Alaskan Volcano Continues to Erupt
A remote Alaska volcano continues to erupt, spewing lava and ash clouds.
The Alaska Volcano Observatory says a continuous cloud of ash, steam and gas from Pavlof Volcano has been seen 20,000 feet above sea level.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/alaskan-volcano-continues-erupt
Earth’s Iron Core is Shockingly Weak
The massive ball of iron sitting at the center of Earth is not quite as “rock-solid” as has been thought, say two Stanford mineral physicists. By conducting experiments that simulate the immense pressures deep in the planet’s interior, the researchers determined that iron in Earth’s inner core is only about 40 percent as strong as previous studies estimated.
This is the first time scientists have been able to experimentally measure the effect of such intense pressure – as high as 3 million times the pressure Earth’s atmosphere exerts at sea level – in a laboratory. A paper presenting the results of their study is available online in Nature Geoscience.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/earths-iron-core-shockingly-weak
Rewriting Darwin’s Sinking-Island Theory
The three different formations of South Pacific coral-reef islands have long fascinated geologists. Tahiti’s coral forms a “fringing” reef, a shelf growing close to the island’s shore. The “barrier” reefs of Bora Bora are separated from the main island by a calm lagoon. Finally, an “atoll,” such as Manuae, appears as a ring of coral enclosing a lagoon with no island at its center.
The question of how reefs develop into these shapes over evolutionary time produced an enduring conflict between two hypotheses, one from English naturalist Charles Darwin and the other from geologist Reginald Daly. But in a paper recently published in the journal Geology, researchers at MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) use modern measurements and computer modeling to resolve this old conundrum.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/rewriting-darwin%E2%80%99s-sinking-island-theory
Research Improves Volcanic Eruption Forecasting
Forecasting volcanic eruptions with success is heavily dependent on recognizing well-established patterns of pre-eruption unrest in the monitoring data. But in order to develop better monitoring procedures, it is also crucial to understand volcanic eruptions that deviate from these patterns.
New research from a team led by Carnegie Institution’s Diana Roman retrospectively documented and analyzed the period immediately preceding the 2009 eruption of the Redoubt volcano in Alaska, which was characterized by an abnormally long period of pre-eruption seismic activity that’s normally associated with short-term warnings of eruption.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/research-improves-volcanic-eruption-forecasting
Earth’s Center is 1,000 C Hotter than Thought
Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6,000 C, 1,000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1,500 C to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. The scientists were even able to establish why the earlier experiment had produced a lower temperature figure.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/earth%E2%80%99s-center-1000-c-hotter-thought
Built under a sheer cliff, with a commanding view of the forum and castle in the ancient city of Pinara in Turkey, a Roman mausoleum is off-kilter, its massive building blocks have shifted and part of its pediment collapsed. The likely cause is an earthquake, according to a new detailed model by Klaus Hinzen and colleagues at the Univ. of Cologne. They conclude that a 6.3 magnitude earthquake could have caused the damage long ago. Their new finding gives seismologists a new data point to consider when they calculate the likely earthquake hazards for this southwestern region of Turkey.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/roman-mausoleum-shows-ancient-earthquake-damage
Diamonds Began on Sea Floor
Dan Schulze calls this singular gem from the remote Guaniamo region of Venezuela the “Picasso” diamond. The blue luminescent, high-resolution image of a diamond formed over a billion years ago reminds him of some paintings from Picasso’s Blue Period. Like a cubist masterpiece, its striking irregular and anomalous features carry timeless secrets and yield new perspectives on life and the Earth’s early history.
“A diamond is a time capsule. Anomalies in the chemical signature are the key to understanding the unusual conditions under which some diamonds were formed,” says Schulze, an earth sciences professor in the Department of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Univ. of Toronto Mississauga. Led by Schulze, an international team of scientists from Australia, Scotland, the U.S. and Venezuela discovered persuasive new evidence to support the idea that some diamonds were formed from bacteria or algae on the ancient ocean floor.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/diamonds-began-sea-floor
Chart Shows Entire Topography of the Antarctic Seafloor
Reliable information on the depth and floor structure of the Southern Ocean has so far been available for only few coastal regions of the Antarctic. An international team of scientists under the leadership of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, has for the first time succeeded in creating a digital map of the entire Antarctic seafloor. The International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) for the first time shows the detailed topography of the seafloor for the entire area south of 60°S. An article presented to the scientific world by IBCSO has now appeared online in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. The IBCSO data grid and the corresponding Antarctic chart will soon be freely available in the internet and are intended to help scientists amongst others to better understand and predict sea currents, geological processes or the behavior of marine life.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/chart-shows-entire-topography-antarctic-seafloor
Multiple Approaches Explain Mystery of Subduction Zone Earthquake
Compressive-sensing technique, a sampling theory in the field of applied mathematics and signal image processing, plays a significant role in the cooperative research on subduction zone earthquakes, which reveals the law of subduction zone earthquake rupture systematically for the first time.
