Volcano Monitoring Program Searches Iceland For Early Signs Of Eruptions
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A new collaborative project called FutureVolc is aimed at trying to improve monitoring of Iceland's volcanoes. FutureVolc started October 1, 2012 and is funded by the Environmental/FP7...
Latest Plate tectonics Stories
President Obama Vows to Foster SME Growth in Latin America MIAMI, May 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Latin Trade Group, the leading provider of information and business services to companies operating in Latin America, announces the participation of leaders of top multinational companies as panelists at the second annual Trade Americas Expo: Creating an Environment for Business Opportunities in the Hemisphere. Hosted in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) at the JW...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Researchers writing in the journal Geophysical Research Letters say the western Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami hazard potential is greater than scientists had originally predicted. Scientists from the University of Southampton say the risk from undersea earthquakes and tsunami beneath the Arabian Sea at the Makran subduction zone was underestimated. They said their findings highlight the need for further investigation of...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Authorities in Mexico have raised the alert level for towns in two central states and the capital after an increased amount of explosive activity has occurred at Popocatepetl volcano, Mexico’s second highest peak at 17,900 feet. The volcano, which sits about 50 miles southeast of the capital, began spewing steam and lava Saturday evening. Mexico’s National Disaster Prevention Center said an increase in activity was likely to...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online First mentioned in two dialogues (Timaeus and Critias) by Plato in 360 BC, the legendary island of Atlantis has long been sought by historians, archaeologists, and explorers alike. Said to have originally existed between South America and Africa, this sunken island has been searched for in no less than dozens of locations worldwide, from Bimini to the Black Sea. In a new twist, a team of scientists from Brazil and Japan say they...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online By using both optical and thermal sensing instruments onboard the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM) satellite, NASA scientists were able to create a comprehensive image of the Pacific’s Paluweh volcano in mid-eruption. Taken on April 29, 2013, the images show the island volcano with a plume of ash appearing to drift northwest and over Indonesia's Flores Sea. While the satellite's Operational Land Imager detected the white cloud...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online One of the Philippines most active volcanoes roared to life early Tuesday sending a cloud of ash and rocks into the morning sky. Mount Mayon, which sits about 206 miles southeast of the capital of Manila, killed five people and injured several others during the brief eruption. Eduardo del Rosario of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) confirmed that the blast killed five and injured seven. The...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An Alaskan volcano roared to life on Saturday spewing a cloud of ash, steam and gas into the atmosphere, potentially disrupting a major air traffic route, according to scientists. The Cleveland Volcano, which sits at the western end of Chuginadak Island (part of the Aleutian Islands), erupted in at least three low-level explosions that were not severe enough to cause significant threats to air travel, but did force federal...
University of British Columbia Detailed mapping and sampling of the partially eroded Kima' Kho tuya in northern British Columbia, Canada shows that the ancient regional ice sheet through which the volcano erupted was twice as thick as previously estimated Deposits left by the eruption of a subglacial volcano, or tuya, 1.8 million years ago could hold the secret to more accurate palaeo-glacial and climate models, according to new research by University of British Columbia geoscientists....
[ Watch the Video: What is a Volcano? ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Recognizing well-established patterns of pre-eruption unrest in monitoring data is vital in volcanic eruption forecasting. To develop better monitoring procedures, however, understanding volcanic eruptions that deviate from these patterns is crucial as well. Diana Roman from the Carnegie Institution for Science led a research team that retrospectively documented and analyzed the period...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online For a long time now, scientists have been convinced that lava that has erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains material from the crust of early Earth, but decisive evidence has been elusive. A new study, published in the journal Nature, reveals that oceanic volcanic rocks contain samples of recycled crust dating back to the Archean era 2.5 billion years ago. Oceanic crust sinks below the Earth's mantle where two tectonic...
Latest Plate tectonics Reference Libraries
The Pacific Ring of Fire, or Ring of Fire for short, is an area where a large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 25,000 mile horseshoe shape, it’s associated with an almost continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic belts, volcanic arcs and/or plate movement. The Ring of Fire contains 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75 percent of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes. It’s sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the...
Alfred Lothar Wegener (November 1, 1880 "“ November 2, 1930) was a German scientist, geologist, and meteorologist. He is best known for establishing the theory of the continental drift. His 1915 theory of continental drift surmised that the continents were slowly floating around the Earth. Most of his basis was strictly circumstantial evidence, and further he was not able to exhibit a mechanism for continental drift, which resulted in an unaccepted hypothesis until the 1950s. At that...
Peridotite is a dense, coarse grained ultrabasic rock, consisting mainly of the minerals olivine and pyroxene. Peridotite is also a group of mantle derived igneous rocks. They all are ultramafic or ultrabasic meaning they contain less than 45% silica and are high in iron and magnesium. Members of the peridotite family include: Dunite - predominately composed of olivine, with minor enstatite pyroxene and chromite. Harzburgite - composed of olivine, enstatite, and minor chromite....
Scoria is a term used by geologists to describe an igneous rock containing many gas bubbles, or vesicules. Scoria forms when magma rich in dissolved gases is vented. As the magma encounters lower pressures, the gasses are able to escape and form bubbles. These bubbles are trapped when the magma cools and solidifies. Volcanic cones of scoria can be left behind after eruptions, usually forming mountains with a crater at the summit. An example is Mount Wellington, Auckland in New Zealand....
Earth -- in geology and astronomy, fifth largest planet of the solar system and the only planet definitely known to support life. Gravitational forces have molded the earth, like all celestial bodies, into a spherical shape. However, the earth is not an exact sphere, being slightly flattened at the poles and bulging at the equator. The equatorial diameter is c.7,926 mi (12,760 km) and the polar diameter 7,900 mi (12,720 km); the circumference at the equator is c.24,830 mi (40,000 km)....
