A thin, soft and slippery layer of clay-rich mud embedded in rock below the seafloor intensified the 2011 Japan earthquake that produced a tsunami that claimed tens of thousands of lives and decimated coastal communities along with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 

 

The discovery was made by a global research team who, onboard the world’s most advanced drilling-equipped science vessel, Chikyu, sailed to the Japan Trench in late 2024 to investigate what caused the Tōhoku-oki fault to rupture and trigger the earthquake. 

The researchers drilled up to 7,906 metres below the sea surface, setting a Guinness World Record for the deepest scientific ocean drilling ever conducted. 

A new seismic study reveals that Earth’s largest volcanic event fundamentally transformed the oceanic plate beneath the Ontong Java Plateau, the world’s largest oceanic plateau. By analyzing high-frequency seismic waves traveling through the plate, researchers discovered that massive volcanic activity not only built the plateau itself but also chemically and structurally modified the underlying oceanic plate.

The results show that the plate has a complex internal structure composed of layered formations intersected by extensive dike swarms, created as magma rose from a deep thermochemical mantle plume. Unusually slow seismic velocities indicate that this magma chemically altered the plate through a process known as refertilization. These findings demonstrate that large-scale volcanism can significantly reshape pre-existing oceanic plates, offering new insights into how tectonic plates form and evolve.

Babies and very young sauropods – the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that in adulthood were the largest animals to have ever walked on land – were a key food sustaining predators in the Late Jurassic, according to a new study led by a UCL (University College London) researcher.

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan recently examined how different kinds of pesticides and fertilizers affect mandarin oranges across Japan. Analysis showed that while reducing pesticides enhanced the diversity of microbes in the soil, it also led to an increase in fruit disease caused by leaf pathogens. The real-world data from commercial farms thus indicate a trade-off above ground with potential ecological benefits below ground. The study offers important insights for the advancement of sustainable agricultural technologies and future policy development.

A new study led by climatologists at the University at Albany has found that extreme heatwaves across the Caribbean are becoming significantly more frequent, longer and severe.