Remember the difference between weather and climate? We know what happens when the weather changes—it’s obvious. Climate is another story. Read on. When it rains, you put on a raincoat or take your umbrella when you go out. It snows: time for high boots, a heavier coat, scarf, and warm gloves. And sunny days, well,
New research results from a team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University have shown that magma forms much deeper than geologists had previously thought. The scientists put minute samples of peridotite – a rock derived from Earth’s mantle – under very high pressures in a laboratory and found that the rock can and does liquify
An undersea volcano located 250 miles off the coast of Oregon gave off clear warning signals just hours before erupting last year, according to researchers from Oregon State University. The research is from the same team that correctly predicted the eruption of the same volcano, years in advance, before its 2011 eruption. The researchers had
Super-volcanos form and erupt much more quickly than previously thought, according to a new study from researchers at Vanderbilt University. Super-volcanos and super-eruptions are referred to as super because of their massive scale, more than 100 times the size of an eruption like Mount St. Helens. They release tremendous amounts of gas, ash, and
The Yellowstone “super-volcano” was in the record books for creating the fourth largest eruption known to science. “Was”, because new research has shown that the super-eruption was actually two separate eruptions, which means that the Yellowstone super-volcano is a little less super and a little more frequent. “The Yellowstone volcano’s previous behavior is the
At over half a million years old, Mount Hood stands tall over the Oregon landscape, a volcano that has not erupted like so many of its cousins in the Cascade Mountains and throughout the Pacific Ring of Fire. Scientists have finally discovered why, and it has a lot to do with milkshakes. The research was
A volcanic eruption in the Red Sea has led to the possible formation of a new island where previously there had been nothing but unbroken water. The volcanic activity took place along the Zubair Group, “a collection of small islands off the west coast of Yemen,” according to NASA. Photos taken by NASA’s Terra and
In what life was probably like prior to the coming of the year 2000, every man and his dog is coming up with a theory for how the Earth will end come 2012. After already curbing fears that a giant “killer solar flare” will wipe out planet Earth next year, NASA has again weighed in, this time explaining that a supervolcano will not have a supereruption during 2012.
Probably. Let’s get to that later.
Scientists who witnessed the eruption of a deep sea volcano during a 2009 expedition report that the volcano was taking place near a tear in the planetary crust that is mimicking the birth of a subduction zone.
Captured on the 8th of September by the European Space Agency’s Envisat Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) are the Canary Islands, at the bottom of this image, off the west coast of Africa.
One of the tallest and one of the most active volcanoes in the world, Mount Etnain in Sicily is erupting again, spewing lava and ash into the air.
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have discovered a slew of previously undiscovered underwater volcanoes in the ocean waters around the remote South Sandwich Islands, a series of islands grouped together with Britain’s claim in Antarctica.
These two photos – one false-colour the second natural-colour – are some of the first detailed pictures of the erupting vent and lava flows from the Nabro Volcano, located along the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
After midnight local time on June 13, 2011, the Nabro Volcano in the Southern Red Sea Region of Eritrea erupted after a series of earthquakes hit the Eritrea-Ethiopia border region, ranging up to magnitude 5.7. The image below shows what the stratovolcano looked like before it erupted.
Below, are images from the eruption and of the ash plume that ended up disrupting air travel in Iceland, followed shortly by Greenland, Scotland, Norway, Svalbard and a small part of Denmark, Northern Ireland, northern England and Northern Germany.
This photo of the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, highlighting the volcanoes Avachinsky and Kozelsky, was taken by a member of the Expedition 27 crew on board the International Space Station.
This image of Novarupta, a volcano located on the Alaska Peninsula in Katmai National Park and Preserve, whose name means “new eruption”, was taken all the way back in 1990 thanks to one of the Landsat satellites.
The Russian volcano Bezymianny erupted on the morning of April 14, this year. The images below were taken over a week later on the 22nd, and shows the extend of the eruption by the the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite.
Over the last decade, geologists have speculated that based on certain evidence in the surrounding environment, these undersea volcanoes are capable of explosive eruptions. No one’s been able to prove it though. Until now.
