Geophysics News

‘Diamond Factory’ May Have Existed in Earth’s Interior for Billions of Years: Study

The iron-carbon alloy reacted with water at high pressure and high temperature conditions related to the Earth’s deep mantle in a diamond-anvil cell. Image credit: Ko et al., doi: 10.1029/2022GL098271.
Aug 31, 2022 by News Staff

Carbon plays a vital role in geological processes occurring in the Earth’s interior. While most carbon on our planet exists in its core, whether or not the core carbon can be added to the mantle is unclear due to the lack of knowledge of possible carbon transfer mechanism at Earth’s core-mantle boundary. In new research, a team of geoscientists led by Arizona State University and Michigan State University conducted experiments by reproducing the...

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Giant Meteorite Impacts Played Key Role in Creation of Earth’s Continents

Aug 10, 2022 by News Staff

Earth is the only planet known to have continents, although how they formed and evolved is unclear. An artist’s concept of meteors impacting the ancient...

Hadean Earth. Image credit: Alec Brenner.

3.8-Billion-Year-Old Zircons Offer Clues to When Earth’s Plate Tectonics Began

Apr 26, 2022 by News Staff

The nature of Earth’s earliest crust and crustal processes remains enigmatic due to the almost complete lack of a rock record older than 4 billion years...

Louge et al. show how water vapor penetrates powders and grains. Image credit: Pexels.

Deserts Inhale and Exhale Water Vapor through Their Surface, Scientists Say

Mar 31, 2022 by News Staff

Using a new probe that detects tiny amounts of moisture on sand grains, a team of researchers from Cornell University, the Ecole Polytechnique de l’Université...

Sketches illustrating core-mantle helium exchange processes: (a) 3He acquisition during Earth’s accretion by ingassing from the nebular atmosphere and transport through the magma ocean to the proto-core; and (b) 3He transport from the core to the mantle and from the mantle to the ocean after accretion. Image credit: Olson & Sharp, doi: 10.1029/2021GC009985.

Primordial Helium Isotope is Leaking Out of Earth’s Metallic Core: Study

Mar 29, 2022 by News Staff

Each year, about 2 kg of helium-3, a rare isotope of helium gas, escapes from Earth’s interior, mostly along the mid-ocean ridge system. Helium-3 is...

Locations of four vertical cross sections (thick, solid lines) on two LLSVPs (yellow). Image credit: Yuan & Li, doi: 10.1038/s41561-022-00908-3.

Study: Two Blob-Like Structures in Earth’s Mantle Have Different Densities and Compositions

Mar 14, 2022 by News Staff

Seismic observations have recently revealed two seismic anomalies in Earth’s lowermost mantle, one beneath Africa and the other beneath the Pacific Ocean,...

Twelfth-Century Chronicle Contains Description of Ball Lightning

Jan 28, 2022 by News Staff

Durham University professors Brian Tanner and Giles Gasper have found a credible description of ball lightning in a monastic chronicle compiled and composed...

Study area and hybrid-frequency waveform earthquakes (EHWs): (a) hydraulic fracturing activity and seismicity in northeast British Columbia, Canada; the top-right inset shows the geographic location of the study area (red rectangle); blue diamonds: hydraulic fracturing injection wells between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2016, reported by the British Columbia Oil and Gas Commission; yellow dots: earthquakes during the same period; stars: 10 M 4-5 earthquakes since 2008; black rectangle: study area in which EHWs occurred; (b, c) comparison between representative examples of a typical induced event (black trace) and an EHW (purple trace); both waveforms are from the vertical component of station MG03 with comparable source-station distance (1.32 km vs. 1.65 km) and magnitudes (MW1.5); manually picked P/S-arrivals are marked; the comparison of P/S-pulse shape demonstrates the relatively wider pulses for EHWs; (d, e) the same as (b) and (c) but for waveforms recorded at station MG02; both events show longer coda durations with slightly larger epicentral distances; note that although both types of events have extended coda durations, the EHW contains a relatively larger proportion of lower-frequency energy in the coda. Image credit: Yu et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26961-x.

Scientists Detect New Type of Fluid-Injection-Induced Earthquake

Dec 6, 2021 by News Staff

Unlike conventional earthquakes of the same magnitude, the newly-identified hybrid-frequency waveform earthquakes are slower and last longer. Study area...

Distribution of Earth’s continental crust, ocean basins and plate boundaries in the plate model at present day. Tan polygons are areas of continental lithosphere in the Neoproterozoic, blue polygons are areas of present-day continental lithosphere. Abbreviations: A - Amazonia; Ant - Antarctica; AUS - Australia; BP - Borborema Province; CCT - Chinese Central Tianshan; Cu - Cuyania; CY - Chu Yili; K - Kalahari; KMT - Krygyz Middle Tianshan; KNT - Krygyz North Tianshan; KST - Krygyz South Tianshan; N-B - Nigeria-Benin; NC - North China; P - Paranapanema; ANS - Arabian Nubian Shield; Qa - Qaidam; Qi - Qilian; RDLP - Rio de la Plata; SC - South China; SM - Sahara Metacraton; T - Tarim; WAC - West African Craton. Image credit: Merdith et al., doi: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103477.

