VOL. 96 NO. 5 15 MAR 2015 Earth & Space Science News Robotic and Human Lunar Missions Past and Future Increasing Diversity in the Geosciences Do Tiny Mineral Grains Drive Plate Tectonics? Cover Lines Ways To Improve AGU FellowsCover Program Lines Cover Lines Recognize The Exceptional Scientific Contributions And Achievements Of Your Colleagues Union Awards • Prizes • Fellows • Medals Awards Prizes Ambassador Award Climate Communication Prize Edward A. Flinn III Award NEW The Asahiko Taira International Charles S. Falkenberg Award Scientific Ocean Drilling Research Prize Athlestan Spilhaus Award Medals International Award William Bowie Medal Excellence in Geophysical Education Award James B. Macelwane Medal Science for Solutions Award John Adam Fleming Medal Robert C. Cowen Award for Sustained Achievement in Maurice Ewing Medal Science Journalism Robert E. Horton Medal Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence Harry H. Hess Medal in Science Journalism – Features Inge Lehmann Medal David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism – News Roger Revelle Medal Fellows Scientific eminence in the Earth and space sciences through achievements in research, as demonstrated by one or more of the following: breakthrough or discovery; innovation in disciplinary science, cross-disciplinary science, instrument development, or methods development; or sustained scientific impact. Nominations Deadline: 15 March honors.agu.org Earth & Space Science News Contents 15 MARCH 2015 FEATURE VOLUME 96, ISSUE 5 13 Increasing Diversity in the Geosciences Studies show that increasing students’ “sense of belonging” may help retain underrepresented minorities in geoscience fields. A few programs highlight successes. MEETING REPORT Developing Databases 7 of Ancient Sea Level and Ice Sheet Extents RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT 8 COVER 26 How Robotic Probes Helped Humans Survival of Young Sardines Explore the Moon…and May Again Flushed Out to Open Ocean Despite favorable conditions within eddies Robotic probes paved the way for humankind’s giant leap to the Moon. and streamers that form ideal habitats for Now they could help us return and reveal the origins of the solar larval sardines, the young fish may not system. survive when flushed into the open ocean. Earth & Space Science News Eos.org // 1 Contents DEPARTMENTS Editor in Chief Barbara T. Richman: AGU, Washington, D. C., USA; eos_ [email protected] Editors Christina M. S. Cohen: Wendy S. Gordon: Carol A. 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Developing Databases of Ancient Use AGU’s Geophysical Electronic Manuscript Submissions system to submit a Examining clastic sedimentary rock Sea Level and Ice Sheet Extents. manuscript: http://eos-submit.agu.org. with a portable X-ray fluorescence Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect official positions of the 16–21 AGU News analyzer. American Geophysical Union unless expressly stated. Christine W. McEntee, Executive Director/CEO Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill Connects Scientists and Policy Mak- ers; Task Force Recommends Ways On the Cover to Improve AGU Fellows Program; Credit: Quaoar/Shutterstock.com Outstanding Student Paper Awards. facebook.com/AmericanGeophysicalUnion @AGU_Eos linkedin.com/company/american-geophysical-union youtube.com/user/AGUvideos 2 // Eos 15 March 2015 NEWS Tiny Mineral Grains Could Drive Plate Tectonics he idea of plate tectonics—that Earth’s plates smash into each other to form T mountains, slide underneath each other to form ocean trenches, and pull apart to form new oceans and continents—is well known. The underlying mechanism driving these processes, which scientists think may be vital to the evo- lution of life, remains unclear. No one knows for sure how plate tectonics even evolved. At a global scale, individual plates can be easy to see—their borders are defined by where earthquakes occur. Global perspectives have also allowed scientists to precisely map the movement of plates over millennia by tracking magnetic signatures on the bottoms of the oceans. In addition, vast networks of GPS receivers can also track minute movements of plates today. However, investigating the factors that first triggered plate tectonics requires a dif- ferent perspective, said David Bercovici, a geophysicist from Yale University. He Ian Geoffrey Stimpson, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 explained this perspective in a session at the A close-up of mylonite made up of a green form of muscovite mica. Scientists think mylonite plays a key role in initi- 2015 annual conference of the American Asso- ating the tectonic movement of plates. ciation for the Advancement of Science in San Jose, Calif. To fully understand plate tectonics, he said, mechanism that creates the weak spots on Origins of Plate Boundaries “We need to zoom in from the global scale into Earth that we know as active plate boundar- The last piece of the puzzle required a peek the microscale.” ies. back in time—via exhaustive research on sam- “As you deform [mylonite], somehow the ples of 4.4- billion- year- old zircon. This zircon It All Comes Down to Grain Size grains in rocks become so small that it softens likely formed when granites crystallized from At many plate boundaries, scientists find a the rock up, and softened rock supports rapid magma heated by the hot fluids that sweat off metamorphic rock made of deformed, very deformation to allow you to have these plate subduction zones. fine grained minerals called mylonite. The boundaries,” Bercovici said. The age of the zircon falls as much as 1 bil- origin of mylonite is still unknown, Bercovici Scientists remain in the dark about exactly lion years before scientists think plate tecton- said. how mylonite forms at a granular level. How- ics became a global phenomenon. This pres- The grains within mylonite are much smaller ever, decades of collaborative research gave ents a puzzle—how did a mineral likely than the rocks in the plates around them, Bercovici’s team an idea. formed by subduction processes