Earth & Planetary Science Stories
Illustration of lab-mimicry of exoplanet interiors by Carnegie's Katherine Cain/
Can super-Earth interior dynamics set the table for habitability?
Washington, DC— New research led by Carnegie’s Yingwei Fei provides a framework for understanding the interiors of super-Earths—rocky exoplanets between 1.5 and 2 times the size of...
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Rough diamond photograph purchased from iStock
Scientists and philosopher team up, propose a new way to categorize minerals
Washington, DC— A diamond lasts forever, but that doesn’t mean all diamonds have a common history.  Some diamonds were formed billions of years ago in space as the carbon-rich...
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Islands of Four Mountains, Alaska. USGS Photo by John Lyons.
Alaska’s Islands of the Four Mountains could be single giant volcano
Washington, DC— A small group of volcanic islands in Alaska's Aleutian chain could actually be part of a single, previously unrecognized giant volcano in the same category as Yellowstone,...
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Richard Carlson, Director Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory
AAAS and Carnegie Institution for Science announce 2020 fellows
Washington, DC— Richard Carlson, Director of Carnegie’s Earth and Planets Laboratory, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was selected...
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Saturn image is courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
Where were Jupiter and Saturn born?
Washington, DC—New work led by Carnegie’s Matt Clement reveals the likely original locations of Saturn and Jupiter. These findings refine our understanding of the forces that determined...
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GW Orionis Credit: ESO/Exeter/Kraus et al., ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
Peculiar planetary system architecture around three Orion stars explained
Washington, DC— The discovery that our galaxy is teeming with exoplanets has also revealed the vast diversity of planetary systems out there and raised questions about the processes that shaped...
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Earth's layers courtesy of Shutterstock
Probing the origin of the mantle’s chemically distinct “scars”
Washington, DC— The composition of Earth’s mantle was more shaped by interactions with the oceanic crust than previously thought, according to work from Carnegie’s Jonathan Tucker...
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Quartz crystals courtesy of Shutterstock.
Meteorite strikes may create unexpected form of silica
Washington, DC— When a meteorite hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes to Earth, how does its violent impact alter the minerals found at the landing site? What can the short-lived chemical...
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Marilyn Fogel Endowed Fund for Internships
Established in June of 2016 with a generous gift of $50,000 from Marilyn Fogel and Christopher Swarth, the Marilyn Fogel Endowed Fund for Internships will provide support for “very young budding scientists” who wish to “spend a summer getting their feet wet in research for the...
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Carnegie Science Venture Grants
CALL FOR PROPOSALS Following Andrew Carnegie’s founding encouragement of liberal discovery-driven research, the Carnegie Institution for Science offers its scientists a new resource for pursuing bold ideas. Carnegie Science Venture grants are internal awards of up to $100,000 that are...
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Kepler: A Search for Habitable Planets
Carnegie scientists participate in NASA's Kepler missions, the first mission capable of finding Earth-size planets around other stars. The centuries-old quest for other worlds like our Earth has been rejuvenated by the intense excitement and popular interest surrounding the discovery of...
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Meet Carnegie Scientists
Richard Carlson - Director
Geochemist and director of Terrestrial Magnetism, now known as the Earth and Planets Laboratory, Richard Carlson, looks at the diversity of the chemistry of the early solar nebula and the incorporation of that chemistry into the terrestrial planets. He is also interested in questions related to the...
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Conel Alexander
Some 40 thousand tons of extraterrestrial material fall on Earth every year. This cosmic debris provides cosmochemist Conel Alexander with information about the formation of the Solar System, our galaxy, and perhaps the origin of life. Alexander studies meteorites to determine what went on before...
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Lara Wagner
Seismic waves flow through Earth’s solid and liquid material differently, allowing Earth scientists to determine various aspects of the composition of the Earth’s interior. Broadband seismology looks at a broad spectrum of waves for high-resolution imaging. Lara Wagner collects this...
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Carnegie’s Larry Nittler New Deputy for MESSENGER Mission
Washington, D.C. Carnegie’s Larry Nittler of Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism has been appointed deputy principal investigator of the MESSENGER mission to Mercury. Principal...
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Washington Post: Is there a Planet X, a ‘massive perturber,’ hidden beyond Pluto?
“I think there are definitely things out there bigger than Pluto that are yet to be discovered,” Scott Sheppard talks to The Washington Post about the possibility of an undiscovered outer...
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Carnegie Science Earth and Planets Director Richard Carlson receives Geochemical Society’s highest honor
Richard Carlson, director of Carnegie Science’s Earth and Planets division, has been chosen to receive the Geochemical Society’s highest honor, the Victor Moritz Goldschmidt Award, in...
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Carnegie mineralogist Robert Hazen
Carnegie’s Hazen honored for lifetime achievement in mineralogy
May 28, 2021

