Geophysics News

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

Airplanes wring extra snow and rain out of clouds. Image credit: Michael Bryant-Mode.
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 landing in or departing from an airport could locally increase precipitation rate by 6-14 times. The observations show that falling ice crystals from upper clouds could seed lower clouds and therefore increase rain or snowfall intensity through the process called snowflake aggregation; during this...

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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.

Volcanoes are Fed by ‘Mush’ Reservoirs, Says New Study

Dec 5, 2018 by News Staff

Volcanoes are not fed by liquid magma formed in large, underground caves called ‘magma’ chambers; instead, they are fed by so-called ‘mush’ reservoirs...

Mount St. Helens in 2007. Image credit: Michael Adams / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Geoscientists May Have Solved Mount St Helens Mystery

Sep 5, 2018 by News Staff

Oregon State University geophysicist Adam Schultz and co-authors believe they may have solved the mystery of why Mount St. Helens, a volcano located in...

Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement. Image credit: Megan Hoffman.

STEVE: Recently Discovered Type of Aurora Is Not Aurora At All

Aug 22, 2018 by News Staff

Recently, the scientific community stumbled upon a rare atmospheric phenomenon called Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE) that has been...

O’Malley et al find quakes can systematically trigger other ones on opposite side of the globe. This image shows a high school running track in Taiwan crossed by the Chelungpu fault in an earthquake in September 1999. Image credit: Bob Yeats, Oregon State University.

Powerful Earthquakes Can Trigger Other Ones on Opposite Side of Earth, New Research Shows

Aug 9, 2018 by News Staff

A big earthquake can not only cause other quakes, but large ones, and on the opposite side of our planet, according to new research from Oregon State University. O’Malley...

An artist’s impression of a potentially habitable exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Planets Don’t Need Plate Tectonics to Be Habitable

Aug 1, 2018 by News Staff

There may be more habitable exoplanets than we previously thought, according to Pennsylvania State University researchers Bradford Foley and Andrew Smye,...

The East Antarctic Plateau is a windswept desolate expanse the size off Australia with few bases or instruments. Image credit: Ted Scambos, National Snow and Ice Data Center / University of Colorado Boulder.

Coldest Place on Earth: Study Explains East Antarctica’s Ultra-Low Surface Temperatures

Jun 26, 2018 by News Staff

When Dr. Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, and co-authors first...

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.

Earth’s Magnetic Field is Not in Early Stage of Reversal, Says Study

May 1, 2018 by News Staff

The intensity of Earth’s magnetic field has been dropping for the last two centuries, at a rate that some researchers suspect may cause the field to...

A cold and windy spring night on the vast landscape of the Devon Ice Cap where two subglacial lakes are lurking 1,805 to 2,460 feet (550-750 m) below the surface. Image credit: Anja Rutishauser.

Geophysicists Discover Two Salty Subglacial Lakes in Canadian Arctic

Apr 12, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of geophysicists has discovered two hypersaline lakes beneath the Devon Ice Cap, one of the largest ice caps in the Canadian Arctic. A...

The team’s model reproduces key features of melting snowflakes that have been observed in nature: first, meltwater gathers in any concave regions of the snowflake’s surface; these liquid-water regions merge as they grow and eventually form a shell of liquid around an ice core, finally developing into a water drop. Image credit: Free-Photos.

Researchers Develop First-Ever 3D Numerical Model of Melting Snowflake

Mar 30, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has developed a numerical 3D model for the melting of single snowflakes. A better understanding of how snow melts can...

NASA’s SeaWiFS satellite photographed this eddy field in the waters around Tasmania in November 2000. Image credit: NASA.

Scientists Find ‘Smoke Rings’ in Earth’s Oceans

Dec 17, 2017 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the United Kingdom has spotted the equivalent of smoke-rings in the Earth’s southern oceans which they think could ‘suck-up’...

Noctilucent clouds over Orlando. Image credit: Space Exploration Technologies Corporation.

