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Categories: Geoscience: Earthquakes, Geoscience: Geology

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Volcanic eruptions are dangerous and difficult to predict. A team has found that the ratio of atoms in specific gases released from volcanic fumaroles (gaps in the Earth's surface) can provide an indicator of what is happening to the magma deep below -- similar to taking a blood test to check your health. This can indicate when things might be 'heating up.' Specifically, changes in the ratio of argon-40 and helium-3 can indicate how frothy the magma is, which signals the risk of different types of eruption. Understanding which ratios of which gases indicate a certain type of magma activity is a big step. Next, the team hopes to develop portable equipment which can provide on-site, real-time measurements for a 24/7 volcanic activity monitoring and early warning system.

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A new study confirms that the planet harbors a 'stabilizing feedback' mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to keep global temperatures within a steady, habitable range.

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Carbon dioxide in the deep Earth may be more active than previously thought and may have played a bigger role in climate change than scientists knew before, according to a new study.

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Researchers are using dust trapped in glacier ice in Tibet to document past changes in Earth's intricate climate system -- and maybe one day help predict future changes.

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On March 11, 2011, multiple catastrophes in Japan were triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake, including the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This event, also known as the 3/11 disaster, is what is known as a compound disaster. Now that over a decade has passed since this event, researchers are investigating how to prevent the next compound disaster.

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A study has found evidence that the evolution of tree roots over 300 million years ago triggered mass extinction events through the same chemical processes created by pollution in modern oceans and lakes.

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The earliest morphological traces of life on Earth are often highly controversial, both because non-biological processes can produce relatively similar structures and because such fossils have often been subjected to advanced alteration and metamorphism. Stromatolites, layered organo-sedimentary structures reflecting complex interplays between microbial communities and their environment, have long been considered key macrofossils for life detection in ancient sedimentary rocks; however, the biological origin of ancient stromatolites has frequently been criticized.

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Subduction zones, where one tectonic plate slides beneath another, produce the most devastating seismic, volcanic, and landslide hazards on the planet. A new report presents an ambitious plan to make major advances in understanding subduction zone hazards by bringing together a diverse community of scientists in a long-term collaborative effort, deploying new instrumentation in subduction zones, and developing more sophisticated and accurate models.

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Groundwater is considered both an environmental and industrial resource, but a new study indicates it is also an important resource in disaster prevention. Researchers conducted research surveys of 91 well owners and 328 welfare facilities affected by the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake. The surveys clarified groundwater use following the earthquake and policy issues that could make the use of emergency wells more effective in the wake of future disasters. The surveys' findings provide useful data for city governments that have installed or are considering installing emergency wells.

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About 14% of magnitude 6.7 or greater strike-slip earthquakes since 2000 have been supershear. That's 50% more than previously thought. Supershear earthquakes occur when a fault ruptures faster than seismic shear waves can travel through rock. The events were thought to be rare because scientists had mostly looked for them on land. The findings suggest that disaster planning assessments should include whether a fault is able to produce supershear quakes, which are potentially more destructive than other types.

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One natural disaster can knock out electric service to millions. A new study suggests that back-to-back disasters could cause catastrophic damage, but the research also identifies new ways to monitor and maintain power grids.

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Magma beneath long-dormant Mount Edgecumbe volcano in Southeast Alaska has been moving upward through Earth's crust, according to research the Alaska Volcano Observatory rapidly produced using a new method.

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Rapidly evolving floods are a major and growing hazard worldwide. Currently, their onset and evolution is hard to identify using existing systems. However, seismic sensors already in place to detect earthquakes could be a solution to this problem. Researchers show that a seismometer can sense a flood, such as the devastating one that hit Germany in July 2021, up to 1.5 km away. This could act as an early warning to save lives and lessen damage. They also found that being able to measure the 'seismic footprint' of the flood provides information on its magnitude, velocity and trajectory in real time, which could be used for future flood protection.

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A new large-scale analysis of hillslope connectivity at the continental scale was recently published. The study gives new understanding of mechanisms that determine how effectively hillslopes drive floods and landslides, as well as promote the presence of wetlands.

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An artificial-intelligence approach borrowed from natural-language processing -- much like language translation and autofill for text on your smart phone -- can predict future fault friction and the next failure time with high resolution in laboratory earthquakes. The technique, applying AI to the fault's acoustic signals, advances previous work and goes beyond by predicting aspects of the future state of the fault's physical system.

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Some 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for weeks to months after the collision. The amount of energy released in this 'mega-earthquake' is estimated at 10 to the exponent 23 joules, which is about 50,000 times more energy than was released in the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004.

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Trapped inside the shoreline of a bay, the resonant interactions of a tsunami with regular waves can prolong the tsunami disturbance. For the 2021 magnitude 7 Acapulco, Mexico earthquake and tsunami, edge waves in the bay and the short continental shelf also had a surprisingly significant effect on the tsunami's duration, according to a new study.

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Scientists who drilled deeper into an undersea earthquake fault than ever before have found that the tectonic stress in Japan's Nankai subduction zone is less than expected.  The findings are a puzzle but will help scientists home in on the link between tectonic forces and the earthquake cycle and potentially lead to better earthquake forecasts, both at Nankai and other megathrust faults such as Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest. The drilling reached over two miles into the Nankai subduction zone and was conducted in 2018 with the IODP scientific drilling vessel Chikyu.

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It isn't every day that we learn something that fundamentally changes how we understand our world. But for volcanologists across the globe, such a revelation has occurred.

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Scientists discover that a potential 'diamond factory' may have existed at Earth's core-mantle boundary for billions of years.