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Categories: Geoscience: Geology, Offbeat: Space

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Volcanic disasters have been studied since Pompeii was buried in 79 A.D., leading the public to believe that scientists already know why, where, when and how long volcanoes will erupt. But a volcanologist said these fundamental questions remain a mystery.

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An international team has, for the first time, accurately determined the age of the East Anatolian fault, allowing geologists to learn more about its seismic history and tendency to produce earthquakes.

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Seismologists agree that foreshocks are the most widely identified signal of an upcoming mainshock earthquake. But do these foreshock sequences have distinctive characteristics that separate them from aftershock sequences, and could these characteristics be used to help forecast mainshocks?

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The star would have inflated up to 1.5 times the planet's orbital distance -- engulfing the planet in the process -- before shrinking to its current size at only one-tenth of that distance.

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For the first time, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing black holes -- quasars -- seen less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

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Magnetotactic bacteria, which can align with the Earth's magnetic field, have been discovered in a new location. Previously observed on land and in shallow water, analysis of a hydrothermal vent has proven that they can also survive deep under the ocean. The bacteria were able to exist in an environment that was not ideal for their typical needs. Magnetotactic bacteria are of interest not only for the role they play in Earth's ecosystem, but also in the search for extraterrestrial life. Evidence of their existence can remain in rocks for billions of years. Their magnetic inclinations can also provide a record of how magnetic poles have shifted over time. This new discovery brings hope to researchers that the magnetic bacteria might be found in yet more unexpected locations, on Earth and perhaps even on Mars or beyond.

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Taiwan experiences some of the world's fastest rates of mountain building -- they are growing at a faster rate than our fingernails grow in a year. The mountains also see frequent and significant earthquakes, the region experiences about four typhoons per year on average, and in some places, it receives upwards of several meters of rain annually.

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Pioneering analysis of deep-sea corals has overturned the idea that ocean currents contributed to increasing global levels of carbon dioxide in the air over the past 11,000 years.

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The cosmos is a unique laboratory for testing the laws of physics, in particular those of Euler and Einstein. Euler described the movements of celestial objects, while Einstein described the way in which celestial objects distort the Universe. Since the discovery of dark matter and the acceleration of the Universe's expansion, the validity of their equations has been put to the test: are they capable of explaining these mysterious phenomena? A team has developed the first method to find out. It considers a never-before-used measure: time distortion.

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The first ever 3D seismic imaging of a subducting seamount shows a previously unknown sediment trail in Earth's crust off the coast of New Zealand. Scientists think the sediment patches help release tectonic pressure gradually in slow slip earthquakes instead of violent tremors. The findings will help researchers search for similar patterns at other subduction zones like Cascadia in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

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Isotope ratios found in meteorites suggest that a supernova exploded nearby while the Sun and Solar System were still forming. But the blast wave from a supernova that close could have potentially destroyed the nascent Solar System. New calculations shows that a filament of molecular gas, which is the birth cocoon of the Solar System, aided the capture of the isotopes found in the meteorites, while acting as a buffer protecting the young Solar System from the nearby supernova blast.

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Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of neutron stars, astronomers have concluded that this GRB came instead from the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed environment surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an ancient galaxy.

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Engineers are developing a cutting-edge process that can reduce energy consumption and cost of water desalination.

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An international team of scientists has discovered that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, emerged from a long period of dormancy some 200 years ago. The team, led by Frédéric Marin, a CNRS researcher at the Astronomical Strasbourg Observatory (CNRS/University of Strasbourg), has revealed the past awakening of this gigantic object, which is four million times more massive than the Sun. Their work is published in Nature on 21 June.

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How close can a rocky planet be to a star, and still sustain water and life? A recently discovered exoplanet may be key to solving that mystery.

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A team of scientists has observed past episodic intraplate magmatism and corroborated the existence of a partial melt channel at the base of the Cocos Plate. Situated 60 kilometers beneath the Pacific Ocean floor, the magma channel covers more than 100,000 square kilometers, and originated from the Galápagos Plume more than 20 million years ago, supplying melt for multiple magmatic events -- and persisting today.

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New research showed that the plume emitted by the Hunga Volcano eruption in 2022 created the highest lightning flash rates ever recorded on Earth, more than any storm ever documented.

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Superfast, subatomic-sized particles called muons have been used to wirelessly navigate underground in a reportedly world first. By using muon-detecting ground stations synchronized with an underground muon-detecting receiver, researchers were able to calculate the receiver's position in the basement of a six-story building. As GPS cannot penetrate rock or water, this new technology could be used in future search and rescue efforts, to monitor undersea volcanoes, and guide autonomous vehicles underground and underwater.

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Princeton researchers used observations from NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission to deduce that it was likely a violent, catastrophic event -- such as a high-speed collision with another body or a gaseous explosion -- that created the Geminids meteoroid stream. Mysteries surrounding the origin of the Geminids have long fascinated scientists because, while most meteor showers are created when a comet emits a tail of ice and dust, the Geminids stem from an asteroid -- a chunk of rock that normally does not produce a tail. Until now, this unusual meteoroid stream had only been studied from Earth.

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The discovery of a rare type of white dwarf star system provides new understanding into stellar evolution.