image: AP

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August, 2009 | New Scientist
Distinctive pedestal craters that look like giant, towering egg cups may yield keen insights into the past accumulation of ice on Mars. The research was led by grad student Seth Kadish. Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

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July, 2009 | Today at Brown
More than 100 scientists gathered at Brown in July for the Mars Exploration Analysis Group, NASA’s advisory body for planning the exploration of Mars. Jack Mustard chaired the group.

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July 23, 2009 | Christian Science Moniter
Jim Head chatted live with The Christian Science Monitor on July 23 about the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and discussed NASA’s space exploration plans. Head helped determine the landing site for Apollo 11.

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July 20, 2009 | Providence Journal
Doctoral candidate, Peter Isaacson, performs research on a collection of moon rocks brought back by the astronauts, including one sample from Apollo 11. Image courtesy of The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson.

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June 15, 2009 | Astronomy Blog
Michael Wyatt attended the June 18 launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, NASA’s first step toward returning humans to the moon. Wyatt’s blogs appeared daily the week of June 15th. Watch video of lift-off. Image courtesy of Mike Wyatt.

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June 12, 2009 | BBC Science in Action
Meredith Hastings has shown that ice cores bored in Greenland yield an indisputable account of how fossil fuel burning has altered the nitrogen cycle. Her work also was covered by Scientific American, The Providence Journal and various environmental web sites. Image courtesy of Meredith Hastings/Julia Jarvis.

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May 23, 2009 | 2009 Geo Commencement Video
View photos from Geology's 2009 Commencement ceremonies. Or better yet, watch a video featuring Geo grads! Video courtesy of Ulyana Horodyskyj; photos courtesy of Ruth Crane and Bill Collins.

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May 16, 2009 | Providence Journal
Professors Schultz and Pieters recall their memories of the first humans to land on the Moon. Image courtesy of Connie Grosch/Providence Journal.

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May 9, 2009 | Providence Journal
Bethany Ehlmann, a Ph.D. candidate, argues against the notion of levying a special tax on students, recently raised by the Providence mayor. “Let’s get creative, Mayor Cicilline. I know we’re an easy target for a $300-a-year tax, but does it really seem right to tax our future chefs, artists, teachers, scientists, engineers, doctors and diplomats as they forgo higher wages to train for careers for the greater good?”

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April 30, 2009 | USGS Press Release
Terry Tullis and David Goldsby were among 84 recipients (including universities, state geological surveys and private firms) to receive five-million dollars in grants and cooperative agreements which will be awarded in 2009 for earthquake research.

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April 6, 2009 | Today at Brown
Brown geologists search for climate clues deep in the Pacific Ocean: A team led by Tim Herbert recently roamed the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean in search of data that can illuminate climate changes over hundreds of thousands of years. Also on the cruise, grad students Rocio Caballero, Caitlin Chazen and Jeffrey Salacup. Click here for "Part Two". Knorr Image courtesy of Caitlin Chazen

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March 5, 2009 | Christian Science Monitor
NASA is scouting locations for its plan to return humans to the moon by 2020, but its search is in part guided by needing to survive the long, frigid lunar nights, explains Jim Head. McMurdo photo courtesy of NASA

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March 4, 2009 | Brown Press Release & BBC
Graduate student Samuel Schon is lead author of a new study that suggests melt water from nearby snow and ice deposits may have carved a Martian gully system.

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March 2, 2009 | National Geographic
Scientists, including Peter Schultz, are trying to understand “transient lunar phenomena,” mysterious flashes or disturbances on the moon’s surface which they have observed telescopically. Schultz and colleagues have received funding to set up telescopes which will photograph the moon every 20 seconds in an attempt to record the disturbances. Photo: Arlin Crotts

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February 2, 2009 | The Hindu
The moon is clearly the stepping stone for the future of the human species beyond the Earth, according to Carle Pieters, the principal investigator of a mineral mapping instrument on board the Indian orbiter Chandrayaan-1. Image courtesy of The Hindu

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January 28, 2009 | BBC Radio
Alberto Saal's interview on lunar rock water is broadcast on the program "Discovery" on BBC World Service. This program also includes Pete Schultz talking about the South Pole Aitken impact basin. Images l-r: A. Saal and P. Schultz

