A mineral-dating project at the Toba caldera in Indonesia sheds light on the science of supereruptions.
Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Explaining Why Some Paleomagnetic Results Fail
Reordering of mineral crystal lattice structures during laboratory heating may explain the frequent need to reject results of experiments that estimate the intensity of Earth's past magnetic fields.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Tracking Volcanic Bombs in Three Dimensions
A new method allows researchers to precisely track in three dimensions bits of fragmented magma as they are expelled in explosive volcanic eruptions.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Exploring Ancient Ocean Acidification in the Rock Record
Scientists studying Earth's ancient oceans use a new method to measure ocean acidification and its effect on extinction events.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Alteration Along the Alpine Fault Helps Build Seismic Strain
Detailed analysis of cores drilled through New Zealand's most dangerous on-land fault indicates that its permeability and strength are altered by mineral precipitation between seismic events.
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Fingerprinting the Source of Fore-Arc Fluids
A new model tracks boron and other tracers in fluids expelled from subducting slabs to help identify the fluids' source regions and migration routes.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Deep Drilling Reveals Puzzling History of Campi Flegrei Caldera
Results show that caldera collapse attributed to a super eruption almost 40,000 years ago was smaller than what scientists expected. So what might have really happened?
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A Significantly Hotter Mantle Beneath Iceland
Estimates of crystallization temperatures from four eruptions in northern Iceland offer improved constraints on the mantle's temperature beneath this anomalous divergent plate boundary.
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Seismological Models Are Biased, but Scientists Have a Solution
Many seismic wave models are based on an erroneous assumption about the Earth's interior. A new technique corrects this by eliminating false signals produced by models.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Revising the Displacement History of New Zealand's Alpine Fault
A reinterpretation of structural and paleomagnetic data suggests that New Zealand's Alpine Fault accommodates a far greater percentage of geologically recent plate motion than previously thought.