volcanic

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The signs started appearing in early November, and people waited anxiously as earthquakes and ground swells indicated a volcanic eruption near Grindavik, Iceland, was imminent. Monday night, the volcano erupted. But the waiting game continues. "I think we're less than 24 hours in after the actual eruption so it's…

It's time to put the notion of a cold, lifeless Mars to bed.A new survey using satellite imagery and ground penetrating radar has revealed signs of volcanic activity that's far more recent than anyone ever expected.Combined with other pieces of evidence, the discovery reveals that under its barren crust, Mars might have quite a bit more going on than outside appearances suggest.The study, conducted over a plain known as the Elysium Planitia, reveals volcanic activity that has taken place within the last 120 million…

Smoke billows from a crevasse near Grindavík, Iceland.Photo: KRISTIN ELISABET GUNNARSDOTTIR/AFP (Getty Images)A trepidatious Iceland has waited for this moment for over a month: a large crack in the ground has started to spew up lava. In mid-November, hundreds of tremors—earthquakes that portended the eruptions to come—forced the evacuation of the nearby Icelandic village of Grindavík and at least one famous tourist destination: Iceland’s Blue Lagoon.The volcano finally erupted Monday night, at 10:17 p.m. local time. The…

After three essentially safe volcanic eruptions in a remote, valley-filled swath of Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, a fourth has now begun. The latest eruption, which was anticipated for weeks, has imperiled a power plant, the Blue Lagoon spa resort and, most significantly, the coastal town of Grindavík. On December 18, after 10 P.M. local time, a nearly four-kilometer-long fissure tore open the ground just to the town’s northeast, pouring ribbons of lava into the night.The situation is ongoing, somewhat unpredictable and…

Undersea volcanic eruptions account for more than three-quarters of all volcanism on Earth, but rarely do we see the impacts.The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption of 2022 was a dramatic exception. Its furious explosion from shallow waters broke the ocean surface and punched through the stratosphere, generating supercharged lighting and an atmospheric shock wave that circled the globe several times.But there was far more to the fallout than satellite images could possibly capture or observers could report.We know the…

Grinding coffee beans with a spritz of water can reduce static electricity, creating less mess and improving the taste of espresso, according to Oregon-based researchers who borrowed from the physics of volcanoes to design the experiment. The team of chemists and volcanologists found that the inside of a coffee grinder creates similar conditions to those inside a volcanic eruption.Zillow Says You’ll Buy Your Next House With… AI? | AI UnlockedDo your coffee grinds ever fly into the air or stick to your grinder? A…

(a) Topographic relief map of the seismically derived extent of the Socorro Magma Body (SMB), New Mexico (Balch et al., 1997; Rinehart & Sanford, 1981), within southwestern North America (inset). Quaternary faults (magenta lines), three continuous GPS stations (red diamonds), and locations of the La Ristra seismic stations (black dots) (West et al., 2004) indicated for reference. The orange polygon outlines the NW-SE extent of low mid-crustal…

Recent research suggests that volcanic eruptions, causing global cooling, significantly contributed to the dinosaurs’ extinction, challenging the long-held belief that a meteorite was the sole cause. McGill researchers challenge the current understanding of dinosaur extinction by unearthing a link between volcanic eruptions and climate change. What wiped out the dinosaurs? A meteorite plummeting to Earth is only part of the story, a new study suggests. Climate change triggered by massive volcanic eruptions may have…

Sketch of the lava fountaining cycle at Fagradalsfjall. Credit: Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42569-9 A multi-institutional team of Earth scientists, meteorologists, geologists and volcanologists has developed a new theory to explain the nature of volcanic fountaining. In their project, reported in the journal Nature Communications, the group studied the 2021 eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano in…

Scientists can say two things with certainty about Io. First, this innermost moon of Jupiter is the most volcanic object in the known universe. Its surface is festooned with so many lava-spewing calderas that it resembles an oven-baked cheese pizza; its glowing rivers of molten rock sinuously stretch from horizon to horizon; and its endless eruptions spray towering arcs of matter into the vacuum of space.Second, no one really knows the depth of this flashy orb’s fiery plumbing. Are Io’s volcanoes fed from reservoirs just…