Read the latest news about research conducted by investigators in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. Our faculty and students are continually advancing technology, creating solutions and expanding knowledge with new and innovative research.
News
Metal-organic compounds produces new class of glass
Lightning and volcanos both produce glass, and humans have been making glass from silicon dioxide since prehistory. Industrialization brought us boron-based glasses, polymer glasses and metallic glasses, but now an international team of researchers has developed a new family of glass based on metals and organic compounds that stacks up to the original silica in glass-forming ability.
Researchers embark on first-ever slow earthquake drilling mission
This March and April, an international team of researchers will install monitoring equipment inside an active fault zone off the coast of New Zealand, in the Ring of Fire, in the first-ever scientific drilling mission specifically designed to study slow earthquakes.
Spring is springing earlier in polar regions than across the rest of Earth
For every 10 degrees north from the equator you move, spring arrives about four days earlier than it did a decade ago, according to researchers from Penn State, U.C. Davis and the University of Minnesota Duluth. This northward increase in the rate of springtime advance is roughly three times greater than what previous studies indicated.
The fine-tuning of two-dimensional materials
A new understanding of why synthetic 2-D materials often perform orders of magnitude worse than predicted was reached by teams of researchers led by Penn State. They searched for ways to improve these materials' performance in future electronics, photonics, and memory storage applications.
NSF Day events offer resources, strategies for faculty researchers
NSF Day, on Feb. 28 at the Nittany Lion Inn, will feature several events aimed at providing resources and support for faculty interested in strengthening their research grant applications and forwarding their research careers.
Augmented reality app reveals campus monument's history as teaching tool
Augmented reality is reviving the educational focus of the oldest monument on Penn State’s University Park campus. Known as the Obelisk, the nearly 33-foot-tall, 53.4-ton stone structure was originally constructed in 1896 to showcase regional rocks and minerals. Its 281 stones, procured from sites around Pennsylvania and neighboring states, are stacked by geologic time period, from youngest at the top to oldest at the base.
Researchers team up to tackle state’s acid mine drainage problem
As Penn State researchers stood on the banks of Scalp Level Run, an acid mine drainage-polluted stream in Cambria County, a scientific question formed: How is nature removing toxic metals from the drainage at a rate faster than any other tested waters in the state, under pH conditions deemed too low to do so?
Liberal Arts student has research paper accepted by international conferences
Penn State Schreyer Scholar Doran Tucker will present his research on medieval armor at Western Michigan University and University of Leeds this spring and summer.
Fellowship allows meteorology graduate student to advocate for diversity
In the middle of a Category 1 hurricane in Cape Verde, off the coast of Africa, Aara’L Yarber discovered her passion for meteorology. Coming from Los Angeles, California, she had never experienced a hurricane before.
Scalable two-dimensional materials advance future-gen electronics
Since the discovery of the remarkable properties of graphene, scientists have increasingly focused research on the many other two-dimensional materials possible, both those found in nature and those concocted in the lab. However, growing high-quality, crystalline 2-D materials at scale has proven a significant challenge.