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How to locate oceanic earthquakes without getting your feet wet

Photo of a fence offset by fault slip on the San Andreas during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

Featured image: A fence broken by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, by G. K. Gilbert. Public domain.

Paper: Absolute Centroid Location of Submarine Earthquakes from 3D Waveform Modeling of Water Reverberations
Authors: Jorge C. Castellanos, Zhongwen Zhan, Wenbo Qu

For the millions of people living near the San Andreas fault zone in California, the billion-dollar question is when the next “big one” is going to happen.

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Do melting glaciers release extra sediment?

Featured image: Pitztal Glacier, Austria by annca on Pixabay

Paper: Increased Subglacial Sediment Discharge in a Warming Climate: Consideration of Ice Dynamics, Glacial Erosion, and Fluvial Sediment Transport
Authors: Ian Delaney and Surendra Adhikari

The world’s glaciers are shrinking, sending great quantities of water downstream in a geologic instant. But new research shows a lesser-known effect of climate warming: a large increase in sediment released from melting glaciers that might rearrange the shape of Earth’s surface. Continue reading “Do melting glaciers release extra sediment?”
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What Caused the Flood that (Possibly) Gave Rise to an Empire?

Featured image: The Yellow River Breaches its Course by Ma Yuan, Public Domain

Paper: Uranium isotopic constraints on the nature of the prehistoric flood at the Lajia site, China
Authors: Le Li, Jun Chen, David William Hedding, Yuanhe Fu, Maolin Ye, Gaojun Li

A small sand deposit might hold the key to dating the rise of China’s first dynasty. Continue reading “What Caused the Flood that (Possibly) Gave Rise to an Empire?”
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How Algae Emissions Could Affect the Weather

Featured image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, Public Domain

Paper: Unprecedented DMSP Concentrations in a Massive Dinoflagellate Bloom in Monterey Bay, CA
Authors: Ronald P. Kiene, Brent Nowinski, Kaitlin Esson, Christina Preston, Roman Marin III, James Birch, Christopher Scholin, John Ryan, and Mary Ann Moran

Tiny marine organisms have been showing up in higher and higher numbers in bodies of water. These organisms also emit sulfur-containing compounds – and if they emit enough sulfur, their emissions could affect the climate. Continue reading “How Algae Emissions Could Affect the Weather”