Mount Etna had its fifth eruption this year Saturday, closing the local airport and causing local clocks to run 15 minutes fast. With lots of good images.
Another Iceland volcano, Hekla, is showing signs that it is about to erupt.
The volcano, dubbed by Icelanders in the Middle Ages as the “Gateway to Hell,” is one of Iceland’s most active, having erupted some 20 times over the past millennium, most recently on Feb. 26, 2000. It measures 4,891-feet (1,491-meters) and is located about 70 miles (110 kilometers) east of Reykjavik, not far from Eyjafjoell.
Tear-drop shaped mesas on Mars suggest ancient oceans to scientists.
Check out the spectacular images of the eruption of this Chilean volcano, its first in 50 years.
Satellite monitoring of the new Iceland volcano eruption.
Deep fractures on Mars, some more than 1500 feet deep.
Arne Saknussemm would be proud: Inside the heart of the volcano.
Indian scientists are about to begin drilling a five-mile-deep borehole to study earthquakes.
Scientists find a gigantic and previously unknown deposit of CO2 at Mars’ south pole.
“We already knew there is a small perennial cap of carbon-dioxide ice on top of the water ice there, but this buried deposit has about 30 times more dry ice than previously estimated,” said Roger Phillips of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. Phillips is deputy team leader for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Shallow Radar instrument and lead author of the report. . . . “When you include this buried deposit, Martian carbon dioxide right now is roughly half frozen and half in the atmosphere, but at other times it can be nearly all frozen or nearly all in the atmosphere,” Phillips said.
What this discovery means is that, depending on Mars’ orbital circumstances, its atmosphere can sometimes be dense enough for liquid water to flow on its surface.
The real disaster in Japan continues: Liquefaction.
Walking in Nyiragongo Crater in Africa. The pictures are stupendous.
Scientists have found strong evidence that liquid water once existed in the interior of a comet.
Another hero: Defiant Japanese boat captain who rode out tsunami.
A new statistical study has concluded that big quakes don’t trigger others large quakes far away.
This ain’t good: A nuclear meltdown appears to have occurred at the quake-damaged Japanese power plant.
The earthquake moved Japan’s coast eight feet while shifting the Earth’s axis about four inches.
Hawaii and Pacific islands brace for killer tsunami waves to strike across thousands of miles of ocean.
More here about the situation in Japan.
Video:
Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano erupts.
The tiger stripe fissures on Saturn’s moon Enceladus have turned out to be far hotter than predicted.
Two drill companies will temporarily cease work in Arkansas to see if this action will cause the recent swarms of earthquakes there to ease.
A look at some truly different commercial caves.
This is why I call it pork and a waste of money: NASA’s chief technologist admits it will be a decade before Orion and the heavy-lift rocket mandated by Congress flies.
The discovery of new caves on the Moon keep coming. Today I have two new stories. The first is a discovery by professional scientists of a giant lava tube cave in the Oceanus Procellarum or Ocean of Storms. The second is the detection of a plethora of caves and sinks on the floor of the crater Copernicus, found by a NASA engineer who likes to explore the gobs of data being accumulated by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and made available to all on the web.
The image below of the Moon’s near side, taken by India’s Cartosat-2A satellite and taken from the science paper, shows the location of lava tube in Oceanus Procellarum (indicated by the red dot) and the crater Copernicus.
First the professional discovery. Yesterday, the Times of India reported the discovery of lava tube more than a mile long on the Moon. I did not post a link to the article because I didn’t think the news story provided enough information to make it worth passing along. Today however, fellow caver Mark Minton emailed me the link where the actual research paper could be downloaded [pdf]. This I find definitely worth describing.
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More on the New Zealand earthquake: Curfew imposed as death toll climbs to 75.
Thousands flee as Philippine volcano erupts.
