— Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are developing robots to explore volcanoes
— VolcanoBot 1 was tested at Kilauea volcano in Hawaii
— A lighter, smaller VolcanoBot 2 will be tested this year
Volcanoes have always fascinated Carolyn Parcheta. She remembers a pivotal moment watching a researcher take a lava sample on a science TV program video in 6th grade. (more…)
It is not unusual for swarms of small earthquakes to precede a volcanic eruption. They can reach a point of such rapid succession that they create a signal called harmonic tremor that resembles sound made by various types of musical instruments, though at frequencies much lower than humans can hear. (more…)
Study simulating pressures in mantle beneath the ocean floor shows that rocks can melt at depths up to 250 kilometers
Magma forms far deeper than geologists previously thought, according to new research results.
A team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University put very small samples of peridotite, rock derived from Earth’s mantle, under high pressures in a laboratory.
The scientists found that the rock can and does liquify, at least in small amounts, at pressures equivalent to those found as deep as 250 kilometers down in the mantle beneath the ocean floor. (more…)
