Geology, Earthquakes & Volcanism News and Discussions

[weatheriscool]

Updated casualty figures:

TURKEY
38,044 dead, 108,068 injured

SYRIA
5,801 dead, 14,803 injured

TOTAL
43,845 dead, 122,871 injured

[caltrek]

Earthquake Scientists Have a New Tool in the Race to Find the Next Big One
February 16, 2023

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) An everyday quirk of physics could be an important missing piece in scientists' efforts to predict the world’s most powerful earthquakes.

In a study published in the journal Science, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin discovered that a frictional phenomenon could be key to understanding when and how violently faults move. That’s because the phenomenon, which explains why it takes more effort to shove a heavy box from a standstill than it does to keep it moving, governs how quickly the fault surfaces bond together, or heal, after an earthquake. A fault that is slow to heal is more likely to move harmlessly, while one that heals quickly is more likely to stick until it breaks in a large, damaging earthquake.

The discovery could be key to understanding when, and how violently, faults move. That alone won’t allow scientists to predict when the next big one will strike — the forces behind large earthquakes are too complex — but it does give researchers a valuable new way to investigate the causes and potential for a large, damaging earthquake to happen, the authors said.

“The same physics and logic should apply to all different kinds of faults around the world,” said the study’s co-lead author Demian Saffer, director of the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics at the Jackson School of Geosciences. “With the right samples and field observations we can now start to make testable predictions about how big and how often large seismic slip events might occur on other major faults, like Cascadia in the Pacific Northwest.”

To make the discovery, researchers devised a test that combined rocks from a well-studied fault off the coast of New Zealand and a computer model, to successfully calculate that a harmless kind of “slow motion” earthquake would happen every few years because the clay-rich rocks within the fault are very slow to heal.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/980049

Of related interest: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/979928

[caltrek]

Why Were the Turkey and Syria Earthquakes So Damaging?
by Jessica Colarossi
February 13, 2023

(Futurity Here, she (Rachel Abercrombie, a research professor of earth and environment at Boston University) puts the cascading devastation into context, and talks about why the region is at high risk for earthquakes and what can be done to warn people about an impending shake before it’s too late: https://www.futurity.org/earthquakes-tu ... h-2873912/

[Xyls]

BREAKING:

Another 6.4M earthquake just hit the Hatay region of Turkey.



Reports of buildings collapsing again.

[Xyls]

Shake map is showing different areas at risk for this one per the USGS. Preliminary estimates from this earthquake are suggesting somewhere between 100-10k fatalities likely. This was a very shallow earthquake. Hopefully, this is on the low end... but we will have to see. Any damages compromised in the previous earthquake are likely coming down in this one. Potentially up to 100 million dollars in damage.

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes ... jqcn/pager





Update:

[weatheriscool]

Scientists have discovered a new core at the center of the Earth
Source: Washington Post

Back in my day, there were only four layers of Earth: the crust, mantle, liquid outer core and solid inner core. Now, scientists have revealed a new, distinct layer within our planet’s inner core, which could help inform the evolution of Earth’s magnetic field.
Want to know how your actions can help make a difference for our planet? Sign up for the Climate Coach newsletter, in your inbox every Tuesday and Thursday.

In a new study released this week, a pair of seismologists at the Australian National University documented new evidence of a 400-mile thick solid metallic ball at the center of Earth’s inner core — like the smallest figurine of a massive, planetary Russian nesting doll set. The new layer consists of an iron-nickel alloy, like other parts of the core. But it has a different crystal structure that causes shock waves from earthquakes to reverberate through the layer at different speeds than the surrounding core, the study found.

“Clearly, the innermost inner core has something different from the outer layer,” said Thanh-Son Pham, lead author of the study. “We think that the way the atoms are [packed] in these two regions are a slightly different.”