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January 21, 2009 | Brown Press Release
NASA has chosen Brown’s Department of Geological Sciences to be part of the agency’s Lunar Science Institute, whose mission is to prepare humans and robots to return to the moon in the coming decade. Images l-r: M. Wyatt and C. Pieters

January 21, 2009 | Softpedia
On Earth, such buried glacial ice in Antarctica preserves the record of traces of ancient organisms and past climate history,” Jim Head concludes. Image courtesy of NASA

January 16 , 2009 | Associated Press
Jack Mustard comments on a discovery of methane plumes detected on Mars that scientists think had biological or geological origins. TIME Magazine, CBS News and The New York Times also carried the story. AP Photo/NASA, Trent Schindler

January 7, 2009 | MIT News
Geology alumna and MIT Professor Maria Zuber (PhD '86), urges Congress to fund science research and education. Image courtesy of C-SPAN2.

December 18, 2008 | Brown Press Release
Life on Mars? Bethany Ehlmann, a Brown doctoral candidate and lead author of a Science article, unveils evidence that improves the odds. Image courtesy of John Abromowski

November 17, 2008 | Providence Journal
Carle Pieters is the principal investigator for the Moon Mineralogy Mapper – also known as M3 and pronounced “M-cubed” – which she helped design in conjunction with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. It will look at sunlight bouncing off the lunar surface in hopes of finding evidence for ice. Image courtesy of John Abromowski

November 11, 2008 | NPR
NASA has lost contact with the Mars Phoenix probe, and officials say the mission is over. Phoenix landed in the northern polar region of Mars last May. Mission managers knew this day was coming. Listen to Jack Mustard's comments on this NPR interview (click the "Listen Now" button at link). Image courtesy of Associated Press

November 8, 2008 | National Geographic.com
Carle Pieters says that orbital images show volcanism on the far side of the moon lasted until about 2.5 billion years ago – longer than scientists had known. The finding, Pieters says, means that the thermal history of the moon is more complex than scientists originally thought. Image courtesy of Science/AAAS

October 23, 2008 | New Scientist
New images of a crater in the moon’s south pole reveal dull lunar soil and not the reflective surfaces that would indicate the presence of water. Carle Pieters says the new images offer useful lunar information and contribute to the understanding of whether a human space station on the moon is feasible. Image: Shackleton Crater; credit to J. Haruyama et al./JAXA/Science

October 20, 2008 | New Delhi Television
Carle Pieters speaks about her role with Chandrayaan-1, the successful launch of India’s first spacecraft to the moon. Watch New Delhi TV video interview (scroll down and select "Dr. Carle Pieters on Moon's Geology".)

October 20, 2008 | News @ Brown
Carle Pieters is helping India on its first-ever trip to the moon, a mission that may yield some of the most detailed and comprehensive lunar surface images to date. Image: Carle Pieters, left, and Robert Green of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory donned protective suits while showing off their state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer before its lunar voyage; courtesy of NASA.

October 14, 2008 | Providence Journal
Early this month, James Head treated a class of Brown University freshmen to an encounter with a piece of the “Genesis Rock,” a 4.2-billion-year-old chunk of the moon that he had a role in scavenging just over 37 years ago... Image courtesy of the Providence Journal.

October 8, 2008 | ABC News
NASA’s flagship Mars mission is under scrutiny due to cost overruns, which currently exceed projections by 30 percent. John Mustard, says the magnitude of overages was a surprise to many associated with the program. Image courtesy of: NASA

October 7, 2008 | Brown Daily Herald
At around 2 a.m. this morning, NASA scientists and a team from Brown University were the first to see images of Mercury sent back from the Messenger spacecraft. Image courtesy of: Nasagov

Discovering that ice exists in the atmosphere and in the soil of Mars is critically important to understanding the nature of water ice in the planet’s past history, says James Head. Head is coinvestigator on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission and not involved with Phoenix.Image courtesy of NASA, JPL-Caltech, Univ. of Arizona, Univ. of Neuchatel, Imperial College London

September 18, 2008 | Today at Brown
At a Mars landing site selection workshop in California, scientists seeking evidence of past life on the red planet promoted seven potential sites for exploration. Jack Mustard and his team made a strong case for the Nili Trough's mineral riches. Image courtesy of JPL/NASA