News by Subject Earth Science

Deep-seated landslides in the central Oregon Coast Range are triggered mostly by rainfall, not by large offshore earthquakes.

It is generally accepted that the inner region of the early solar system was subject to an intense period of meteoric bombardment referred to as the late heavy bombardment. However, researchers have found evidence that suggests this period occurred slightly earlier than thought and was less intense but also more prolonged. Such details about this period could impact theories about the early Earth and the dawn of life.

Continued volcanic activity after the collapse of a volcano has not been documented in detail so far. Now and for the first time, researchers from the German Research Center for Geosciences GFZ and Russian volcanologists are presenting the results of a photogrammetric data series spanning seven decades for the Bezymianny volcano, Kamchatka, in the journal "Nature Communications Earth and Environment".

Several minerals suffer radioactive self-irradiation and hence experience long-term changes of their properties. The mineral monazite virtually behaves "just alike Camembert cheese in which holes are drilled": Existing radiation damage heals itself. An international research team led by Lutz Nasdala, Institute of Mineralogy and Crystallography, University of Vienna, conducted an ion-irradiation study that has unravelled the causes of the self-healing of monazite. Results were published in "Scientific Reports".

A team of scientists has now shed new light on how stone forests and other natural structures are created. Its research also offers promise for the manufacturing of sharp-tipped structures, such as the micro-needles and probes needed for scientific research and medical procedures.

A collaboration of researchers based in Kumamoto University, Japan have discovered microdiamonds in the Nishisonogi metamorphic rock formation in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. Microdiamonds in metamorphic rocks are important minerals because they form in continental collision zones and show that the crust has penetrated deeper than 120 km below the surface. This is the second area in the world, after the Italian Alps, that shows microdiamonds can form in metamorphic rocks through subduction of oceanic plates.