Researchers study the inner core to better understand Earth’s magnetic field, which protects us from harmful radiation in space and helps make life possible on our home planet. Geophysicists surmise the inner core could have formed less than a billion years ago, which is relatively young on a geologic time scale. The study authors explain the inner core grows outward by solidifying materials from the liquid outer core, releasing heat and creating convection currents. This convection generates Earth’s magnetic field.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate- ... llic-ball/

[weatheriscool]

Source: AP

By GONZALO SOLANO 26 minutes ago

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A strong earthquake shook the region around Ecuador’s second-largest city on Saturday, killing at least one person, damaging homes and buildings, and sending panicked residents into the streets.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 in the country’s coastal Guayas region. It was centered about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Guayaquil, which anchors a metro area of over 3 million people.

The South American country’s emergency response agency, the Risk Management Secretariat, reported one person died in the Andean community of Cuenca. The victim was a passenger in a vehicle trapped under the rubble of a house.

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/ecuador-eart ... a3b81f01ea

[caltrek]

Study Re-evaluates Hazards and Climate Impacts of Massive Underwater Volcanic Eruptions
April 11 , 2023

Introduction:

(Eureka Alert) Material left on the seafloor by bronze-age underwater volcanic eruptions is helping researchers better understand the size, hazards and climate impact of their parent eruptions, according to new research from the University of British Columbia.

Roughly 3,600 years ago, the eruption of a semi-submerged volcano in the southern Aegean Sea devastated the island of Santorini, injecting ash, rocks and gas into the atmosphere and depositing kilometres of sediment in terraces on the seafloor.

The catastrophic eruption, and others like it, have traditionally been associated with abrupt climate shifts. But the minor climate impacts of more recent underwater volcanic eruptions, like that of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai in 2022, have put that theory in doubt.

Now a multi-year study of ancient Santorini volcano deposits is unravelling the nature of these massive caldera-forming eruptions, and providing new clues as to how future eruptions might impact Earth’s climate.

During massive eruptions, volcanic eruption columns pass through shallow seas as jets of ash, rocks and gases that rise tens of kilometres into the atmosphere. But exactly how, and how much, of that material is then delivered to the sea surface or ground has remained unclear.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/985502

Our findings enable an explicit classification of submarine caldera-forming explosive eruption dynamics and quantitative estimates of eruption rates from their terraced deposits.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01160-z

[caltrek]

A New Study Finds That the Magnitude of the 2023 Turkish Earthquake Matches the Largest in its History
April 10, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) On February 6, 2023, two powerful earthquakes successively occurred in Turkey, resulting in significant damage and loss of life across southeast Turkey and northwest Syria. As a fundamental parameter, their magnitudes are of great interest to the scientific community and the general public at large.

Currently, reported magnitude results for the two events have significant discrepancies, and the difference in magnitude between them is highly uncertain (between 0.1 and 0.4), which requires further revisions.

Aiming to address that gap, a team of researchers led by Professor Xiaodong Song of Peking University used a novel and reliable long-period coda moment magnitude method to measure the magnitudes and relative sizes of the two events.

“The moment magnitudes obtained were 7.95 and 7.86, higher than the other published results," shared Prof Song, who is the corresponding of the paper. "The first mainshock was slightly stronger than the second with an estimated difference of 0.11. This corresponds to one of the largest tremors in over 2,000 years of Turkish history."

Furthermore, the researchers found that the two large earthquakes were rare large continental earthquake doublets—two or more large earthquakes occurring in close proximity and at short time intervals—as such events occasionally occur in subduction zones and rarely on the continent. The pair of earthquakes also appear to be the most powerful doublet ever to occur on land.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/985631

[wjfox]

Tonga volcano explosion equalled most powerful ever US nuclear test

Fri 14 Apr 2023 19.00 BST

A huge underwater volcanic event in Tonga last year was of a magnitude comparable with the most powerful nuclear detonation by the US, researchers have revealed.

Scientists have used eye and earwitnesses accounts, along with data from tide gauges, satellites, evidence of broken windows and other sources, to calculate that the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano, which occurred on 15 January 2022 and was felt around the world, likely involved five blasts. The last of them released energy equivalent to about 15 megatonnes of TNT.

