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California Faults Moved Quietly After Baja Quake

By Guest PostMay 4, 2014Environmentandrea donnellan, atomarer nanoassembler, aus einem atom, blinder delfin, cultural psychologists, deep earthquakes, earthquake, earthquake cycle, east asians, gain face, give face, indus delfin, keishi okazaki, kilian singer, landslides, magnitude, moral purity, northern mexico, thomas bugnyar, uavsar, volcanoes, wie affen

A new NASA study finds that a major 2010 earthquake in northern Mexico triggered quiet, non-shaking motions on several Southern California faults that released as much energy as a magnitude 4.9 to 5.3 earthquake.

The quiet motion associated with the widely felt, magnitude 7.2 earthquake centered in northern Baja California in Mexico, in April 2010 was discovered in before-and-after radar images of the region made by a NASA airborne instrument that produces extremely accurate maps of Earth motions. The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR), which flies on a NASA C-20A aircraft from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center facility in Palmdale, Calif., allows scientists to see how locations on Earth’s surface change between repeat flights over the same spot. (more…)

New study reveals insights on plate tectonics, the forces behind earthquakes, volcanoes

By Guest PostMarch 24, 2014Scienceasthenosphere, caroline beghein, compositional boundary, ct, direction of flow, earth crust, earthquakes, evolution, force, geology, geophysical data, lithospheric plate, mantle, mid ocean ridge, nicholas schmerr, outer core, pacific plate, plate tectonics, rock composition, rocks, scans, seismic data, seismic tomography, seismic waves, subduction, tectonic force, university of maryland, volcanoes

The Earth’s outer layer is made up of a series of moving, interacting plates whose motion at the surface generates earthquakes, creates volcanoes and builds mountains. Geoscientists have long sought to understand the plates’ fundamental properties and the mechanisms that cause them to move and drift, and the questions have become the subjects of lively debate.

A study published online Feb. 27 by the journal Science is a significant step toward answering those questions. (more…)

NASA’s HyspIRI Sees the Forest for the Trees and More

By Guest PostApril 28, 2013Environment, Scienceairborne campaign, algal blooms, aviris, california, droughts, dryden aircraft, dynamics, ecosystems, environmental changes, er 2, forest, high altitude aircraft, hyperspectral infrared imager, hyspiri, imaging spectroscopy, methane emissions, NASA, operations facility, palmdale, petya campbell, quantitative assessments, robert green, season, simon hook, stephen ungar, surface of earth, surface phenomena, tree, volcanoes, wildfires

To Robert Green, light contains more than meets the eye: it contains fingerprints of materials that can be detected by sensors that capture the unique set of reflected wavelengths. Scientists have used the technique, called imaging spectroscopy, to learn about water on the moon, minerals on Mars and the composition of exoplanets. Green’s favorite place to apply the technique, however, is right here on the chemically rich Earth, which is just what he and colleagues achieved this spring during NASA’s Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) airborne campaign.

“We have ideas about what makes up Earth’s ecosystems and how they function,” said Green, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is principal investigator of the campaign’s Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) instrument. “But a comprehensive understanding requires us to directly measure these things and how they change over landscapes and from season to season.” (more…)

Mapping Volcanic Heat on Io

By Guest PostJune 11, 2012Scienceashley davies, bear fight institute, david williams, dennis matson, earth, erupting volcanoes, europa, floored volcanic craters, galileo mission, glenn veeder, heat flow, hot spots, io, jani radebaugh, journal icarus, jovian moon, life beyond earth, logarithmic scale, map, NASA, paterae, pattern of heat, thermal emission, torrence johnson, volcanic thermal emission, volcanoes

A new study finds that the pattern of heat coming from volcanoes on Io’s surface disposes of the generally-accepted model of internal heating. The heat pouring out of Io’s hundreds of erupting volcanoes indicates a complex, multi-layer source. These results come from data collected by NASA spacecraft and ground-based telescopes and appear in the June issue of the journal Icarus.

A map of hot spots, classified by the amount of heat being emitted, shows the global distribution and wide range of volcanic activity on Io. Most of Io’s eruptions dwarf their contemporaries on Earth. (more…)

When Continents Collide: A New Twist To a 50 Million-Year-Old Tale

By Guest PostMarch 1, 2012Scienceearth, earthquakes, eurasia, fifty million years, geological activity, geological history, geology, geomorphologist, geophysicist, highest mountain, himalaya mountains, India, indian plate, indian sub continent, jim erickson, marin clark, mountain building episode, northern india, northern tibet, plate boundaries, plate tectonics, post collisional motion, the himalaya, theory, tibet, tibetan plateau, university of michigan, volcanoes

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau.

India and Eurasia continue to converge today, though at an ever-slowing pace. University of Michigan geomorphologist and geophysicist Marin Clark wanted to know when this motion will end and why. She conducted a study that led to surprising findings that could add a new wrinkle to the well-established theory of plate tectonics – the dominant, unifying theory of geology. (more…)

NASA Airborne Radar Set to Image Hawaiian Volcano

By Guest PostApril 1, 2011Sciencebig island, earthquakes, eruption, glacier movements, gulfstream aircraft, hawaii, kilauea volcano, landslides, magma, NASA, pacific region, paul lundgren, rift zone, uavsar, uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar, volcanoes

PASADENA, Calif. – The Kilauea volcano that recently erupted on the Big Island of Hawaii will be the target for a NASA study to help scientists better understand processes occurring under Earth’s surface.

A NASA Gulfstream-III aircraft equipped with a synthetic aperture radar developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is scheduled to depart Sunday, April 3, from the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif., to the Big Island for a nine-day mission. (more…)

Volcanic Eruptions Affect Rainfall over Asian Monsoon Region

By Guest PostNovember 7, 2010Environment, Natureaffect, asian monsoon, climate, climate models, dinosaurs, el chichón, huaynaputina, indonesia, kevin anchukaitis, krakatau, mount pinatubo, neanderthals, particles, peru, Philippines, pinatubo, rainfall, solar energy, solar radiation, tambora eruption, tree ring lab, volcanic explosions, volcanoes, weather

Scientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and cool the air.

Some suspect that extended “volcanic winters” from gigantic eruptions helped kill off dinosaurs and Neanderthals.

In the summer following Indonesia’s 1815 Tambora eruption, frost wrecked crops as far away as New England, and the 1991 blowout of the Philippines’ Mount Pinatubo lowered average global temperatures by 0.7 degrees F — enough to mask the effects of greenhouse gases for a year or so. (more…)

Earth’s Highest Coastal Mountain on the Move

By Guest PostSeptember 20, 20101 commentScienceagustin cardona, camilo montes, caribbean sea, coastal mountain, Colombia, earth, ecopetrol energy company, geological basin, geological evolution, german ojeda, paleomagnetic, panama, peru, santa marta, sierra nevada de santa marta, smithsonian scientists, smithsonian tropical research institute, stri, volcanoes

The rocks of Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta—the highest coastal mountain on Earth—tell a fascinating tale: The mountain collides and then separates from former super-continents. Volcanoes are born and die. The mountain travels from Peru to northern Colombia and finally rotates in a clockwise direction to open up an entirely new geological basin. Smithsonian scientists were part of a four-year project to study Santa Marta’s geological evolution. Their findings are published in the October 2010 special issue of the Journal of South American Earth Sciences.

(more…)

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