Earth Sciences

A new study finds that commercial satellite imagery data often outperforms public data sets when identifying surface water, but that public data sets may be better at detecting water hidden by forest cover. Satellite imagery […]

Understanding what triggers large volcanic eruptions is crucial for hazard assessment, but the exact mechanism driving these eruptions is still poorly understood. The prevailing theory is that volatile exsolution—gas coming out of magma—is a main […]

Severe Tropical Cyclone Narelle continues to amaze us with its long journey across northern Australia. This cyclone began life near the Solomon Islands on March 16, when moist air rose rapidly and created a low-pressure […]

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 […]