All posts tagged: Earth Science

Six-satellite ‘StormWall’ could stop dangerous solar storms before they hit Earth

Six-satellite ‘StormWall’ could stop dangerous solar storms before they hit Earth

Published by Jenni Sidey

The most dangerous weather around Earth does not come with clouds. It comes from the sun, which can hurl bursts of energy and charged particles into space hard enough to disrupt radio signals, damage satellites, distort GPS, and drive electrical currents into power grids on the ground. In May 2024, a major solar storm also knocked precision-guided farm equipment off course, slowing planting and harvesting and costing U.S. farmers an estimated $500 million. For decades, the main response has been prediction. Space weather forecasters watch the sun, estimate what is coming, and give satellite operators and utilities time to brace. Brian Walsh, a Boston University engineer, is asking whether Earth could do more than brace. His team has modeled a way to temporarily reinforce the planet’s magnetic defenses during a major storm, using a group of spacecraft that would release material into near-Earth space. In simulations, the concept cut the intensity of a powerful geomagnetic storm sharply, suggesting that a severe space weather event might one day be softened before it fully hits. A NASA …

Earth has a mysterious triple symmetry that may influence its climate

Earth has a mysterious triple symmetry that may influence its climate

Published by skeptic

The 27° east meridian, running through Europe and Africa, divides Earth into two equally reflective halves PLANETARY VISIONS LTD/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A line that runs through Africa, Europe, Alaska and both poles divides Earth into two halves that reflect the same amount of light – and this newly discovered symmetry may play a critical role in the planet’s climate. It was previously known that the northern and southern hemispheres have almost equal reflectivity, or albedo, but Jianhao Zhang at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US and his colleagues have now uncovered a second line of symmetry along the 27° east and 153° west meridians. The hemispheres separated by this line are nearly equal in three respects: their albedo in clear skies, the reflectivity of clouds and the fractions covered by ice-free oceans. This symmetry has persisted throughout 25 years of satellite observations analysed by Zhang and his colleagues. At first, Zhang thought it must be a coincidence. “What convinced me that the east-west symmetry is not trivial are three features: its uniqueness, …

In 2010, Earth’s molten core suddenly reversed direction and scientists don’t know why

In 2010, Earth’s molten core suddenly reversed direction and scientists don’t know why

Published by Jenni Sidey

A river of molten iron, more than 2,000 kilometers below the surface, appears to have pulled off something Earth scientists did not expect. Around 2010, a broad patch of fluid in the outer core beneath the equatorial Pacific stopped drifting west and began moving sharply east. This reversed a pattern long treated as one of the deep planet’s more stable habits. That change did not happen where people can see it, or feel it, and it poses no direct danger. However, it matters because the churning outer core generates Earth’s magnetic field. The field is the shield that helps protect the atmosphere and modern technology from charged particles streaming from the Sun. The new analysis, published in the Journal of Studies of Earth’s Deep Interior, draws on ground observatories and satellite measurements from 1997 to 2025. The team combined data from the Ørsted, CHAMP, CryoSat-2 and Swarm missions to reconstruct how flow at the top of the core evolved through the years. This includes the period around the reversal. “The large-scale flow reversal beneath the …

The Last Mystery of Antarctica’s ‘Blood Falls’ Has Finally Been Solved

The Last Mystery of Antarctica’s ‘Blood Falls’ Has Finally Been Solved

Published by skeptic

There is a corner of Antarctica that looks like something out of a David Cronenberg movie. It’s located in the dry valleys of McMurdo, an immense frozen desert where, periodically, a jet of crimson liquid suddenly gushes from the dazzling white of the Taylor Glacier. They’re called the Blood Falls, and since their discovery in 1911 by geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor, they’ve fueled a century of scientific speculation. Recently, a series of observations conducted since 2018 have clarified several mysteries, such as the nature of their reddish color and what keeps them liquid at almost –20 degrees Celsius. New research published this week in the journal Antarctic Science adds the final piece to the puzzle, clarifying what phenomena drive the falls to gush from underground. The Science Behind the Blood Falls At the time of their discovery, Taylor attributed the color to the presence of red microalgae. More than a century later, scientists have determined that the red is due to iron particles trapped in nanospheres along with other elements such as silicon, calcium, aluminum, …

Scientists reveal why gravity is weaker beneath Antarctica than elsewhere on Earth

Scientists reveal why gravity is weaker beneath Antarctica than elsewhere on Earth

Published by Jenni Sidey

Gravity feels steady. You drop a set of keys, and they fall the same way every time. That reliability makes it tempting to picture Earth’s pull as uniform. After accounting for Earth’s rotation, gravity is slightly weaker beneath Antarctica than anywhere else on the planet. That weakness creates a kind of “gravity hole,” a broad low in the field that helps shape the sea surface around the southern continent. A study published recently in Scientific Reports argues that this oddity did not appear overnight. Instead, it reflects extremely slow shifts of rock deep inside Earth, unfolding over tens of millions of years. The authors also point out a striking overlap in timing: the study’s major changes in the Antarctic gravity low line up with major changes in Antarctica’s climate system, including the onset of widespread glaciation. Present-day geoid anomalies. (A) Nonelliptical geoid undulations, derived from the GRACE geopotential. (B) Nonhydrostatic geoid undulations derived from the GRACE geopotential solution2 relative to Earth’s hydrostatic ellipsoidal figure, arising from the diurnal rotation. (CREDIT: Scientific Reports) A low spot …

