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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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The evolution of minerals on our planet has been propelled by the evolution of life on earth, a sweeping new study demonstrates. While the underlying assumption isn’t new, the study is the first to chart how the emergence of algae and then complex microorganisms gave rise to the 4,300 or so minerals that are now present on earth.

In the early days of the universe, clouds of gas and dust contained all the naturally occurring elements found in the periodic table, but most were too widely dispersed to form minerals; scientists believe there were only about a dozen minerals in the interstellar medium. According to the study, around a further 60 different minerals formed 4.5 billion years ago, as clumps of matter collided and coalesced to begin forming the Solar System. The smaller fragments congealed into larger, planet-sized bodies, where volcanism and the effects of water took the mineral count into the hundreds. The planets Mars and Venus have got this far [Nature News], and have minerals created by hot magma like quartz and zircon.

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On October 6, NASA’s Messenger space probe swooped down to within 125 miles of the surface of Mercury, and the just-released images from that flyby are shaking up astronomers’ ideas about the planet’s geologic history. The remarkable pictures reveal a vast patch of lava, indicating that the planet was shaped by a long age of volcanic eruptions. Astronomers used to dismiss Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, as mere “dead rock,” little more than a target for cosmic collisions that shaped it, said MIT planetary scientist Maria Zuber. “Now, it’s looking a lot more interesting,” said Zuber [AP].

Messenger’s cameras spotted a crater of about 60 miles in diameter that was not as deep as other nearby craters, and determined that it had been filled in with a huge amount of solidified lava. To get an idea of how much, Zuber explains, you could imagine the entire Baltimore-Washington region covered with a layer of solidified lava about 12 times the height of the Washington monument. “So it’s a great, great deal of vulcanism,” she says. “That’s an awful lot of volcanic material in one place for such a little planet” [NPR News]. Researchers think the eruption happened between 3.8 and 4 billion years ago.

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Vials holding the results of a famous chemistry experiment conducted 55 years ago have been discovered in dusty cardboard boxes, and a new analysis of their contents has revealed fresh insights into a big question: the origin of life on earth. In 1953, chemist Stanley Miller tried to duplicate the conditions present on the primordial earth in laboratory flasks, and while some of his results were published to great acclaim, other results were packed away and forgotten–until now.

Miller’s classic experiment involved putting atmospheric components thought to reflect those of the early Earth (ammonia, hydrogen, methane, and water) in a closed system and stimulating that mixture with an electric current to mimic the effects of lightning storms. He generated a small number of biochemically significant compounds, including amino acids, hydroxy acids, and urea, showing that conditions of primitive earth can create the building blocks of life [Ars Technica]. These results generated considerable excitement, but later researchers argued that Miller was wrong about the composition of the young earth’s atmosphere, and the experiment was written off as a novelty.

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Mount Vesuvius, the mighty Italian volcano that destroyed the Roman city of Pompei, has been gradually transforming into a less menacing presence, according to a new study. Researchers studied rock samples from four different eruptions, from the Pompei disaster in 79 AD to the Pollena eruption in 472 AD, and determined the pressure and temperature conditions under which the rocks were formed; the results showed that the magma chamber had gradually shifted upward throughout the centuries. This makes eruptions less dangerous, researchers say, because magma at shallower depths is under less pressure.

Researchers keep a careful eye on the towering volcano, for good reason. The blast in 79 AD was so violent that it covered Pompeii in nearly 100 feet of ash. If Vesuvius erupted today, it could kill up to 700,000 people in southern Italy, including the residents of Naples [Scientific American]. The last eruption was in 1944, when lava flowed down the volcano’s flanks and demolished several villages and military staging grounds.

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About 93 million years ago, a burst of volcanic activity on the ocean floor led to a massive extinction event that killed one-tenth of the world’s marine invertebrates, according to a new study. The Caribbean region was the likely source of the sea-floor eruptions, says [study coauthor Steven] Turgeon. He says massive amounts of lava would have burbled and blasted up from inside the earth, setting off a “chain reaction” that took thousands of years to play out [Canwest News Service].

[T]he volcanoes spewed out metal-rich fluids that seeded the upper level of the ocean with micronutrients…. Tiny life forms on the sea surface, called phytoplankton, gorged on the food, and storing up carbon as they grew. They then sank to the sea floor and decayed, stripping the ocean of oxygen [BBC News] in a large-scale example of the phenomenon that causes the annual “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico. The oxygen-starved waters were a poor environment for marine life, and creatures from giant clams to tiny invertebrates went extinct.

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It’s almost as if lunar researchers got jealous of all the attention their Martian colleagues have been receiving for their discovery of water ice on Mars, and decided to compete: Lunar researchers say they’ve discovered trace amounts of water inside some moon rocks brought back by NASA’s Apollo astronauts.

A new study of volcanic glass pebbles that date from 3 billion years ago has revealed that although the planet is nearly bone dry today, it may have once harbored significant amounts of water in rocks deep below the surface. The findings challenge researchers’ understanding of how the moon formed around 4.5 billion years ago. The Moon is thought to have been created in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object. Scientists thought the heat from this impact had vaporised all the water [BBC News].

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