One of Earth’s most active volcanoes, Kilauea, surged to life on March 5 of this year, spewing fresh flows of lava out the opening of a new fissure and starting off a forest fire that has burned for much of this month. NASA’s Advanced Land Imager (ALI) onboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured the following false-color images of the area.
One of Indonesia’s most active volcano’s has erupted, sending lava and searing gas clouds tumbling down its slopes.
The major earthquake that just hit Japan, may have just triggered the some volcanoes in Russia. While reports are still vague on the incident there is a strong correlation between the two incidents. In Russia there are reports that earthquakes where felt during the eruption.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) has been monitoring the recent activity of the Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawai’i. At 1:42 p.m. HST this afternoon, USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) monitoring network detected the onset of rapid deflation at Pu`u `Ō `ō and increased tremor along Kīlauea Volcano’s middle
The Permian-Triassic extinction event – also known as the Great Dying – is recorded as the most significant extinction event in Earth’s history, seeing a whopping 96% of marine species killed off, 70% of land-based animals, and is the only extinction event to have affected insects. Researchers at the University of Calgary believe that they
On the 11th of January, Mount Etna, in Sicily, Italy, Europe’s largest volcano, erupted briefly, spewing flames, ash and smoke into the atmosphere and lava down its slopes. The ESA’s Envisat MERIS captured an image of the volcano from above, a trail of smoke drifting to the east. And below is an image found on
An Ohio State University honours undergraduate student has found that the Hawaiian Island volcani chain sits atop a single magma chamber which is much closer to the surface than was originally supposed. “Hawaii was already unique among volcanic systems, because it has such an extensive plumbing system, and the magma that erupts has a unique
A new research paper published in the latest issue of the journal Nature shows that in the months preceding the eruptions of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, it had been restless as a result of magma flowing beneath the volcano. “Several months of unrest preceded the eruptions, with magma moving around downstairs in the plumbing and
Geophysicists who have been monitoring the Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland have announced that floodwaters are receding and tremors are decreasing. This after fears just a few days ago that the country’s most active volcano could erupt soon. The lake and surrounding glacier had begun melting, with water levels having tripled according to Gunnar Sigurdsson of
“Indonesia has raised the alert for its most volatile volcano, Mount Merapi, to its highest level and warned villagers in threatened areas to move to safer ground,” BBC has just reported. The activity in the volcano has reportedly increased to a great degree over the past few days and local residents have been told to
Scientists have long wondered why the world’s most volcanic regions are thousands of kilometres long, but only a few tens of kilometres wide. One of the most obvious examples is the Ring of Fire, a ring of volcanoes that stretches from southernmost Chile, via Alaska and Japan, to New Zealand. Oxford University scientists have finally
Scientists from the University of Washington are currently 300 miles off the Washington-Oregon coast and diving nearly a mile deep, and you can join them right now.
An international team of researchers will visit the region of the North Atlantic Ocean affected by ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in an effort to determine the impact the volcano had on the ocean biology. Aboard the UK’s Royal Research Ship Discovery, the team will make their second cruise to study the region, the
New research has shown that massive volcanic eruptions are not always commonplace when the Earth’s crust breaks apart. [social_buttons]Published in the journal Nature, the study reveals that when continental plates break apart there is not always a corresponding volcanic eruption on the ocean floor. This discovery helps explain why some parts of our planet have
Apart from the major disruption in flight traffic and the economy, the Icelandic volcano eruption promises in the short-term to disrupt upper atmospheric circulation patterns and temperatures, with an additional impact due to sulfuric acid “nucleation” and subsequent acid rain. But the medium to long-term impacts of continuous, or increasing, volcanic eruptions is a matter of on-going scientific debate.
Over our history eclipses have been the portent of the gods wrath, new things to come, or simply a pretty light show. But would you have expected our last lunar eclipse to have been of any help to researchers looking at climate change? Researchers at the University of Colorado in Boulder, US, found that Earth’s