Earth’s core may hold 45 oceans worth of hydrogen, study finds

Earth’s core may hold 45 oceans worth of hydrogen, study finds

Published by Jenni Sidey

A new scientific revelation reveals that deep in the Earth’s core lies a good amount of hydrogen as well as a large amount of iron. While the iron in the core has always been recognized as dominant, the addition of hydrogen could account for up to 45 ocean equivalents of hydrogen when compared to the amount found in Earth’s oceans today, according to a report just published in Nature Communications. Scientists have known for many years that pure iron could not account for the density of the Earth’s core. Therefore, they have theorized that there must be some amount of lighter elements incorporated into the core. The most likely candidate for inclusion is hydrogen, being the lightest element in the universe. New research from Peking University concludes that significant amounts of hydrogen are locked away within the core of the Earth. Previous research made it possible to directly examine the way in which hydrogen behaves under extreme conditions, just as existed at the time of Earth’s creation. Mass spectrum of nanostructures within the metal recovered …

An important ice cap vanished in Greenland about 7,000 years ago

An important ice cap vanished in Greenland about 7,000 years ago

Published by Jenni Sidey

Deep under Greenland’s ice, a thin layer of frozen dirt and rock has been holding a secret for thousands of years. Now, a drilling project co-led by the University at Buffalo has brought that secret to the surface, and it carries a sharp warning. The first study from GreenDrill reports that a high point of Greenland’s ice sheet, the Prudhoe Dome ice cap in the northwest, disappeared completely about 7,000 years ago. Scientists did not expect the melt to be so recent. That timing matters because it happened during the Holocene, an interglacial period that began about 11,000 years ago and continues today. Many people think of the Holocene as steady and calm. It is also when humans began farming and building early societies. Yet the study suggests that even modest natural warmth in that era pushed a key section of the ice sheet beyond a tipping point. Maps of study area. (CREDIT: Nature Geoscience) “This is a time known for climate stability, when humans first began developing farming practices and taking steps toward civilization,” …

Scientists create the first global map of rare, deep-mantle earthquakes

Scientists create the first global map of rare, deep-mantle earthquakes

Published by Jenni Sidey

Stanford University researchers have pulled back a curtain on a hidden part of Earth that rarely makes headlines. Their new work maps a strange kind of earthquake that starts deep below the crust, inside the continental mantle. The team says the map could help you understand how earthquakes begin, even the ones that shake your neighborhood. The study, published in Science, comes from Shiqi (Axel) Wang and geophysics professor Simon Klemperer at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. They built what they call the first global map of these rare “continental mantle earthquakes,” events that happen beneath the crust but away from major subduction zones. “Until this study, we haven’t had a clear global perspective on how many continental mantle earthquakes are really happening and where,” said Wang, a former PhD student in Klemperer’s lab. “With this new dataset, we can start to probe at the various ways these rare mantle earthquakes initiate.” These quakes are usually too deep to do much at the surface. Still, their odd birthplace may give scientists a cleaner view …

Two Titanic Structures Hidden Deep Within the Earth Have Altered the Magnetic Field for Millions of Years

Two Titanic Structures Hidden Deep Within the Earth Have Altered the Magnetic Field for Millions of Years

Published by skeptic

A team of geologists has found for the first time evidence that two ancient, continent-sized, ultrahot structures hidden beneath the Earth have shaped the planet’s magnetic field for the past 265 million years. These two masses, known as large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs), are part of the catalog of the planet’s most enormous and enigmatic objects. Current estimates calculate that each one is comparable in size to the African continent, although they remain buried at a depth of 2,900 kilometers. Low-lying surface vertical velocity (LLVV) regions form irregular areas of the Earth’s mantle, not defined blocks of rock or metal as one might imagine. Within them, the mantle material is hotter, denser, and chemically different from the surrounding material. They are also notable because a “ring” of cooler material surrounds them, where seismic waves travel faster. Geologists had suspected these anomalies existed since the late 1970s and were able to confirm them two decades later. After another 10 years of research, they now point to them directly as structures capable of modifying Earth’s magnetic field. LLSVPs …

Tiny earthquakes reveal hidden faults where San Andreas meets Cascadia

Tiny earthquakes reveal hidden faults where San Andreas meets Cascadia

Published by Jenni Sidey

Northern California’s coast keeps you on alert, even on quiet days. Offshore, three tectonic plates meet near Humboldt County at the Mendocino Triple Junction. It is where the San Andreas fault system approaches the Cascadia subduction zone. Scientists have long known the junction is dangerous. Now, a new study says you have been looking at the wrong boundaries. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of California, Davis and the University of Colorado Boulder report a new 3D model of the region. The team includes USGS seismologist David Shelly, UC Davis earth and planetary sciences professor Amanda Thomas, CU Boulder researcher Kathryn Materna, and USGS scientist Robert Skoumal. Their work appears in Science. “If we don’t understand the underlying tectonic processes, it’s hard to predict the seismic hazard,” said co-author Amanda Thomas, professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Davis. Mendocino triple junction seismicity and focal mechanisms. (CREDIT: Science) Small quakes, big clues On maps, the triple junction can look simple. South of it, the Pacific plate slides northwest past the North American …