Researchers Solve Millennia-Old Mystery of ‘Bright Nights’

Jun 23, 2017 by News Staff

Dating back to the first century CE, philosophers, scientists, and reporters have noted the occasional occurrence of the phenomena known as ‘bright nights,’...

Bathymetric map of recent Hawaiian volcanism, highlighting the Loa and Kea tracks. Solid lines represent the geochemically distinct Loa (blue) and Kea (red) volcanic trends. The dashed lines are an estimate of the future projection of these trends based on the team’s hypothesis. Before the emergence of the Loa and Kea tracks, Kea-type lavas were overlain by Loa-type lavas at Ko’olau and Kaua’i. The encircled number indicates the approximate age at which Loa trend lavas first appeared at Ko’olau. Image credit: Jones et al, doi: 10.1038/nature22054.

Geoscientists Finally Solve Mystery of Hawaiian Volcanoes

May 6, 2017 by News Staff

New research has solved a long-standing mystery of how the world’s biggest and most active volcanoes formed in Hawaii. Bathymetric map of recent Hawaiian...

Global map of seismic data and ages of ocean crust: the location of seismic refraction data (circles) and mantle hotspots (white stars) were used to examine whether mid-plate volcanism substantially influenced the thickness of aged ocean crust; the modern mid-ocean ridge system is marked by a yellow line; areas in violet outline large igneous provinces. Image credit: Harm J. A. Van Avendonk et al, doi: 10.1038/ngeo2849.

Pangea Breakup Cooled Earth’s Mantle, Thinned Crust

Dec 21, 2016 by News Staff

According to a new study, the oceanic crust produced by Earth today is thinner than crust made 170 million years ago during the time of the supercontinent...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Marsquakes Could Support Life Deep within the Red Planet

Sep 28, 2016 by James Romero

The combination of seismic activity and water locked away at depth within Mars could be releasing sufficient hydrogen gas to support communities of microorganisms,...

Aalto University scientists find explanation for auroral sounds. Image credit: Unto Laine / Aalto University.

Scientists Find Explanation for Sounds of Northern Lights

Jun 28, 2016 by News Staff

The popping and crackling sounds associated with Aurora borealis (or the Northern Lights) are born when the related geomagnetic storm activates the charges...

Torres del Paine, southern Andes, Chile. Image credit: Miguel Vieira.

New Research Suggests Andes Mountains Older Than Previously Thought

Nov 19, 2015 by News Staff

According to new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the Andes have been a mountain chain for much longer than previously thought. Torres...

The inner core of our planet has an inner core of its own, with crystals aligned in a different direction. Image credit: Lachina Publishing Services.

Earth’s Inner Core ‘Only’ 1 – 1.5 Billion Year Old, New Study Says

Oct 8, 2015 by News Staff

The Earth’s deepest layer – the inner core – was formed between a billion and 1.5 billion years ago as it ‘froze’ from the surrounding molten...

Jakobshavn glacier, also known as Sermeq Kujalleq and the Jakobshavn Isbræ, is a large glacier in West Greenland and is among the world’s most dynamic glaciers. Radar images from ESA’s Sentinel-1A captured the glacier before and after a massive calving event, which took place between 14 and 16 August 2015. The image composite includes different Sentinel-1A images from 27 July, and 13 and 19 August. The red, green and blue indicate the position of the calving front and other dynamic features on each respective date. Image credit: Copernicus Sentinel data /ESA.

Sentinel-1A Satellite Catches Jakobshavn Glacier Shedding Ice

Aug 24, 2015 by News Staff

Images from European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1A satellite show that Greenland’s Jakobshavn glacier, the fastest moving glacier in the world, shed a...

An artist’s depiction of Earth’s magnetic field deflecting high-energy protons from the Sun around 4 billion years ago. Image credit: Michael Osadciw / University of Rochester.

Earth’s Magnetic Field Older than Thought, Says New Study

Jul 31, 2015 by News Staff

American and Canadian scientists have reported in the latest issue of Science that the magnetic field of our planet is at least 4 billion years old, up...

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