African chimpanzees know how to handle wildfire, as DISCOVER noted last month. But lava is a different deal. Nyamulagira, a volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, began to erupt over the weekend and threatened not only the people nearby, but also the endangered primates that live in the area. The southerly lava flow appears to have spared most human settlements and the mountain gorillas of Virunga National Park, but the native chimps haven’t been so lucky.
The 40 eastern chimpanzees that live on Nyamulagira itself could still be at risk if they are surrounded by lava, and as the plants they rely on for food become coated by abrasive volcanic ash. Park officials hope animals in the lava’s path will simply move away from it [New Scientist]. United Nations peacekeepers, who are in the Congo to protect civilians from the seemingly unending war there, have offered the country’s leaders the use of UN planes and helicopters to monitor the situation.
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Krypton and xenon make up trace amounts of the Earth’s atmosphere—about one part per million for the former, and even less for the latter. But these minor components could have a major impact in scientists’ understanding of how the atmosphere came to be. According to findings published in Science, many of the atmosphere’s gases that you’re breathing right now might have come from outer space rather than inside the Earth, as previously thought.
Researchers believed that when the Earth congealed from the gas and dust cloud that formed the solar system, some gases got trapped in the planet’s mantle. Then, over hundreds of millions of years, volcanic eruptions returned the gases to Earth’s surface, where gravity kept them from drifting off into space. The mixing of these gases–along with the oxygen and other molecules added by life–created the atmosphere we have today [ScienceNOW Daily News]. That’s been the common wisdom, anyway.
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A super-colossal volcanic eruption rocked Italy 39,000 years ago, and troubling signs at the site, now known as Campi Flegrei, have many scientists wondering when the next big one will hit. To probe the issue, so to speak, the Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project will drill nearly 2.5 miles down into the collapsed volcanic crater to find out if another blast is on the horizon. Though the researchers on this particular project point out that any risk is small, it will begin amid debate about whether such endeavours are safe, given the unknowns of a volcano’s interior. A few say drilling might even trigger a major eruption [New Scientist]. However, scientists on the project say this isn’t likely, as their drills won’t dig deep enough to set off an eruption.
Campi Flegrei isn’t well known because it lacks a volcanic cone, but it dwarfs Mount Vesuvius. All of Naples sits within its caldera, an eight-mile-wide collapsed area of land formed by the eruption 39,000 years ago. A similar volcanic eruption would leave large parts of Europe buried under ash, say scientists, however smaller eruptions occur every few centuries; the last eruption was in 1538. The researchers hope that by drilling into the volcano, they’ll learn if another smaller eruption is imminent. They hope to locate fracture zones and magma pools that could only be guessed at without drilling. This could show exactly where magma might ascend and collect prior to an eruption. Meanwhile, rock samples could be tested under high stresses in the lab to help model the ground deformation prior to eruption [New Scientist]. The caldera’s center has risen about 10 feet since the 1960s, which has lit a fire under the researchers since a similar rise proceeded a series of intense eruptions 4,000 years ago.
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In 2005, the earth cracked open in Ethiopia. Two volcanic eruptions shook the desert, and a 35-mile-long rift opened in the land, measuring 20 feet wide in some places. Now a new study adds weight to the argument that the opening of this crack marks the first step in the formation of a new sea that may eventually separate East Africa from the rest of the continent. Says lead researcher Atalay Ayele: “The ocean’s formation is happening slowly, likely to take a few million years. It will stretch from the Afar depression (straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti) down to Mozambique” [ABC News].
The study, to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, explains that the seismic movements observed in Ethiopia are very similar to the changes wrought by faults and fissures on the seafloor, where the processes that move tectonic plates usually begin.
Seismic data from 2005 shows that the rift opened in a matter of days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began “unzipping” the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today. “We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this” [LiveScience], says study coauthor Cindy Ebinger.