Washington, DC—Carnegie Mineralogist Robert Hazen—who advanced the concept that Earth’s geology was shaped by the rise and sustenance of life—will be honored with the 2022 International Mineralogical Association’s Medal for Excellence. The prize recognizes “outstanding scientific publication in the field of mineralogical sciences.”

The medal was created to honor a lifetime of achievement in and outstanding contributions to the fields of mineralogy, geochemistry, petrology, crystallography, and applied mineralogy.  Hazen will be its 11th recipient.

A Staff Scientist at Carnegie’s Earth and Planets Laboratory, Hazen

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Photo of inclusions in a super-deep diamond by Evan Smith/© 2021 GIA
What causes the deep Earth’s most mysterious earthquakes?
May 26, 2021

Washington, DC— The cause of Earth’s deepest earthquakes has been a mystery to science for more than a century, but a team of Carnegie scientists may have cracked the case.

New research published in AGU Advances provides evidence that fluids play a key role in deep-focus earthquakes—which occur between 300 and 700 kilometers below the planet’s surface. The research team includes Carnegie scientists Steven Shirey, Lara Wagner, Peter van Keken, and Michael Walter, as well as the University of Alberta’s Graham Pearson.

Most earthquakes occur close to the Earth’s surface, down to about 70 kilometers.  They happen when stress builds up at

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A violent stellar flare erupting on Proxima Centauri. Credit: NRAO/S. Dagnello.
Record-breaking flare from Sun’s nearest neighbor
April 21, 2021

Washington, DC— A team of astronomers including Carnegie’s Alycia Weinberger and former-Carnegie postdoc Meredith MacGregor, now an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, spotted an extreme outburst, or flare, from the Sun’s nearest neighbor—the star Proxima Centauri.

Their work, which could help guide the search for life beyond our Solar System, is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Proxima Centauri is a “red dwarf” with about one-eighth the mass of our Sun, which sits just four light-years, or almost 25 trillion miles, from the center of our Solar System and hosts at least two planets, one of which may

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Lava deposits in Leilani Estates (Credit: B. Shiro, USGS)
Early indicators of magma viscosity could help forecast a volcano’s eruption style
April 7, 2021

Washington, DC— The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano in Hawai‘i provided scientists with an unprecedented opportunity to identify new factors that could help forecast the hazard potential of future eruptions.

The properties of the magma inside a volcano affect how an eruption will play out. In particular, the viscosity of this molten rock is a major factor in influencing how hazardous an eruption could be for nearby communities.

