University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa geologist Kenneth Rubin is among the first scientists to witness exploding rock and molten lava from a deep sea volcano, seen during a 2009 expedition. He is co-author of a paper reporting that the eruption was near a tear in the Earth’s crust that is mimicking the birth of a subduction zone.
Scientists on the expedition collected boninite, a rare, chemically distinct lava that accompanies the formation of Earth’s subduction zones. (more…)
The mystery of how the world’s largest living reptile – the estuarine crocodile – has come to occupy so many South Pacific islands separated by huge stretches of ocean despite being a poor swimmer has at last been solved by a group of Australian ecologists.
