A new array of seismometers provides a glimpse of what’s happening deep beneath this geologic fault. New data help explain why the north and south of the region are more seismically active than the middle.
Long’s Peak framed by rock outcrop, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado.
Roy Luck
Scientists have long thought most nitrogen in Earth’s ecosystems comes from the air, but new research shows it also is released as rocks weather. This could boost plant growth and help sequester carbon – but not fast enough to avert climate change, as some pundits have claimed.
Seismic shockwaves after a meteorite’s collision could affect systems all over the planet.
solarseven/Shutterstock.com
Research suggests a new threat to life on Earth from the meteorite’s crash: Via seismic waves, the impact triggered massive undersea eruptions, as big as any ever seen in our planet’s history.
Fires break out across San Francisco after the April 18, 1906 earthquake.
USGS
According to current forecasts, California has a 93 percent chance of an earthquake with magnitude 7 or greater occurring by 2045. Early warning systems, now in development, could limit casualties and damage.
A new study has found a way to predict eruptions at Mount Etna within two weeks.
Searching for victims after a rain-triggered mudslide that blanketed a village and killed at least 178 people in north China’s Shanxi province, Sept. 13, 2008.
AP Photo/Andy Wong
A. Joshua West, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
While the Montecito, California mudslides took 20 lives, landslides kill far more people in developing countries. Tighter construction standards and early warning systems could help reduce their toll.
Where there’s smoke, there will be lava?
U.S. Geological Survey via AP
Why use satellites to study Earth’s climate? Researchers leading a new mission explain how images from space will help them analyze which parts of the Americas soak up the most carbon.
Artist’s impression of waterfalls pouring over the original land bridge connecting England with France.
CREDIT: Imperial College London/Chase Stone
President Trump’s 2018 budget request cuts funding for NASA Earth observation research and cancels four missions. Weather forecasters, businesses, scientists and the armed forces rely on this data.
You can only truly understand the weather by flying above the clouds.
NASA
Far from being “politicised science”, as a Trump advisor has claimed, NASA’s satellite monitoring has been a crucial help in understanding the planet we live on.
The Earth’s inner core is more than half a billion years older than previously thought, shows a study. The results could help us better understand the processes that shape the planet’s surface.
The House proposes slashing funding for earth science from NASA’s budget, yet this science is critical to understanding – and coping with – the dramatic effects of a warming Arctic around the world.
What can what’s on the moon tell us about our home planet?
NASA
The moon might harbor bits of the Earth that blasted off our planet billions of years ago. These lunar time capsules could hold secrets about conditions here at home back when life was first emerging.
One of the stalagmites used in this study. The blue-green fluorescence is due to the light from the camera flash.