Earth Sciences

Although volcanic eruptions are spectacular natural events that occur around the world every day, most volcanoes spend the majority of their time not erupting. To accurately forecast volcanic activity, it’s important to characterize the magma […]

The magma reservoir of the largest volcanic eruption of the Holocene is refilling. This Kobe University insight on the Kikai caldera in Japan allows us to understand giant caldera volcanoes like Yellowstone or Toba more […]

New research from a team at Trinity College Dublin has unearthed a cheap and environmentally friendly new option for removing pollutants from our water. The key? Oyster shells that would ordinarily end up in landfill […]

The Phlegraean Fields volcanic complex, located beneath the metropolitan area of Naples—a city of 900,000 inhabitants in Italy—has been rising increasingly since 2005, accompanied by a growing number of small earthquakes. This development has been […]

The structure of the plant communities that grow on the thawing permafrost in the Arctic is changing, with grasses displacing slower-growing shrubs. Although these grasses bind more carbon dioxide than previous plant communities, they lead […]

For the second consecutive year, winter sea ice in the Arctic reached a level that matches the lowest peak observed since satellite monitoring began in 1979. On March 15, Arctic sea ice extent reached 5.52 […]

Improving tsunami hazard assessments depends on understanding what happens at the moment an earthquake ruptures beneath the seafloor, especially near deep-ocean trenches where measurements are often scarce. When a powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck off […]

The analysis of a sediment core from an oasis lake in Chad provides new insights into the history of precipitation in the Sahara. The study, led by the University of Cologne, shows that a prolonged […]

The tropical Pacific Ocean and the frozen expanse of Antarctica sit more than 10,000 kilometers apart. Yet new research shows that when surface waters warm near the equator in northern winter, the Antarctic stratosphere responds […]

Earthquakes occur when the tectonic plates of the Earth’s crust shift, jolting past each other in a release of built-up tension. However, other natural forces can also influence seismic activity: Hydrological dynamics, like changes in […]