News by Subject Earth Science

Abnormal rises in groundwater levels after large earthquakes has been observed all over the world, but the cause has remained unknown due to a lack of comparative data before & after earthquakes. After the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes, a collaboration of scientists from Japan and the US analyzed stable isotope ratios of water samples collected before and after the disaster. This allowed them to clarify the cause of the rise in water level.

In a new study, scientists have discovered previously unrecognized structural lines 100 miles or more down in the earth that appear to signal the locations of giant deposits of copper, lead, zinc and other vital metals lying close enough to the surface to be mined, but too far down to be found using current exploration methods.

Modeling shows that coral reefs off the east coast of Saudi Arabia have a vital role in protecting the coastal zone.

In a new study, published in the journal Nature, an international team of scientists provide the first conclusive evidence directly linking deep Earth's water cycle and its expressions with magmatic productivity and earthquake activity.

An international team of scientists and historians has found evidence connecting an unexplained period of extreme cold in ancient Rome with an unlikely source: a massive eruption of Alaska's Okmok volcano, located on the opposite side of the Earth. A new study uses an analysis of tephra (volcanic ash) found in Arctic ice cores to link this period of extreme climate in the Mediterranean with the caldera-forming eruption of Alaska's Okmok volcano in 43 BCE.

Earth's geographical surfaces have been formed over millions of years. Although various geological theories aim to explain their formation, the southern Tibetan Plateau is a region consisting of complex geological structures, whose origin has been unclear until now. In a new study published in Earth Science Frontiers, a team of geologists used an alternative "opening-closing" tectonic model to explain the origin of these structures.

How did the continents form? Although to a certain extent this remains an open question, the oceanic plateau of the Kerguelen Islands may well provide part of the answer, according to a French-Australian team led by the Géosciences Environnement Toulouse laboratory (CNRS/Université Toulouse III-Paul Sabatier/IRD/CNES).

Geoscientists at The University of Texas at Dallas recently used massive amounts of earthquake data and supercomputers to generate high-resolution, 3D images of the dynamic geological processes taking place far below the Earth's surface. In a study published April 29 in Nature Communications, the research team described how it created images of mantle flows in a subduction region under Central America and the Caribbean Sea.