The active volcanic region in Ethiopia’s Afar desert sits at the boundary of the African and Arabian tectonic plates, which have been gradually spreading apart for millions years; the new study shows that large-scale seismic events can speed up that process. The gradual separation has already formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so [LiveScience].
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Image: University of Rochester
Some of the world’s baddest volcanoes, like Chile’s Chaitén volcano that erupted in 2008, are actually even worse than scientists previously thought. A study of Chaitén’s eruption revealed that locals only had 30 hours to to flee from first time they felt rumbling, not the weeks or months that it typically takes a volcano to go from tremors to eruption. That’s because Chaitén is a rhyolitic volcano; these volcanoes are largely fueled by a silica-based, very flow-resistant magma and they tend to build pressure over time before erupting violently [National Geographic News]. Thousands were able to escape before Chaitén’s blast, but scientists are warning that others living in the shadow of a rhyolitic volcano may not be so lucky.
The magma of the Chaitén volcano traveled up to 3 feet per second, according to the study published in Nature. It shot from a depth of more than five kilometres [3 miles] to the surface in about four hours…. The violent and unexpected nature of the blasts, together with their rarity, means the Chaiténeruption is the first rhyolite event to have been scientifically assessed in this way [ABC News]. In the U.S. there are large rhyolitic volcanoes in Wyoming, California, and New Mexico as well as in the Japanese islands and New Zealand’s Taupo Volcanic Zone. Scientists are saying that even though rhyolitic eruptions are rare, the study should serve as a warning call to step up monitoring of potentially active volcanoes.
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Image: Jonathan Castro
The dormant Hawaiian volcano Mauna Kea has been selected as the site of the world’s largest telescope, the much-anticipated Thirty Meter Telescope. Its enormous mirror will have nine times the light-gathering capacity as the biggest telescopes operating today, and will be able to look back to the beginnings of the universe. “It will really provide the baby pictures of the universe” [Honolulu Advertiser], says Charles Blue, a spokesman for the Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory Corporation.
The telescope’s mirror, stretching 30 meters (almost 100 feet) in diameter, will be so large that it should be able to gather light that will have spent 13 billion years traveling to earth. This means astronomers looking into the telescope will be able to see images of the first stars and galaxies forming — some 400 million years after the Big Bang [AP]. The telescope is expected to be completed by 2018, but it may not be the world’s largest for long–the European Extremely Large Telescope is scheduled for completion around the same time, and will boast a 138-foot mirror.
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When the Messenger spacecraft swooped low past the planet Mercury on October 6 2008, it gathered up a wealth of data that will have planetary scientists puzzling for years. As researchers sort through findings regarding Mercury’s volcanic past, meteor impacts, and the effect of the solar wind on the innermost planet’s magnetosphere, one broad conclusion stands out: Mercury isn’t just a boring chunk of rock. Marilyn Lindstrom, a NASA program scientist, said the Messenger findings show that Mercury is “just an amazingly dynamic planet, both in the past and in the present” [Baltimore Sun].
Superficially, Mercury looks a lot like the moon: small, grayish-brown and pockmarked with craters. Some scientists assumed that Mercury’s surface formed the same way the moon’s did, with lighter rocks rising to the surface of a magma ocean and congealing into a brittle crust early on. But the new observations reveal that 40 percent of the surface was formed by volcanoes. “Up until before Messenger’s arrival, we weren’t even sure that volcanism existed on Mercury” [Wired], says researcher Brett Denevi. The presence of titanium oxide also suggests that the planet was hot enough in its first 100 million years to be covered in magma oceans.
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About 2.7 billion years ago, the primordial seas already hosted the first photosynthetic microbes, the blue-green algae that took in carbon dioxide and released oxygen into the air. But they were outnumbered by methane-producing bacteria called methanogens [that] thrived in nickel-rich seas. The high amounts of methane that this early life pumped into the environment prevented oxygen accumulation in the atmosphere because the methane reacted with any oxygen, creating carbon dioxide and water [Science News], according to one theory. Now, a group of researchers say they’ve found the trigger that allowed oxygen to build up, and therefore allowed for a profusion of oxygen-breathing life.