Very viscous magmas are linked with more powerful explosions because they can block gas from escaping through vents, allowing pressure to build up inside the volcano’s plumbing system. On the other hand, extrusion of more viscous

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High Lava Plains Volcanism

Starting in 2005, the High Lava Plains project is focused on a better understanding of why the Pacific Northwest, specifically eastern Oregon's High Lava Plains, is so volcanically active. This region is the most volcanically active area of the continental United States and it's relatively young. None of the accepted paradigms explain why the magmatic and tectonic activity extend so far east of the North American plate margin. By applying numerous techniques ranging from geochemistry and petrology to active and passive seismic imaging to geodynamic modeling, the researchers examine an assemblage of new data that will provide key information about the roles of lithosphere

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Astrobiology

Carnegie was once part of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI).Carnegie Science at Broad Branch Road was one of the  founding members of the 1998 teams who partnered with NASA, and remained a member through several Cooperative Agreement Notices (CANS):  CAN 1  from 1998 - 2003, CAN 3 from 2003 - 2008, and CAN 5 from 2009 - 2015. The Carnegie team focused on life’s chemical and physical evolution, from the interstellar medium, through planetary systems, to the emergence and detection of life by studying extrasolar planets, Solar System formation, organic rich primitive planetary bodies, prebiotic molecular synthesis through catalyzing with

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Working Group on Extrasolar Planets (WGESP)

The WGESP was charged with acting as a focal point for research on extrasolar planets and organizing IAU activities in the field, including reviewing techniques and maintaining a list of identified planets. The WGESP developed a Working List of extrasolar planet candidates, subject to revision. In most cases, the orbital inclination of these objects is not yet determined, which is why most should still be considered candidate planets. The WGESP ended its six years of existence in August 2006, with the decision of the IAU to create a new commission dedicated to extrasolar planets as a part of Division III of the IAU. The founding president of Commission 53 is Michael Mayor, in honor of

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Carnegie Science Venture Grants

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Following Andrew Carnegie’s founding encouragement of liberal discovery-driven research, the Carnegie Institution for Science offers its scientists a new resource for pursuing bold ideas.

Carnegie Science Venture grants are internal awards of up to $100,000 that are intended to foster entirely new directions of research by teams of scientists that ignore departmental boundaries. Up to six adventurous investigations may be funded each year. The period of the award is two

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Hélène Le Mével

Hélène Le Mével studies volcanoes. Her research focuses on understanding the surface signals that ground deformations make to infer the ongoing process of the moving magma  in the underlying reservoir. Toward this end she uses space and field-based geodesy--the mathematics of the area and shape of the Earth--to identify, model and interpret this ground deformation.

She uses data from radar called Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), and data from the Global Positioning System (GPS) to characterize ground motion during volcanic unrest. She also collects gravity data, which indicate changes in mass and/or density underground. These data sets,

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Peter van Keken

Peter van Keken studies the thermal and chemical evolution of the Earth. In particularly he looks at the causes and consequences of plate tectonics; element modeling of mantle convection,  and the dynamics of subduction zones--locations where one tectonic plate slides under another. He also studies mantle plumes; the integration of geodynamics with seismology; geochemistry and mineral physics. He uses parallel computing and scientific visualization in this work.

He received his BS and Ph D from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands. Prior to joining Carnegie he was on the faculty of the University of Michigan.
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Alan Boss

Alan Boss is a theorist and an observational astronomer. His theoretical work focuses on the formation of binary and multiple stars, triggered collapse of the presolar cloud that eventually made  the Solar System, mixing and transport processes in protoplanetary disks, and the formation of gas giant and ice giant protoplanets. His observational works centers on the Carnegie Astrometric Planet Search project, which has been underway for the last decade at Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.

While fragmentation is universally recognized as the dominant formation mechanism for binary and multiple stars, there are still major questions. The most important of these

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Alan Linde - Emeritus

Alan Linde is trying to understand the tectonic activity that is associated with earthquakes and volcanos, with the hope of helping predictions methods.  He uses highly sensitive data that measures how the Earth is changing below the surface with devises called borehole strainmeters that measure tiny strains the Earth undergoes.

Strainmeter data has led to the discovery of events referred to as slow earthquakes that are similar to regular earthquakes except that the fault motions take place over much longer time scales. These were first detected in south-east Japan and have since been seen in a number of different environments including the San Andreas Fault in California and

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