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Planet Labs image of the 13 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi village, in the Democratic Republic of Congo

EOS - Fri, 01/23/2026 - 11:23

A new satellite image confirms that over 15 houses were buried in a landslide that took the lives of almost 30 people.

Back on 15 January, I wrote about the 3 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi village, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This landslide killed 28 people and injured 20 more.

This is a remote area, so getting detailed information about the location is very challenging. It is also very cloudy, limiting satellite imagery. However, on 21 January 2028, Planet Labs captured an image of the area using one of their Super Dove instruments. This is the image, draped onto the Google Earth DEM:-

Planet Labs image of the 14 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi in the DRC. Image copyright Planet Labs, captured on 21 January 2026, used with permission.

This is a Google Earth image from 2024 of the same area:-

Google Earth image of the site of the 14 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi in the DRC. Image captured on 8 January 2024.

And here is a slider to compare the two:-

This is a Google Earth image of the affected are in more detail:-

Google Earth image of the site of the 14 January 2026 landslide at Burutsi in the DRC. Image captured on 8 January 2024.

There is nothing obvious in the imagery to suggest that this slope was dangerous, noting of course the masking effect of the dense forest. As reported in the media, the landslide buried about 17 houses and closed the road.

The imagery clarifies the location of the landslide – it’s at [-1.30050, 28.66080].

Acknowledgement

Thanks as ever to the kind people at Planet Labs for providing access to their amazing imagery.

Return to The Landslide Blog homepage Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.

High-resolution P receiver function imaging of seismic crustal structure in the southeastern Korean Peninsula: Implications for deformation associated with Miocene backarc extension

Geophysical Journal International - Fri, 01/23/2026 - 00:00

SummaryLocated at the easternmost passive margin of the Eurasian Plate, the southeastern Korean Peninsula shows geological signatures consistent with Miocene backarc opening associated with the Pacific Plate subduction. The region comprises two contrasting crustal blocks—the Early Cretaceous Gyeongsang Basin and Miocene Yeonil Basin (YB)—and hosts multiple fault systems that record both extensional and contractional deformation, providing an ideal setting to investigate crustal evolution along a passive margin. Motivated by this complex setting, we performed high-resolution P-receiver function imaging using a dense broadband seismic network. Our results reveal two Moho offsets: a western offset from 33 to 28 km, and an eastern offset from 28 to 26 km, coinciding with major fault zones and likely reflecting localized crustal thinning and subsequent reactivation. Crustal anisotropy, inferred from changes in fast-axis orientations, varies spatially, with Miocene fossil anisotropy in the GB and both fossil and present-day stress-induced anisotropy in the YB. Variations in P-to-S velocity ratio (VP/VS) reflect compositional heterogeneity and fault-related fracturing. Large earthquakes (M ≥ 4) occurred in low-VP/VS zones associated with relatively rigid and possibly locked crustal segments, while high-VP/VS regions coincide with zones of crustal weakening and microseismicity. Our findings suggest that extension-related deformation and inherited structural heterogeneity are preserved within the crust of this fossil backarc system, linking past tectonic processes to present-day structure and seismicity.

Geophysical Quantification of Water Phases: Influence of Surface Conductivity and Temperature Modelling

Geophysical Journal International - Fri, 01/23/2026 - 00:00

SummaryThe quantification of frozen and unfrozen water content in porous media is essential for understanding hydrological, thermal, and mechanical processes in cold regions. Petrophysical joint inversion (PJI) frameworks that integrate seismic and electrical data offer promising tools for resolving water and ice distributions but are often limited by simplified petrophysical models. Here, we extend a PJI framework by incorporating a temperature-dependent relationship that accounts for both electrolytic and surface conduction. Using synthetic data, we show that this formulation improves modelling of frequency-dependent resistivity and enhances estimates of water content and interfacial conductivity quantified by cation exchange capacity. Our results highlight the critical role of temperature in controlling subsurface electrical properties and demonstrate that neglecting these effects can lead to substantial errors in the ice and water estimates. The extended PJI framework provides a physically consistent basis for geophysical imaging of water phase dynamics in partially frozen systems, with broad applicability to cold-region hydrology and seasonally or perennially frozen environments.