Among the earthquakes above magnitude Mw 8.0 in the last 10 years, most are subduction zone earthquakes like the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake and 2011 Tohoku earthquake and brought human great catastrophe, which necessitates investigation into laws under this type of earthquake.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/04/multiple-approaches-explain-mystery-subduction-zone-earthquake
Wastewater Injection Spurred Large Earthquake
A new study in the journal Geology is the latest to tie a string of unusual earthquakes, in this case, in central Oklahoma, to the injection of wastewater deep underground. Researchers now say that the magnitude 5.7 earthquake near Prague, Okla., on Nov. 6, 2011, may also be the largest ever linked to wastewater injection. Felt as far away as Milwaukee, more than 800 miles away, the quake — the biggest ever recorded in Oklahoma — destroyed 14 homes, buckled a federal highway and left two people injured. Small earthquakes continue to be recorded in the area.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/wastewater-injection-spurred-large-earthquake
James Cameron Gives Submarine to Scientists
Explorer and filmmaker James Cameron and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have formed a partnership to stimulate advances in ocean science and technology and build on the historic breakthroughs of the 2012 Cameron-led DEEPSEA CHALLENGE expedition exploring deep-ocean trenches. The announcement comes on the one-year anniversary of Cameron’s unprecedented solo dive to 35,787 feet, almost 11,000 meters, to the deepest place on Earth—the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench—in the vertically-deployed vehicle he and his team engineered, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible system and science platform.
Cameron will transfer the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER to Woods Hole, where WHOI scientists and engineers will work with Cameron and his team to incorporate the sub’s numerous engineering advancements into future research platforms and deep-sea expeditions. This partnership harnesses the power of public and private investment in supporting deep-ocean science.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/james-cameron-gives-submarine-scientists
Earth’s Interior Cycles Contribute to Long-Term Sea-Level, Climate Change
Ancient rises in sea levels and global warming are partially attributable to cyclical activity below the earth’s surface, researchers from New York Univ. and Ottawa’s Carleton Univ. have concluded in an analysis of geological studies.
However, the article’s authors, NYU’s Michael Rampino and Carleton Univ.’s Andreas Prokoph, note that changes spurred by the earth’s interior are gradual, taking place in periods ranging from 60 million to 140 million years — far less rapidly than those brought on by human activity.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/earth%E2%80%99s-interior-cycles-contribute-long-term-sea-level-climate-change
Ancient Meteorite Crater Confirmed in Iowa
Recent airborne geophysical surveys near Decorah, Iowa are providing an unprecedented look at a 470-million-year-old meteorite crater concealed beneath bedrock and sediments.
The aerial surveys, a collaboration of the U.S. Geological Survey with the Iowa and Minnesota Geological Surveys, were conducted in the last 60 days to map geologic structures and assess the mineral and water resources of the region.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/03/ancient-meteorite-crater-confirmed-iowa
Researchers Study Earth’s Ancient Geochemistry
Researchers still have much to learn about the volcanism that shaped our planet’s early history. New evidence from a team led by Carnegie’s Frances Jenner demonstrates that some of the tectonic processes driving volcanic activity, such as those taking place today, were occurring as early as 3.8 billion years ago. Their work is published in Geology.
Upwelling and melting of the Earth’s mantle at mid-ocean ridges, as well as the eruption of new magmas on the seafloor, drive the continual production of the oceanic crust. As the oceanic crust moves away from the mid-ocean ridges and cools it becomes denser than the underlying mantle. Over time the majority of this oceanic crust sinks back into the mantle, which can trigger further volcanic eruptions. This process is known as subduction and it takes place at plate boundaries.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/01/researchers-study-earth%E2%80%99s-ancient-geochemistry
Ancient Ores Hold Clues to Early Life
An analysis of sulfide ore deposits from one of the world’s richest base-metal mines confirms that oxygen levels were extremely low on Earth 2.7 billion years ago, but also shows that microbes were actively feeding on sulfate in the ocean and influencing seawater chemistry during that geological time period.
The research, reported by a team of Canadian and U.S. scientists in Nature Geoscience, provides new insight into how ancient metal-ore deposits can be used to better understand the chemistry of the ancient oceans – and the early evolution of life.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/12/ancient-ores-hold-clues-early-life
