Earthquakes

Recent advancements have enabled scientists to detect underground nuclear tests with 99% accuracy, significantly improving global security monitoring capabilities. This method, which efficiently differentiates nuclear explosions from natural seismic events, relies on existing seismic data and supports the enforcement of international surveillance against clandestine nuclear testing. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.comThanks to a significant scientific breakthrough in detection methods, conducting secret…

Our world may seem fragile, but Earth has been around for a very long time. If we ventured far back into the past, would we reach a time when it looked fundamentally different?The answer lies in some of the earliest extensive relics of Earth's surface, found in a remote corner of southern Africa's highveld – a region known to geologists as the Barberton Greenstone Belt.The geological formations in this region have proved difficult to decipher, despite many attempts. But our new research has shown the key to cracking this…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Researchers in Europe have identified an underground signal that may be a precursor to strong quakes. Dr. Quentin Bletery has some good news regarding an all-too-often gloomy subject: earthquakes. A researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, or IRD, Bletery thinks it might one…

Schematic explanation of how seismic events impact forest resilience. A) Precipitation resulting in enhanced run-off and reduced infiltration prior to an earthquake. B) Seismic waves generate cracks in the soil and around roots of trees that improve soil permeability and infiltration of precipitation to deeper layers of the ground. Credit: Gao et al. 2024. Earthquake effects are often thought of in terms of the human impact, be…

The Seattle fault zone, a network of shallow faults threatening the Puget Sound region, has a new origin story based on a study published in Tectonics that suggests its formation around 55 million years ago due to tectonic deformation. This study, revealing ancient volcanic island interactions with the North American plate, aims to enhance hazard modeling for the densely populated area.Magnetic evidence indicates that the dangerous Seattle fault zone may have originated from the continent’s edge splitting in half over 50…

A volcano in southwestern Iceland erupted on Thursday for the third time since December, sending jets of lava into the sky and triggering the evacuation of the Blue Lagoon spa, one of the island country's biggest tourist attractions.The eruption began at about 1 a.m. ET along a three-kilometre fissure northeast of Mount Sýlingarfell, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. Several communities on the Reykjanes Peninsula were cut off from heat and hot water after a river of lava engulfed a supply pipeline.The strength of…

This vertical cliff consists of soft mud deposited on the Japan Trench bottom and was uplifted ~60 m by the 2011 megaquake. This was the first time that the fault scarp of a trench-type earthquake was observed and visually recorded. Credit: Niigata UniversityOn September 4, 2022, Hayato Ueda, a geologist from Niigata University, embarked on a submarine journey alongside pilot Chris May into the heart of the Japan Trench, the epicenter of the catastrophic 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake and tsunami. Descending to the trench’s…

Ground displacement on the Noto Peninsula in northwestern Honshu, Japan caused by the Earthquake on January 1, 2024.Some parts of the peninsula rose up to 4 meters (13 feet), shifting the position of coastlines and leaving some ports dry.The first day of 2024 brought catastrophe to parts of Japan. At 4:10 p.m. Japan Standard Time (07:10 Universal Time), the land on the Noto Peninsula in northwestern Honshu began to lurch, shaking violently for about 50 seconds. The 7.5 magnitude mainshock was followed by dozens of strong…

Block model of a subduction zone with a section of the forearc removed, exposing the top of the downgoing plate. Dashed red lines are isotherms. Pink patches represent locations of accelerated footwall deformation by diffusive mass transfer (DMT). Strain rate in footwall increases on average from the top to the bottom of the seismogenic zone, where steady strain occurs that accommodates the plate rate. Credit: Science Advances (2024). DOI:…

A volcano erupted in southwest Iceland on Sunday, posing an immediate threat to a nearby fishing town that had been evacuated over fears of an eruption, authorities said.Live streams from the site showed fountains of molten rock spewing from fissures in the ground, the bright orange lava flow glowing against the dark sky.The eruption began north of the town of Grindavik, which on Saturday was evacuated for a second time over fears that an eruption was imminent amid a swarm of seismic activity, authorities said.Lava began…