That is around 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, and puts the volcanic event on a par with the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the US: the Castle Bravo bomb detonated at Bikini Atoll in 1954.

The team, based at institutions in the US and New Zealand, added that the volcanic event, which occurred 65km (40 miles) from the country’s main island, involved both eruptions – which resulted in huge volcanic plumes being thrust into the stratosphere – and explosions of steam, which caused sonic booms and were the main cause of the related tsunami.

The researchers’ computer simulations of the event, based on a combination of data sources, suggest the western coast of Tofua Island experienced waves of up to 45 metres in height, a result they say is backed up by signs of vegetation scars at the same altitude captured by satellite and drone data.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... clear-test



Reuters

[weatheriscool]

Radar satellite data reveals 19,000 previously unknown undersea volcanoes
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-radar-sat ... known.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of oceanographers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, working with a colleague from Chungnam National University and another from the University of Hawaii, has mapped 19,000 previously unknown undersea volcanoes in the world's oceans using radar satellite data. In their paper published in the journal Earth and Space Science, the group describes how they used radar satellite data to measure seawater mounding to find and map undersea volcanoes and explains why it is important that it be done.

The ocean floor, like dry land masses, features a wide variety of terrain. And as with dry land, features that truly stand out are mountains—in the ocean they are called seamounts. And as on land, they can be created by tectonic plates pushing against one another, or by volcanos erupting. Currently, just one-fourth of the sea floor has been mapped, which means that no one knows how many seamounts exist, or where they might be. This can be a problem for submarines—twice U.S. submarines have collided with seamounts, putting such vehicles and their crew at risk. But not knowing where the seamounts are located presents another problem. It prevents oceanographers from creating models depicting the flow of oceanwater around the world.

In this new effort, the research team set themselves the task of discovering and mapping as many seamounts as possible, and to do it, they used data from radar satellites. Such satellites cannot actually see the seamounts, of course, instead they measure the altitude of the sea surface, which changes due to changes in gravitational pull related to seafloor topography; an effect known as sea mounding. In so doing, they found 19,000 previously unknown seamounts.

[weatheriscool]

Magnitude 7.3 earthquake hits Indonesia, triggers tsunami warning
REUTERS
PUBLISHED 2 HOURS AGO
UPDATED 1 HOUR AGO

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/a ... i-warning/

"SNIP........

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck west of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island on Tuesday, Indonesia’s geophysics agency (BMKG) said, triggering a tsunami warning.

The European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) earlier pegged the quake at 6.9 magnitude.

The quake, at 84 kilometre (52.2 miles) depth, triggered an initial tsunami warning, the country’s meteorological department added. The agency asked local authorities to immediately instruct residents of the affected area to stay away from shores.

Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency said authorities are collecting data from the islands nearest the epicentre, off the western shore of Sumatra, spokesperson Abdul Muhari said.

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

This article is slightly dated, but better late than never. (Especially since there have been no posts in this thread dated later than May 25, 2023).

Volcano Rumbles Near Mexico City, Coating Towns With Ash, Disrupting Flights
by Megan Janetsky
May 25, 2023

Introduction:

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Towering a couple of hours from one of the world’s largest cities, the Popocatepetl volcano has been coating nearby towns with ash and disrupting flights at Mexico City’s airport, the busiest in Latin America.

Hundreds of explosions have spit lava from the snow-tipped peak of the 17,797-foot Popocatepetl (puh-puh-ka-TEH-pet-tl). Approximately 25 million people live within 60 miles of the mountain. Volcanologists say that, while a massive eruption doesn’t appear imminent, eruptions are likely to continue, as they have for three decades.

What Is Happening With the Popocatepetl Volcano?

There has been a surge of activity since 1994 at the volcano affectionately known as “Popo,” which is being tracked by scientists at Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM).

It has had periods of intense activity between 2000 and 2003, and again between 2012 and 2016. In 2000, that activity triggered a red alert and evacuations before the volcano calmed down again.

