Latest Mantle plume Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The geologic formation of the supervolcano encompassing the Yellowstone National Park region has been the subject of much debate. A new study, led by the University of Rhode Island's Professor Christopher Kincaid, provides new evidence that may put an end to the debate by demonstrating both sides may be right. The international team of scientists used a state-of-the-art plate tectonic laboratory to show the volcanism in the...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers wrote in a newspaper published by the American Geophysical Union that Earth's interior cycles have contributed to long-term sea-level rises and climate change. New York University and Ottawa's Carleton University scientists say activity below the earth's surface has played a role before in ancient rises in sea levels and global warming. Although it may seem like welcoming news for climate change skeptics, the authors...
Technique provides insight into ancient formation of underwater plateau Scientists have long used the speed of seismic waves traveling through the Earth as a means of learning about the geologic structure beneath the Earth's surface, but the seismic waves they use have typically been generated by earthquakes or man-made explosions. A University of Rhode Island graduate student is using the tiny seismic waves created by ocean waves crashing on shorelines around the world to learn how an...
On a time scale of tens to hundreds of millions of years, the geomagnetic field may be influenced by currents in the mantle. The frequent polarity reversals of Earth's magnetic field can also be connected with processes in the mantle. These are the research results presented by a group of geoscientists in the new advance edition of "Nature Geoscience" on Sunday, July 29th. The results show how the rapid processes in the outer core, which flows at rates of up to about one millimeter per...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Most volcanoes are situated where continental plates shift against each other. This is where the continental crust is weakened, allowing magma to break through to the surface. The Pacific "Ring of Fire" exhibits this kind of plate movement, resulting in powerful earthquakes and multiple active volcanoes. Volcanic hotspots, however, are of a completely different nature because most of them are far away from plate boundaries. The...
New Geology articles posted online ahead of print June 15 Orange-like rocks in Utah with iron-oxide rinds and fossilized bacteria inside that are believed to have eaten the interior rock material, plus noted similarities to "bacterial meal" ingredients and rock types on Mars; fine-tuning the prediction of volcanic hazards and warning systems for both high population zones and at Tristan da Cunha, home to the most remote population on Earth; news from SAFOD; and discovery in Germany of the...
Topics in the 26 March posting of GEOLOGY include anthropogenic impacts on the Indus River into the Arabian Sea; possible electrical conductivity beneath the Yellowstone hotspot track; mountain-forming volcanoes and deadly debris flows; melting beneath the Colorado Plateau; widespread weathered glass on Mars; and a new view into Mars' global aqueous history. GEOLOGY articles published ahead of print can be accessed online at http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/recent. When articles...
A layer of partially molten rock about 22 to 75 miles underground can't be the only mechanism that allows continents to gradually shift their position over millions of years, according to a NASA-sponsored researcher. The result gives insight into what allows plate tectonics – the movement of the Earth's crustal plates – to occur. "This melt-rich layer is actually quite spotty under the Pacific Ocean basin and surrounding areas, as revealed by my analysis of seismometer data," says Dr....
Scientists interested in the construction of the rock layers immediately under the Earth’s crust, the lithosphere and asthenosphere, have new tools to help analyze these layers and further understand plate tectonics. The researchers have been using seismic waves to study the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary, or LAB. This boundary is where the hot, convecting mantle asthenosphere and the overlying cold and rigid lithosphere meet. It has been found that seismic waves move faster...
