Alexandra Witze

Contributing Correspondent

Alexandra Witze is a contributing correspondent based in Boulder, Colorado. Among other exotic locales, her reporting has taken her to Maya ruins in the jungles of Guatemala, among rotting corpses at the University of Tennessee's legendary "Body Farm," and to a floating sea-ice camp at the North Pole. She has a bachelor's degree in geology from MIT and a graduate certification in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Among her honors are the Science-in-Society award from the National Association of Science Writers (shared with Tom Siegfried), and the American Geophysical Union's award for feature journalism. She coauthored the book Island on Fire, about the 18th-century eruption of the Icelandic volcano Laki.

All Stories by Alexandra Witze

  1. Earth

    Antarctica’s concealed mountains tell of wonders revealed by pure science

  2. Earth

    Weather affects timing of some natural hazards

    Seasonal patterns in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions can be linked to rain and snow in certain locations.

  3. Earth

    Oxygen a bit player in Earth’s outer core

    Sulfur and silicon may be more abundant in the planet’s heart than thought.

  4. Space Eats

    Astronaut journey to Mars requires new age nibbles.

  5. Paleontology

    Tooth stranger than fiction

    A mammal fossil unearthed in South America resembles ‘Ice Age’ saber-toothed squirrel.

  6. Climate’s effect on extreme weather is no game of chance

    Climate change is supposed to be about climate, you’d think — not weather. After all, climate is what you expect in the long term, like how bad the average winter will be; weather is what you get day to day, like whether there will be frost on Halloween night. Predicting even next week’s weather often seems like […]

  7. Like a Bolt from Above

    Lightning scientists begin to solve electric mysteries.

  8. Life

    Tracking diseases from anthrax to cholera

    Whole-genome sequencing points to microbial killers.

  9. Earth

    Trees have a tipping point

    Satellite data confirm that the amount of forest cover can shift suddenly in response to relatively small changes in fire frequency and rainfall.

  10. Earth

    Solar changes help create cold northern winters

    Fluctuations in ultraviolet light can set up frigid, snowy conditions across parts of the Northern Hemisphere.

  11. Earth

    Pole flips tied to plate tectonics

    A lopsided arrangement of continents could lead to reversals in Earth's magnetic field.

  12. Earth

    Pacific volcanoes share split personality

    The dual chemistry of island chains reflects variations in the distribution of ancient material bubbling up from deep within the Earth.