In the past weeks, the volcano entered another one of those periods. Spewing ash, gas and lava, authorities have increased the alert to yellow, the second level on a stoplight-style scale, but not yet to red.

Read more here: https://www.latinorebels.com/2023/05/2 ... yvolcano/

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Campi Flegrei volcano edges closer to possible eruption

by University College London
https://phys.org/news/2023-06-campi-fle ... loser.html

The Campi Flegrei volcano in southern Italy has become weaker and more prone to rupturing, making an eruption more likely, according to a new study by researchers at UCL (University College London) and Italy's National Research Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV).

The volcano, which last erupted in 1538, has been restless for more than 70 years, with two-year spikes of unrest in the 1950s, 1970s and 1980s, and a slower phase of unrest over the last decade. Tens of thousands of small earthquakes have occurred during these periods and the coastal town of Pozzuoli has been lifted by nearly 4 m (13 ft), roughly the height of a double-decker bus.

The new study, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, used a model of volcano fracturing, developed at UCL, to interpret the patterns of earthquakes and ground uplift, and concluded that parts of the volcano had been stretched nearly to breaking point.

Lead author Professor Christopher Kilburn (UCL Earth Sciences) said, "Our new study confirms that Campi Flegrei is moving closer to rupture. However, this does not mean an eruption is guaranteed. The rupture may open a crack through the crust, but the magma still needs to be pushing up at the right location for an eruption to occur."

[weatheriscool]

Tonga Volcano Eruption Created Highest Lightning Rates Ever Recorded On Earth

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidbress ... 6047ff2c6f



https://universeodon.com/@JenLucPiquant ... 7890722225

New research shows that the plume emitted by the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruption on January 15, 2022, created the highest lightning flash rates ever recorded on Earth, more than any storm ever documented.

"The eruption of Hunga Volcano was the largest volcanic explosion since Krakatau in 1883," said atmospheric physicist Sonja Behnke, of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Electromagnetic Sciences and Cognitive Space Applications group and author on the paper. It was a phreatoplinian eruption, which occurs when a large volume of magma erupts through water. Previously, this eruption style was only known from the geological record and had never been observed with modern instrumentation according to a news statement by the American Geophysical Union.

Powerful volcanic eruptions produce ash plumes that can create huge amounts of static electricity, produced by movements and collisions between ash particles, and even their own weather systems, providing the conditions for lightning at higher altitudes than normally seen. When the undersea volcano in Tonga erupted, it created a plume that went more than 25 miles higher than typical thunderstorms. Lightning was observed at stratospheric altitudes (12 to 18 miles), where the air pressure is too low to support thunderstorm-like lightning. This fast-rising volcanic plume may have created locally higher pressures to support the environment necessary for lightning.

After reaching its maximum height, the plume expanded outward as an umbrella cloud, creating fast-moving circular ripples known as gravity waves, similar to a rock dropped in a pond. Donut-shaped rings of lightning expanded with the umbrella cloud and were as large as 174 miles in diameter. Similar "lightning holes" have been observed in thunderstorms, but never on this large of a scale.

[caltrek]

Lasering Lava to Forecast Volcanic Eruptions
July 5, 2023

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) University of Queensland researchers have optimised a new technique to help forecast how volcanoes will behave, which could save lives and property around the world.

Dr Teresa Ubide from UQ’s School of the Environment and a team of international collaborators have trialled a new application of the tongue-twisting approach: laser ablation inductively coupled plasma quadruple mass spectrometry.

“It’s a mouthful, but this high-resolution technique offers clearer data on what’s chemically occurring within a volcano’s magma, which is fundamental to forecasting eruption patterns and changes,” Dr Ubide said.

Conclusion:

The team is now trialling a similar technique on volcanic ash, which can be sampled more readily during a volcanic event.

“We are excited to collaborate with volcano observatories to implement the method as a monitoring tool,” Dr Ubide said.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/994385