Numerical wavefield simulations with instantaneous time mirror in a 3D elastic medium

Geophysical Journal International - Fri, 01/23/2026 - 00:00

SummaryWe simulate an instantaneous time mirror (ITM), i.e., a rapid short duration change in elastic material properties, using numerical experiments in time-varying isotropic elastic media. Our implementation in the seismic wave propagation software SeisSol is based on high-order discontinuous Galerkin discretization with ADER time stepping. We develop an eigenvector-based analytical solution for time interfaces for general linear hyperbolic wave systems and apply it to analyze the energy balance at time boundaries and ITMs. The energy increases for all intermittent medium changes for all impedance scaling factors. Our numerical implementation is validated against these analytical solutions and achieves high-order convergence. Its accuracy is further corroborated by estimates of reflection and transmission coefficients and observed frequency shifts across time boundaries, and by acoustic wave speed estimates obtained from focal spots associated with ITM-generated converging P waves that are consistent with theoretical predictions and ground truth values, respectively. We use the ITM implementation to simulate the partitioning of seismic body waves excited by a point source in a spatially homogeneous elastic full space. The response to an intermittent short change in the elastic parameters yields a diverging and converging P and S wavefield. A systematic scaling of the elastic parameters is then used to steer independent ITM reflections of either P or S waves. Numerical ITM solutions as developed here can be used to synthesize converging wavefields in seismic imaging applications, and more generally to analyze the behavior and manipulation of seismic wavefields in space-time varying media.

New analysis disputes historic earthquake, tsunami and death toll on Greek island

Phys.org: Earth science - Thu, 01/22/2026 - 22:30

For decades, researchers thought that an October 1843 earthquake on the small Greek island of Chalke caused a powerful tsunami and led to the deaths of as many as 600 people. But a new analysis of primary accounts of the event by Ioanna Triantafyllou at Hellenic Mediterranean University suggests the truth was much less dramatic and destructive.

Amplifying feedbacks could drive Greenland ice sheet to near-complete disappearance

Phys.org: Earth science - Thu, 01/22/2026 - 21:10

Greenland, which has been prominently in the news in recent days, hosts a vast ice sheet. If it melts, it will become one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise. Under a high-emissions scenario, the Greenland Ice Sheet is expected to largely disappear over time, with far-reaching consequences. This is the conclusion of a new study by Chloë Paice and colleagues, published in The Cryosphere. The Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by approximately 7.4 meters and has been losing mass at an accelerating rate since the 1990s. Roughly half of this loss is due to surface melt, while the other half results from ice calving where the ice sheet meets the ocean.

Arctic cloud and ice formation affected by Russian river runoff as region studied for first time

Phys.org: Earth science - Thu, 01/22/2026 - 19:54

Organic matter carried in rivers to the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean may be creating more clouds and keeping the region cooler, a new study has found.

Coastal Coralline Algae Naturally Survive Persistent, Extreme Low pH

EOS - Thu, 01/22/2026 - 19:11

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences

Ocean acidification is known to have major impacts on marine habitats under projected climate change. How vulnerable marine organisms in these habitats are to acidification largely depends on the variability of environmental conditions, such as pH, they experience naturally.

Burdett et al. [2025] provide precious time-series evidence that, unlike the open ocean, coastal ecosystems experience high natural environmental variability. For about two thirds of the year, the monitored coastal coralline algae reef was exposed to pH levels as low as those expected for the year 2100 under IPCC projections. The pH levels varied considerably throughout the day and between seasons, associated with biological activity, tidal cycling, and water temperature. Long‐term exposure to such low pH conditions and high variability may help coralline algal communities to adapt to future acidification, providing a level of optimism for the survival of this globally distributed biodiverse habitat.

Citation: Burdett, H. L., Mao, J., Foster, G. L., & Kamenos, N. A. (2025). Persistence of extreme low pH in a coralline algae habitat. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 130, e2025JG009062. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JG009062

—Xiaojuan Feng, Associate Editor, JGR: Biogeosciences

Text © 2026. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Except where otherwise noted, images are subject to copyright. Any reuse without express permission from the copyright owner is prohibited.