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The auroral dunes appear as a green-tinged and even pattern of waves resembling a striped veil of clouds or dunes on a sandy beach. Image credit: Kari Saari.

Auroral Dunes: Citizen Scientists Discover New Form of Aurora

Jan 30, 2020 by News Staff

Named the auroral dunes, the phenomenon was discovered by citizen scientists in Finland; it occurs at a relatively low altitude of 100 km (62 miles), in...

A researcher collects gas samples at Soda Springs in the Philippines. Image credit: Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin.

Researchers Discover Bubbling CO2 Hotspot in Philippines

Jan 23, 2020 by News Staff

Groundwater flow from land to sea could have important coastal impacts but it is usually unrecognized. Delicate reefs may be particularly sensitive to...

The newfound petit-spot volcano near Minamitorishima Island, Japan. Image credit: Tohoku University.

New ‘Petit-Spot’ Volcano Discovered beneath Pacific Ocean

Dec 30, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of Japanese scientists has discovered a 3-million-year-old petit-spot submarine volcano in one of the oldest parts of the Pacific Plate. The newfound...

The World Magnetic Model 2020. Image credit: NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information / British Geological Survey.

Earth’s North Magnetic Pole Keeps Drifting towards Siberia, Latest World Magnetic Model Shows

Dec 27, 2019 by News Staff

Researchers from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and the British Geological Survey earlier this month released a new version of...

Study: Iron Crystals Accumulate and Compact into Thick Layer on Top of Earth’s Inner Core

Dec 20, 2019 by News Staff

Tiny iron particles fall from Earth’s molten outer core and pile on top of the planet’s solid inner core, according to new research published in the...

Stormquakes offshore North America and seismic stations from 2006 to 2015. The located stormquakes are shown as the red circles, and the seismic stations are shown as triangles. Due to the location uncertainties, some of the apparent stormquake locations are beyond the coastlines. The yellow contours show regions where stormquakes were detected. The orange contour shows a comparison region offshore Mexico that has been struck by hurricanes but without excitation of stormquakes. The insert shows earthquakes (blue dots) reported in the International Seismological Centre catalog with magnitudes greater than 3 and shallower than 40 km from 2006 to 2015. Image credit: Fan et al, doi: 10.1029/2019GL084217.

New Geophysical Phenomenon Discovered: Stormquakes

Oct 22, 2019 by News Staff

Energetic storms generate strong ocean waves, which can interact with shallow seafloor features located near the edge of continental shelves known as ocean...

Earth’s magnetic field connects the North Pole (orange lines) with the South Pole (blue lines) in this NASA-created image. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Most Recent Reversal of Earth’s Magnetic Field Lasted 22,000 Years

Aug 8, 2019 by News Staff

Earth’s magnetic field is produced in the planet’s liquid iron outer core as it spins around the solid inner core, and protects the surface from harmful...

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

Material from Earth’s Core Has Been Leaking into Mantle for Billions of Years

Jul 12, 2019 by The Conversation

Earth’s magnetic field protects and makes our planet habitable by stopping harmful high-energy particles from space, including from the Sun. The source...

STEVE: Researchers Identify Mechanisms that Cause Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon

Apr 29, 2019 by News Staff

STEVE (Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement) is a thin ribbon of pinkish-red or mauve-colored light stretching from east to west, farther south...

Tilles et al observed a possible new way that lightning forms called fast negative breakdown.

Fast Negative Breakdown Triggers Lightning Flashes, New Observations Show

Apr 12, 2019 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of New Hampshire Space Science Center, the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, Earth Networks and NASA’s...

Close-up view of an iceberg near Mawson Station, November 20, 1988, much of it covered by snow. At the far left is bubbly blue-white glacier ice; the center of the picture shows the clear, dark green, bubble-free marine ice. The boundary between glacier ice and marine ice is nearly vertical. Image credit: Warren et al, doi: 10.1029/2018JC014479.

Study: Color of Green Icebergs is Caused by Iron-Oxide Minerals

Mar 5, 2019 by News Staff

Pure ice is blue because ice absorbs more red light than blue light. Most icebergs appear white or blue when floating in seawater, but since the early...

Airplanes wring extra snow and rain out of clouds. Image credit: Michael Bryant-Mode.

Study: Airplanes Flying Over Rain, Snow Can Intensify Precipitation by 10-Fold

Feb 4, 2019 by News Staff

By analyzing several years of weather radar observations in Finland, a research team led by University of Helsinki scientists has discovered that planes...

$Jackson et al propose that magma storage occurs by reactive melt flow in long-lived mush reservoirs, rather than by the commonly invoked process of fractional crystallization in magma chambers. Image credit: Julius Silver.$