Phys.org: Earth science

Last Saturday at 9:49am local time, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake occurred about 50km west of Gympie in Queensland. The earthquake was experienced as strong shaking locally, but did not produce any significant damage, likely because of the remote location of the epicenter.

Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago that is technically a part of Norway, lies about halfway between the northernmost part of Norway and the North Pole. Currently, about 60% of Svalbard's surface is covered in glaciers, but these glaciers are melting rapidly. During the summer of 2024, Svalbard experienced a record-breaking heat wave that melted more of its glaciers than ever before.

More trees will cool the climate and suppress fires, but mainly if planted in the tropics, according to a new UC Riverside study.

Heat waves—prolonged periods of abnormally hot weather—influence egg prices, energy bills and even public transit. And they're becoming more common as temperatures increase.

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere enters the ocean at the surface and has been increasing the acidity of Pacific waters since the beginning of the industrial revolution over 200 years ago. A new study, led by University of Hawai'i at Mānoa oceanographers, revealed that the ocean is acidifying even more rapidly below the surface in the open waters of the North Pacific near Hawai'i.

A new study has revealed a stark and growing inequality in urban flood exposure across the globe, with developing nations facing risks that are multiples higher than their wealthier counterparts. The study warns that this gap is set to widen, posing a severe threat to sustainable development and highlighting an urgent need for equitable climate adaptation strategies.

Simulations still can't predict exactly when an earthquake will happen, but with the incredible processing power of modern exascale supercomputers, they can now predict how they will happen and how much damage they will likely cause.

As wildfire crews battled the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyon's North Rim in July 2025, the air turned toxic.

Scientists have uncovered a key piece of the puzzle behind the unusual "slow earthquakes" occurring off the east coast of New Zealand's North Island.

Every day, new tunnels are being built through rock across the country. The completed tunnels are safe, but the construction phase presents challenges.

Human activities, such as deforestation and the expansion of agricultural areas, have a massive impact on the natural state of ecosystems. As a result, large amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere, contributing substantially to anthropogenic climate change.

About 1.1 billion years ago, the oldest and most tectonically stable part of North America—called Laurentia—was rapidly heading south toward the equator. Laurentia eventually slammed into Earth's other landmasses during the Grenville orogeny to form the supercontinent Rodinia.

Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and their collaborators have developed FuelVision, a new system that could help enhance nationwide wildfire preparedness by combining satellite imagery with artificial intelligence to rapidly and accurately identify wildfire fuel sources.

Cultural burning is an Indigenous community-based practice where controlled fire is used to manage landscapes like forests. These work by reducing dried, flammable vegetation in a manageable way.

Off the southern coast of Chile, three tectonic plates meet at a point known as the Chile Triple Junction. Two are oceanic plates, the Nazca and the Antarctic, which are separating in an active spreading center, creating a mid-ocean ridge between them. At the same time, both plates—spreading ridge included—are sliding into the mantle beneath a third plate, the South American. The Chile Triple Junction is the only place on Earth where an active spreading center is subducting under a continental plate.

A series of more than 100 earthquakes has hit Northern California, shaking up the Geysers geothermal steam field in Sonoma and Lake counties.

Heat waves are becoming more common, severe and long-lasting. These prolonged periods of hot weather are especially dangerous in already hot places like Texas. In 2023, more than 300 people in Texas died from heat, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, the most since the state began tracking such deaths in 1989. Researchers found it may not only be temperatures that make heat waves unsafe but also the heat-related increase in airborne pollutants.

Humans adapt to floods through private measures, early warning systems, emergency preparedness and other solutions. A new attribution study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that such adaptation other than structural flood defenses has reduced economic losses from flooding by 63% and fatalities by 52% since 1950.

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake in Myanmar on 28 March 2025 caused widespread damage and over 3,800 fatalities, and also resulted in strong shaking and a building collapse in Bangkok, more than 1,000 km away. Preliminary analysis soon after the earthquake pointed to the unusually fast rupture velocity, which is known as a supershear rupture.

Apatite. Rhymes with appetite, and fittingly, plays a vital role in the very act of eating. Found in teeth and bones, apatite provides the structural strength behind every bite and step we take.