molten rock – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

New View of Rainier’s Volcanic Plumbing

By Guest PostSeptember 16, 2014Sciencebank of montreal, beat bannwart, bernd laber, caixabank, cocktail geoengineering, commerzbank, ct scans, earth, electricity, erste group, fabio keller, jeffrey shell, jordi fontanals, juvenile remains, magnetic fields, molten rock, mount rainier, patrick goetz, reservoir, ring of fire, seismic waves, tectonic plates, trade finance platform, ubs, university of utah, zone

Electrical Images Show Upward Flow of Fluids to Magma Chamber

By measuring how fast Earth conducts electricity and seismic waves, a University of Utah researcher and colleagues made a detailed picture of Mount Rainier’s deep volcanic plumbing and partly molten rock that will erupt again someday.

“This is the most direct image yet capturing the melting process that feeds magma into a crustal reservoir that eventually is tapped for eruptions,” says geophysicist Phil Wannamaker, of the university’s Energy & Geoscience Institute and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “But it does not provide any information on the timing of future eruptions from Mount Rainier or other Cascade Range volcanoes.” (more…)

Magma can survive in upper crust for hundreds of millennia

By Guest PostSeptember 1, 2013Scienceandes mountains, cascades range, craggy granite formation, crystallization, francisco gutierrez, hawaii, heat conductivity, hundreds of millennia, kilauea volcano, magma, modeling research, molten rock, mount pinatubo, mount st helens, national scientiﬁc, olivier bachmann, oozing, pacific northwest, period, Philippines, plutonic magma, plutonic rock, reservoir, Santiago, sarah gelman, silica rich magma, south america, survive, temperature dependent, universidad de chile, university of washington, upper crust, volcanic arcs, volcanic eruptions, volcanic magma, washington state, yellowstone national park, yosemite national park

Reservoirs of silica-rich magma – the kind that causes the most explosive volcanic eruptions – can persist in Earth’s upper crust for hundreds of thousands of years without triggering an eruption, according to new University of Washington modeling research.

That means an area known to have experienced a massive volcanic eruption in the past, such as Yellowstone National Park, could have a large pool of magma festering beneath it and still not be close to going off as it did 600,000 years ago.

“You might expect to see a stewing magma chamber for a long period of time and it doesn’t necessarily mean an eruption is imminent,” said Sarah Gelman, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences. (more…)

Lunar impacts created seas of molten rock

By Guest PostMarch 25, 2013Scienceanalysis of data, apollo moon rocks, apollo program, brown university, crust, differentiation, differentiation processes, fluid rock, geological sciences, james w head, laser altimeter, liquid rock, lola, luna missions, lunar crust, lunar magma ocean, lunar orbiter, magma ocean paradigm, mantle, maunder crater, melt sea, model, molten rock, moon, NASA, orientale basin, orientale melt, planetary geologist, pristine rocks, remote sensing data, rock forming processes, rock layers, russia, william vaughan

A new analysis of data from NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) shows that molten rock may have been present on the Moon more recently and for longer periods than previously thought. Differentiation — a settling out of rock layers as liquid rock cools — would require thousands of years and a fluid rock sea at least six miles deep.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Early in the Moon’s history an ocean of molten rock covered its entire surface. As that lunar magma ocean cooled over millions of years, it differentiated to form the Moon’s crust and mantle. But according to a new analysis by planetary scientists from Brown University, this wasn’t the last time the Moon’s surface was melted on a massive scale. (more…)

Some Earthquakes Expected Along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado And New Mexico, New Study Says

By Guest PostJanuary 15, 2012Environmentactive, anne sheehan, anthony lowry, colorado plateau, earth, earthquake hazards, earthquakes, fault bounded basins, fort collins, frederick blume, garden city, geologically alive, geologists, global positioning system, gps, magnitude, mark murray, Mexico, molten rock, nanostrain, new mexico tech, rates of deformation, rio grande rift, rise of magma, spreading motion, steven nerem, surface coloradom rocky mountains, unavco, university of colorado boulder, university of new mexico, western great plains

The Rio Grande Rift, a thinning and stretching of Earth’s surface that extends from Colorado’s central Rocky Mountains to Mexico, is not dead but geologically alive and active, according to a new study involving scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

“We don’t expect to see a lot of earthquakes, or big ones, but we will have some earthquakes,” said CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Anne Sheehan, also a fellow at CIRES. The study also involved collaborators from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech, Utah State University and the Boulder-headquartered UNAVCO. The Rio Grande Rift follows the path of the Rio Grande River from central Colorado roughly to El Paso before turning southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico. (more…)

Cassini Spots Potential Ice Volcano on Saturn Moon

By Guest PostDecember 15, 20101 commentScience3 d map, cassini, cassini huygens mission, cassini radar images, cassini spacecraft, cryovolcanoes, earth, enceladus, erupts, flagstaff, ice, ice volcanoes, Iceland, italy, jeffrey kargel, laki, molten rock, moon, mt etna, NASA, randolph kirk, saturn, solar system, sotra facula, subterranean geological activity, titan, topography, volcanic topography

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has found possible ice volcanoes on Saturn’s moon Titan that are similar in shape to those on Earth that spew molten rock.

Topography and surface composition data have enabled scientists to make the best case yet in the outer solar system for an Earth-like volcano landform that erupts in ice. The results were presented on December 14 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. (more…)

Tag Archives: molten rock

New View of Rainier’s Volcanic Plumbing

Magma can survive in upper crust for hundreds of millennia

Lunar impacts created seas of molten rock

Some Earthquakes Expected Along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado And New Mexico, New Study Says

Cassini Spots Potential Ice Volcano on Saturn Moon