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Post Energy Geosciences Division GC-Sustainable Earth Research Highlight Resilient Energy

EESA Experts Participate in First High-Resolution Field Measurements of Induced Seismicity and Fault Slip

March 13, 2019

Induced seismicity refers to typically minor earthquakes and tremors triggered by human activity, deliberate or not. Rarely are humans aware of these mostly low-magnitude events occurring deep underground. However, some regions have over the past decade shown quite significant earthquakes such as a few larger than magnitude 5 events in Oklahoma, which have been linked to wastewater injection…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division GC-Microbial Engines Research Highlight

Common beetle’s gut microbiome benefits forests, holds promise for bioenergy

March 11, 2019

Insects are critical contributors to ecosystem functioning, and like most living organisms their co-evolution with microbes has been essential to support these functions. While many insects are infamous for wreaking havoc wherever they roam, many thousands of species go quietly about their business, providing important services essential to healthy ecosystems using the innovative biochemistry of…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Energy Geosciences Division

Susan Hubbard Honored by Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame

February 20, 2019

  Susan Hubbard, Associate Laboratory Director for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area, will be inducted into the Alameda County Women’s Hall of Fame, at an annual awards ceremony on March 30. Hubbard is being honored for her scientific contributions to key environmental challenges of our time, including the use of geophysical methods to quantify…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Research Highlight

Towards Better Ecosystem Photosynthesis and Respiration Estimates

February 14, 2019

Eddy covariance tower near Barrow AK. Cr R. Kaltschmidt. Copyright Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

Land surfaces across the globe absorb about a third of greenhouse gas emissions every year, due to the difference between two key processes: ecosystem photosynthesis and respiration. Despite their significance, it’s impossible to measure these two processes at the ecosystem scale during the daytime. Scientists have relied since the 1980s on a technique known as…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division Energy Geosciences Division GC-Resilient Systems Geochemistry Department Research Highlight

Dark Fiber Lays Groundwork for Long-Distance Earthquake Detection and Groundwater Mapping

February 6, 2019

In traditional seismology, researchers studying how the earth moves in the moments before, during, and after an earthquake rely on sensors that cost tens of thousands of dollars to make and install underground. And because of the expense and labor involved, only a few seismic sensors have been installed throughout remote areas of California, making…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

Research scientist Michelle Newcomer Talks About Wildfire’s Effects on Water Quality at AGU

December 12, 2018

Before the Camp Fire this fall, the October 2017 Northern California Wildfires were the deadliest in California history. Last year’s fires burned 110,000 acres in Sonoma and Napa counties–and 8 percent of the Russian River watershed. This week  in Washington, D.C. at  the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, research scientist Michelle Newcomer has…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

Berkeley Lab computer simulations find climate change making hurricanes more intense

December 12, 2018

  New supercomputer simulations by climate scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that climate change intensified the amount of rainfall in recent hurricanes such as Katrina, Irma, and Maria by 5 to 10 percent. They further found that if those hurricanes were to occur in a future…

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Post Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division

Sierra Snowpack Could Drop Significantly By End of Century

December 11, 2018

A future warmer world will almost certainly feature a decline in fresh water from the Sierra Nevada mountain snowpack. Now a new study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) that analyzed the headwater regions of California’s 10 major reservoirs, representing nearly half of the state’s surface storage, found they could…

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