New Video Shows Movement of Earth’s Tectonic Plates over Past Billion Years

Feb 10, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of geoscientists has created the first continuous full-plate model with evolving plate boundaries spanning one billion year ago to...

Blue jet: (a) the cloud-top altitude of the storm cell over the South Pacific on February 26, 2019, at 15:10 UTC, derived from the Japanese Himawari meteorological satellite data and from a radio sounding at Tarawa at a distance of approximately 700 km (435 miles); the green curve is the ISS orbit and the red marker its position at 15:10:05 UTC; the black curves identify the full field of view of the cameras projected to the Earth’s surface, and the white square is the cropped image, downloaded from the ISS and shown in (b); black markers are the lightning locations detected by the GLD360 network between 15:10:00 and 15:11:40 UTC; (b) the cropped, downlinked ASIM image (777.4 nm) of the cloud backlit by internal lightning; the source locations of the five blue flash events detected between 15:10:00 and 15:11:35 UTC are shown with colored markers, time progressing from red to yellow. The flash leading to a blue jet is event number 3. Image credit: Neubert et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-03122-6.

Blue Jet Observed from International Space Station

Jan 26, 2021 by News Staff

Using the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) observatory on the International Space Station (ISS), researchers have observed five intense blue...

The archaeological site of Tel Dor, Israel. Image credit: Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Archaeologists Find Evidence of Neolithic Mega-Tsunami in Israel

Dec 24, 2020 by News Staff

A catastrophic tsunami occurred sometimes between 7,910 and 7,290 BCE with an extreme 16 m (52.5 feet) wave height and 1.5-3.5 km (0.93-2.2 mile) run-up...

This image from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper shows a superbolt-producing lightning flash over the southeastern United States on February 19, 2019. The lightning flash spanned several hundred kilometers and lasted nearly 7 seconds. Image credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Lightning ‘Superbolts’ Are Real, Two New Studies Confirm

Nov 24, 2020 by News Staff

‘Superbolts’ are distinct from typical lightning flashes and can be more than 1,000 times brighter, according to two new papers published in the Journal...

Stone forest in Yunnan province, China. Image credit: Zhang Yuan.

Study Sheds New Light on Growth of Mysterious Stone Forests

Sep 8, 2020 by News Staff

A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals a mechanism that may contribute to the formation of sharply pointed...

Earth’s internal structure: dense solid metallic core, viscous metallic outer core, mantle and silicate based crust. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Inner Core is Around 1.15 Billion Years Old, Study Shows

Aug 26, 2020 by News Staff

The inner core of our planet is between 1 and 1.3 billion years old, according to new research led by the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Institution...

The 2016 7.1 earthquake on the Romanche Fracture Zone in the equatorial Atlantic. The map location is given by the red rectangle on the inset globe. Image credit: Hicks et al, doi: 10.1038/s41561-020-0619-9.

Geoscientists Record ‘Boomerang’ Earthquake in Atlantic Ocean

Aug 12, 2020 by News Staff

Earthquakes occur when rocks suddenly break on a fault — a boundary between two blocks or plates. During large earthquakes, the breaking of rock...

The magnetic field and electric currents in and around Earth generate complex forces that have immeasurable impact on every day life. The field can be thought of as a huge bubble, protecting us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth in solar winds. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab.

Study: South Atlantic Magnetic Anomaly is a Recurring Feature

Jul 22, 2020 by News Staff

Strange behavior of Earth’s magnetic field in the South Atlantic region isn’t a sign of the upcoming magnetic field reversal, according to new research...

Earth’s magnetic field lines. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Earth’s Magnetic Field Can Switch Direction 10 Times Faster than Previously Thought

Jul 7, 2020 by News Staff

Changes in the direction of Earth’s internally generated magnetic field may take place 10 times faster than previously thought, according to new research...

Earthquakes send sound waves through the Earth. Seismograms record the echoes as those waves travel along the core-mantle boundary, diffracting and bending around dense rock structures. Kim et al provide the first broad view of these structures, revealing them to be much more widespread than previously known. Image credit: Doyeon Kim, University of Maryland.

Geophysicists Find Dense Rock Structures near Earth’s Core

Jun 16, 2020 by News Staff

In a new study, a team of geophysicists from the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University and Tel Aviv University has analyzed echoes of seismic...

Yang & Song found that refracted waves (blue), rather than reflected waves (purple) change over time, providing the best evidence yet that Earth’s inner core is rotating. Image credit: Michael Vincent.

Earth’s Inner Core is Rotating, Study Says

May 13, 2020 by News Staff

The inner core of the Earth is rotating at about 0.05-0.1 degrees per year, according to an analysis of seismic data from repeating earthquakes published...

Lava streaming from an active vent during the 2018 eruption of Kīlauea volcano. Image credit: U.S. Geological Survey.

Extreme Rainfall Triggered 2018 Eruption of Kilauea Volcano, Researchers Say

Apr 23, 2020 by News Staff

The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii was likely initiated by prolonged, and at times extreme, rainfall in the months leading up to the event,...

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