Phys.org: Earth science

Earthquakes and landslides are famously difficult to predict and prepare for. By studying a miniature version of the ground in the lab, scientists at the UvA Institute of Physics have demonstrated how these events can be triggered by a small external shock wave. Bring a flotation device: it involves the ground briefly turning into a liquid.

Plumbian orthoclase is a bit of a mystery, but this unique Aussie mineral is part of a mining industry revolution. The mineral's glowy green hue feels otherworldly. Although this Aussie kryptonite's origin is terrestrial, it's no less surprising.

Analysis of mooring observations and hydrographic data suggest the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation deep water limb in the North Atlantic has weakened. Two decades of continual observations provide a greater understanding of the Earth's climate regulating system.

In California's 2022-2023 winter season, the state faced nine atmospheric rivers (ARs) that led to extreme flooding, landslides, and power outages—the longest duration of continuous AR conditions in the past 70 years. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently conducted a study using machine learning to understand these complex weather systems better, finding that more intense atmospheric rivers are more likely to occur in succession within a short period of time.

Although the troposphere is often thought of as the closest layer of the atmosphere to the Earth's surface, the planetary boundary layer (PBL)—the lowest layer of the troposphere—is actually the part that most significantly influences weather near the surface. In the 2018 planetary science decadal survey, the PBL was raised as an important scientific issue that has the potential to enhance storm forecasting and improve climate projections.

A new study from Charles Darwin University (CDU), Monash University and The University of Newcastle has presented almost 100,000 estimates of groundwater recharge rates across Australia, by far the largest known database of its kind.

A recent study published in the PNAS shows that western Central Asia has experienced a long-term drying trend over the past 7,800 years. This discovery, based on the analysis of a stalagmite from the Fergana Valley in Kyrgyzstan, adds a critical piece to the understanding of westerly-influenced hydroclimatic patterns in Central Asia.

Derek van Westrum, a physicist with NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS), didn't want to be responsible for taking one of Colorado's beloved "Fourteeners" off the books.

An international team of researchers, led by Professor Jin Wu from the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has made a promising advancement in mapping plant functional traits from space using time-series satellite data. The study, published in Remote Sensing of Environment, showcases the innovative combination of the Sentinel-2 satellite mission and its dynamic time-series capabilities.

Land subsidence is overlooked as a hazard in cities, according to scientists from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Virginia Tech. Writing in the journal Science, Prof Robert Nicholls of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at UEA and Prof Manoochehr Shirzaei of Virginia Tech and United Nations University for Water, Environment and Health, Ontario, highlight the importance of a new research paper analyzing satellite data that accurately and consistently maps land movement across China.

Drylands in the western United States are currently in the grips of a 23-year "megadrought," and one West Virginia University researcher is working to gain a better understanding of this extreme climate event.

Scientists in Cambridge University suggest molecules, vital to the development of life, could have formed from a process known as graphitization. Once verified in the laboratory, it could allow us to try and recreate plausible conditions for life's emergence.

The idea that earthquakes release stress by a single strong quake along a single fault plane may need to be corrected. A recent study by researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) with the participation of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and international partner institutions points out that it would be more accurate to speak of a zone with numerous fault planes, some of which are parallel.

The deadly heat wave that hit Africa's Sahel region in early April would not have occurred without human-induced climate change, according to a study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group published Thursday.

In response to the escalating fire crises in the Amazon, a timely study has revealed alarming shortcomings in the emergency fire bans implemented by the Brazilian Government. Initially seen as a promising solution in 2019, these bans have consistently fallen short in subsequent years, revealing a pressing need for strategies that address the underlying causes of each type of fire.

A drought that pushed millions of people into hunger across southern Africa has been driven mostly by the El Niño weather pattern—not climate change, scientists said on Thursday.

Globally, last year was the warmest for thousands of years, with a globally averaged temperature of at least 1.45°C greater than pre-industrial times. The year also saw an unprecedented string of extreme weather and climate events in many parts of the world, including heat waves, torrential rainfall, transitions from drought to floods, wildfires, and sandstorms.

A team of international scientists involving the Durham University Geography department has unveiled a new map of the geological provinces hidden beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Much of Earth's water is hidden hundreds of meters beneath our feet, among soil particles and deep within rock pores and fractures.

The drying up of the Aral Sea has made Central Asia 7% dustier in the last 30 years. Between 1984 and 2015, dust emissions from the growing desert almost doubled from 14 to 27 million tons. This is the result of a study by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the Free University of Berlin.