A pioneering new computer model has been developed to simulate the whole chain of hazard events triggered by offshore mega subduction earthquakes, by a team involving UCL and Bristol engineers. (more…)
Earthquakes that happen deep beneath the earth’s surface have long been enigmatic to geologists. Now researchers from Brown University have shown strong evidence that water squeezed out of a mineral called lawsonite could trigger these mysterious quakes.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Geologists from Brown University may have finally explained what triggers certain earthquakes that occur deep beneath the Earth’s surface in subduction zones, regions where one tectonic plate slides beneath another. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA has selected a new mission, set to launch in 2016, that will take the first look into the deep interior of Mars to see why the Red Planet evolved so differently from Earth as one of our solar system’s rocky planets.
The new mission, named InSight, will place instruments on the Martian surface to investigate whether the core of Mars is solid or liquid like Earth’s, and why Mars’ crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth’s. Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve. (more…)
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…)
