Southern California is having a great wildflower year but is it really a superbloom? "The term ‘superbloom’ is a media construct with no botanical or ecological origin,” said Cameron Barrows, an associate research ecologist at UC Riverside’s Center for Conservation Biology. Richard Minnich, a professor of earth sciences at UC Riverside, and author of the...

"On Saturday, April 11, 2015, aspiring and professional scientists gathered at the University of California, Riverside to share research and interest in the integrative field of geobiology. The 12th Annual Southern California Geobiology Symposium, organized for and by graduate students, displayed current work within geology, geochemistry, biology, astrobiology, microbiology, oceanography, paleobiology, paleoecology and environmental sciences."...

"The Summit fire burned more than 3,000 acres of vegetation near Banning, Calif., in early May this year, giving Southern California’s fire season an early start. What lies in store for the rest of the fire season this year? Richard Minnich, a professor of Earth sciences and a noted fire ecologist at the University of...

"Geologists drilling an exploratory geothermal well in 2009 in the Krafla volcano in Iceland encountered a problem they were simply unprepared for: magma (molten rock or lava underground) which flowed unexpectedly into the well at 2.1 kilometers (6,900 ft) depth, forcing the researchers to terminate the drilling. “To the best of our knowledge, only one...