The secret was the concentrations of the metal nickel, according to the new study, published in Nature. The scientists found that by analysing a type of sedimentary rock known as banded-iron formations they could monitor levels of nickel in the oceans of the early Earth dating as far back as 3.8 billion years ago. They found there was a marked fall in nickel between 2.7 billion and 2.5 billion years ago [The Independent]. That stretch of time correlates with what researchers call the Great Oxidation Event, when oxygen began to take hold in the atmosphere.
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Saturn’s moon Titan is already an object of fascination to astronomers: The moon has seasonal weather patterns, a thick atmosphere, and lakes of liquid methane on its surface, and some scientists think it’s one of the likeliest spots to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system. Now, researchers have found new evidence that the moon has cryovolcanoes, which, in the cold of the outer Solar System, would spew a slurry of ice and liquid hydrocarbons, instead of lava. “It’s as if it’s a sort of constant bubbling cauldron that occasionally explodes big time,” says Robert Nelson, a Cassini team scientist [Nature News].
The still-controversial theory regards an area of Titan called Hotei Arcus, which appears to fluctuate in brightness on timescales of several months…. The cryovolcanism idea was bolstered in 2008, when observations of Hotei Arcus by a radar instrument aboard NASA’s Cassini probe revealed structures that resembled lava flows [New Scientist]. The new findings, discussed at this week’s Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, are based on radar images taken by Cassini on recent flybys of the moon (radar is required to penetrate Titan’s thick methane atmosphere). Overlapping images were used to create a topographical map of Hotei Arcus; the map shows several lobe-like formations, more than 300 feet high, which researchers say resemble the oozing of a viscous, lava-like material.
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The Alaskan volcano Mount Redoubt erupted last night with four large explosions, sending an plume of ash 50,000 feet into the air, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported. The volcano lies only 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, but geologists say that current wind patterns are likely to carry the ash cloud to the north. “It looks like (Anchorage) might dodge the bullet,” Alaska Volcano Observatory geophysicist Peter Cervelli said [Anchorage Daily News]. Mudflows are also possible on nearby rivers.
The 10,200-foot Mount Redoubt last erupted during a four-month period from 1989-90…. Alaska volcanos typically explode and shoot ash upward, sometimes to 50,000 feet, high into the jet stream. An eruption of Redoubt on Dec. 15, 1989, sent ash 150 miles away into the path of a KLM jet, stopping its engines. The jet dropped more than two miles before the crew was able to restart engines and land safely at Anchorage [Fox News]. This time, Anchorage airport officials say they’ve canceled some flights, but have no immediate plans to close the airport.
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Astrobiologists searching for the ultimate prize on Mars–extraterrestrial life–should send a robot scout straight to the mighty Martian volcano Olympus Mons, geologists say in a new study. New research shows that liquid water probably once sloshed beneath the 15-mile-high volcano. It may still be there, and it may be nice and warm, thanks to volcanic heat. “Olympus Mons is a favored place to find ongoing life on Mars,” said the study’s lead author, geophysicist Patrick McGovern…. “An environment that’s warm and wet, and protected from adverse surface conditions, is a great place to start looking” [Wired].
Rising three times higher than Mount Everest, Olympus Mons was active at least 40 million years ago, and perhaps more recently [ABC Science]. For the new study published in Geology, researchers used computer modeling to investigate how the volcano formed, looking particularly at its asymmetrical slopes. They concluded that the Martian volcano has one steep side and one long, gradual slope because of variations in the underlying sediment. The gradual slope probably formed because it slid on something slippery like water-rich clay, they say, and pockets of water could still be trapped deep beneath the surface.
