Undersea images of lava from Kama’ehu volcano, contrasting fresh-looking young lavas (top) versus older sediment-covered lavas (bottom). Credit: The two images on the bottom are courtesy of JAMSTEC. Kamaʻehuakanaloa (formerly Lōʻihi Seamount), a submarine Hawaiian volcano located about 20 miles off the south coast of the Big Island of Hawai’i, has erupted at least five…
Category: Earth
Winter storms over Labrador Sea influence Gulf Stream system
Circulation of the subpolar North Atlantic. Snapshot of surface speed in the high-resolution model VIKING20X, illustrating the meandering flow of the North Atlantic Current and the narrow boundary current emerging south of the Denmark Strait along the eastern continental shelf of Greenland. Shaded in grey is the area where convection exceeded 1800 m depth during the…
Clearcut logging found to lead to more frequent flooding, including extreme floods
Clearcut logging history of Deadman Creek and Joe Ross Creek watersheds. Credit: UBC Faculty of Forestry/David Leversee Loss of forest cover is associated with more frequent extreme flooding, as well as more frequent floods of any size, according to new UBC research. While it’s widely thought that loss of forest cover is strongly linked to…
Fiber optic cables detect and characterize earthquakes
Green lines illustrate fiber optic cables throughout California; the segment marked in red is the section used to detect the Antelope Valley M6 earthquake in 2021. As shown in the inset, the earthquake was actually made up of four distinct “stuck” areas—the purple, blue, green, and red target symbols—on the fault that ruptured sequentially. Using…
Experiments show methane formation in water may have warmed early Earth
Reduced, methylated S-/N-compounds are formed abiotically in hydrothermal vents or transported to Earth by carbonaceous meteorites. Under anoxic conditions, H2O2 is formed by thermolysis and photolysis of water and [Fe(H2O)6]3+ complexes, reacting with dissolved ferrous iron (Fe2+) to hydroxyl radicals (∙OH) and [FeIV= O]2+ compounds that drive the oxidative demethylation of methylated S-/N-compounds, thereby facilitating CH4…
Dune patterns reveal environmental change on Earth and other planets
(A) Digitized counting area at Rabe Crater on Mars. (B) Zoomed in display showing buffers of 0.05𝜆𝜆 generated around dune crestlines. Basemap from Dickson et al. (2018) mosaic. Credit: Geology (2023). DOI: 10.1130/G51264.1 Dunes, the mounds of sand formed by the wind that vary from ripples on the beach to towering behemoths in the desert,…
Drops of seawater found to contain traces of an ancient world
Histograms and frequency distribution curves of Li+/Mg2+ ratios measured in (n) fluid inclusions from Cenozoic and Mesozoic halite.(A) Normal distribution of the Li+/Mg2+ ratios for modern (0 Ma), Messinian (5.61 to 5.55 Ma), Serravallian-Tortonian (11.8 to 7.2 Ma), Langhian-Serravallian (13.81 to 13.1 Ma), Albian-Cenomanian (112.2 to 93.5 Ma), and Kimmeridgian-Tithonian (155.7 to 145.5 Ma) inclusion…
Study analyzes nearshore California marine heatwaves and cold spells amid changing climate conditions
(a) US West Coast with Central California region (black box), (b) bathymetry and topography of Central California region with nearshore study site location (black box), and (c) nearshore measurement site. Maps were generated using MATLAB Version R2022a. Credit: Scientific Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39193-4 The first-ever study to look at drivers of both marine heatwaves and…
Evidence for rainfall-triggered seismicity in intraplate domain at the earthquake of 11 November 2019 in France
Studied zone with the three-fault system and the surface quarry near Le Rhône river (with texture map and exaggerated topography). Credit: André Burnol, Author provided. On 11 November 2019, a surface-rupturing earthquake occurred at a very shallow depth (about 1 km) near Montélimar city, along the Rhône Valley in southeast France. The earthquake caused significant…
Greenland's largest glacial floating ice declined 42% due to global warming, scientists determine
Schematic of Nioghalvfjerdsbrae glacier retreat since 1998 based upon ground and airborne radar measurements. Credit: Zeising et al. 2023. Greenland’s ice sheet has been melting at an accelerated rate over recent decades, which may have resulted in a 1.4 mm/year rise in sea level. It has three glaciers with a floating tongue (floating ice attached…