News by Subject Earth Science

New imagery reveals the causes of seismic activity deep beneath the Himalaya region, contributing to an ongoing debate over the continental collision process when two tectonic plates crash into each other.

Sound generated by seismic events on the seabed can be used to determine the temperature of Earth's warming oceans.

ETH researchers have used a computer model to test a new hypothesis about the formation of the Alps while simulating seismic activity in Switzerland. This will help improve current earthquake risk models.

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

Every tree, even an evergreen, can be an air quality monitor. That's the conclusion of researchers at the University of Utah who measured the magnetism of particulate matter on the needles of evergreen trees on the U campus. That measurement, they found, correlated to general air quality, suggesting that analysis of the needles -- a relatively simple and low-cost process -- could provide a high-resolution, year-round picture of air quality.

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".

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.

When a meteorite hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes to Earth, how does its violent impact alter the minerals found at the landing site? What can the short-lived chemical phases created by these extreme impacts teach scientists about the minerals existing at the high-temperature and pressure conditions found deep inside the planet? New work examining the crystal structure of the silica mineral quartz under shock compression is challenging longstanding assumptions about this ubiquitous material.