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It’s entirely possible that researchers may have detected the first ever evidence of extraterrestrial life. Researchers who spent seven years studying the atmosphere of Mars say they glimpsed discrete plumes of methane gas rising from the surface of the planet in 2003, which could have been produced by bacteria living deep underground. On Earth, a class of bacteria known as methanogens breathes out methane as a waste product [The New York Times].
Before the public could get too excited, the researchers noted that that the biological explanation is just one of two possibilities–there’s also geological processes to consider. The methane could have been produced by geothermal chemical reactions involving water and heat like those in the hot springs of Yellowstone…. [N]o signs of recent volcanism, or even any hot spots, have been spotted on Mars [The New York Times], but ancient volcanic activity could have left methane deposits trapped underground, and puffs of that gas could be routinely released. Finally, the source could be a process known as serpentinisation that occurs at low temperatures and occurs when rocks rich in the minerals olivine and pyroxene react chemically with water, releasing methane [BBC News].
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In a happy accident for science, a geothermal energy company drilling a borehole near the Hawaiian volcano Kilauea drilled right into a magma chamber, giving researchers a glimpse of a primal geological force. The unprecedented discovery could act as a “magma observatory,” allowing scientists to test their theories about how processes transformed the molten rock below Earth’s surface into the rocky crust that humans live on today [Wired News].
Volcanologist Bruce Marsh described the discovery at the ongoing meeting of the American Geophysical Union, saying that it’s “the first time a magma has been found in its natural habitat…. Before, all we had to deal with were lava flows; but they are the end of a magma’s life. They’re lying there on the surface, they’ve de-gassed. It’s not the natural habitat. It’s the difference between looking at dinosaur bones in a museum and seeing a real, living dinosaur roaming out in the field” [BBC News].
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An asteroid that crashed into the earth 65 million years ago may not have been the cause of the dinosaurs‘ extinction, a group of researchers are arguing. Instead, that impact may have been just a prelude to the main event, when a wave of volcanic eruptions spewed out massive clouds of sulfur dioxide, clouding the air and bringing showers of acid rain. The researchers are basing their theory on studies of an area in India called the Deccan Traps, which was convulsed with volcanic activity around 65 million years ago. At least four waves of massive eruptions spread successive sheets of thick basalt across the land for more than 500 miles, and they piled into a plateau more than 11,000 feet high over thousands of years [San Francisco Chronicle].
The new research on the Deccan Traps volcanoes, announced at the ongoing meeting of the American Geophysical Union, are the first major challenge to the asteroid theory that has dominated dinosaur extinction studies for three decades. That theory posits that a six-mile-wide asteroid slammed into Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, creating the Chicxulub crater and cooling the climate so drastically that the majority of life forms went extinct in what’s known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary (or K-T) extinction. But geologist Gerta Keller and her colleagues argue that the impact occurred well before the massive die-offs began. By examining sediment layers, the team found that the crater impact appears to have occurred about 300,000 years before the K-T boundary, with virtually no effects to biota. “There is essentially no extinction associated with the impact,” Keller said [LiveScience].
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A small remote-controlled helicopter could help protect thousands of people living in the shadows of active volcanoes, according to a prize committee that awarded $100,000 to the helicopter’s inventor. Scottish volcanologist Andrew McGonigle, who just won a Rolex Award for Enterprise, flies his prototype helicopter over Italian volcanoes like Etna, Stromboli, and Vulcano, checking for a mixture of gases that indicate an imminent eruption. (DISCOVER features McGonigle in the article “Up in Smoke,” in the December issue.)
Sulfur dioxide is pushed out of volcanoes as the magma rises within, and is routinely measured by scientists from afar. However, measuring carbon dioxide can provide a better early warning system, says McGonigle. “The gases are telegrams for the earth’s interior, especially the CO2 which is released 10 kilometres deep and which comes out a long time before the magma gets to the surface,” he said [Telegraph]. Carbon dioxide is released from rising magma weeks or months before an eruption, which would give nearby residents ample time to evacuate.
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