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25 September 2019
Historic earthquakes suggest Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt’s quiet regions are active
Seemingly low-hazard seismic regions in Mexico have experienced multiple, strong earthquakes since the 1500s, new research finds, suggesting the regions have many unmapped, active fault lines. The areas are inside the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, home to roughly 40 percent of Mexico’s population, who may be unaware of the land’s seismic history.
8 August 2019
Ten Years of Icy Data Show the Flow of Heat from the Arctic Seafloor
Scientists have taken the temperature of a huge expanse of seafloor in the Arctic Ocean. The study is accompanied by the release of a large marine heat flow dataset collected by the USGS from an ice island drifting in the Arctic Ocean between 1963 and 1973. These never-before-published data greatly expand the number of marine heat flow measurements in the high Arctic Ocean.
16 May 2019
Earthquake in 2009 intensified American Samoa’s rising sea levels
The 2009, magnitude-8.1 Samoa earthquake dealt a great deal of damage to the Samoan Islands: Tsunami waves as high as 14 meters (46 feet) wiped out multiple villages, claiming nearly 200 lives and severely damaging water and electrical systems. New research reveals the damage is likely to continue in the island Tutuila, also known as American Samoa.
7 May 2019
Roman mining activities polluted European air more heavily than previously thought
Roman-era mining activities increased atmospheric lead concentrations by at least a factor of 10, polluting air over Europe more heavily and for longer than previously thought, according to a new analysis of ice cores taken from glaciers on France’s Mont Blanc.
4 March 2019
Seemingly dormant geologic fault damaged famous Roman buildings 1,500 years ago
A geologic fault system in central Italy that produced a deadly earthquake in 2016 is also responsible for a fifth-century earthquake that damaged many Roman monuments, including the Colosseum, according to new research. The Mount Vettore fault system, which winds through Italy’s Apennine Mountains, ruptured in the middle of the night on August 24, 2016. The magnitude 6.2 earthquake it generated killed nearly 300 people and destroyed several villages in the surrounding region. The fault ruptured again in October 2016, producing two more earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 6.
17 July 2018
New magnetic anomaly map helps unveil Antarctica
The most comprehensive magnetic map of Antarctica ever produced was published online this week in a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
4 October 2017
New study explains how continents leave their roots behind
In some areas of the seafloor, a tectonic mystery lies buried deep underground. The ocean floor contains some of the newest rock on Earth, but underneath these young oceanic plates are large swatches of much older continents that have been dislocated from their continental plates and overtaken by the younger, denser oceanic plate. Researchers have been puzzled by this phenomenon for some time: how does a continental plate leave some of itself behind?
30 August 2017
Computer earthquake prediction in lab shows promise
By listening to the acoustic signal emitted by a laboratory-created earthquake, a computer science approach using machine learning can predict the time remaining before the fault fails. Not only does the work have potential significance to earthquake forecasting, but the approach is far-reaching, applicable to potentially all failure scenarios, including avalanches and other events.
2 March 2017
Historic earthquakes discovered along San Andreas Fault
A new U.S. Geological Survey study offers a view into the past behavior of large earthquakes along the southern San Andreas Fault. In the study, USGS geologist Kate Scharer and her team excavated trenches across the fault near Frazier Mountain in northeastern Ventura County. This section of the San Andreas previously had no long paleoearthquake record. The researchers found evidence of 10 ground-rupturing earthquakes on this section of the fault between 800 A.D. and the last rupture in 1857.
15 November 2016
New maps reveal safe locations for wastewater injection
Geophysicists have compiled the most detailed maps yet of the geologic forces controlling the locations, types and magnitudes of earthquakes in Texas and Oklahoma. These new “stress maps” provide insight into the nature of the faults associated with recent temblors, many of which appear to have been triggered by the injection of wastewater deep underground.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.