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The Instituto Geografico Nacional (IGN) has reported an increase in the intensity of earthquakes recorded on El Hierro, the smallest of The Canary Islands, during the last 24 to 36 hours. The number of earthquakes recorded since July 17 , 2011 on El Hierros has now reached 10,000, figures from the IGN confirm. The IGN also confirmed surface deformations exceeding 35mm on the 280-sqkm island, where residents have been put on alert for a possible volcanic eruption. However, seismologists have moved to reassure the local population that a volcanic eruption is not imminent. The agency confirmed on Friday that 890...

Posted on July 25, 2011 by News Staff Non-mare silicic volcanism on the lunar farside at Compton–Belkovich Bradley L. Jolliff,Sandra A. Wiseman,Samuel J. Lawrence,Thanh N. Tran,Mark S. Robinson,Hiroyuki Sato,B. Ray Hawke,Frank Scholten,Jürgen Oberst,Harald Hiesinger, Carolyn H. van der Bogert,Benjamin T. Greenhagen,Timothy D. Glotch& David A. Paige Nature Geoscience (2011) doi:10.1038/ngeo1212 Abstract Non-basaltic volcanism is rare on the Moon. The best known examples occur on the lunar nearside in the compositionally evolved Procellarum KREEP terrane. However, there is an isolated thorium-rich area—the Compton–Belkovich thorium anomaly—on the lunar farside for which the origin is enigmatic.

Icelandic Volcano 'Set To Erupt' Scientists in Iceland are warning that another volcano looks set to erupt and threatening to spew-out a pall of dust that would dwarf last year's event. Lava and ash explode out of the caldera of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano Photo: REUTERS 6:38PM GMT 08 Feb 2011 Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after evaluating an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island's second largest volcano. Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides "good reason to worry"....

Scientists in Iceland are warning that another volcano looks set to erupt and threatening to spew-out a pall of dust that would dwarf last year's event.... Geologists detected the high risk of a new eruption after evaluating an increased swarm of earthquakes around the island's second largest volcano. Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the area around Bárdarbunga is showing signs of increased activity, which provides "good reason to worry". He told the country's national TV station that a low number of seismometer measuring devices in the area is making it more difficult to...

With almost two-thirds of Europe's flights grounded, cancelations and postponements were popping up across the entertainment landscape on Saturday as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating. Organizers of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., tweeted that some acts were forced to pull out of the weekend event. British musicians The Cribs, Bad Lieutenant, Delphic, Talvin Singh and Gary Numan as well as Scottish rockers Frightened Rabbit and Chicago brass group Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, who were on tour in Europe, weren't able to make the lineup. "I can't tell...

The Great Rift Valley extends some 4,000 miles southward from Syria north of Israel, through the Gulf of Aqaba, through Ethiopia, and all the way to Mozambique in southeast Africa. It harbors a giant fault, which has been under investigation as a model for sea floor spreading. A recent geologic event rent a gaping crack through the desert of Ethiopia, causing safety concerns for locals. These crustal plate motions may foreshadow rifting events further north in the Great Rift Valley...

Enlarge ImageFrigid find. The location (red star) of the ancient turtle fossil (inset) is seen on a map centered on the North Pole. Researchers speculate that Asian turtles (red diamonds) migrated to North America (green squares) across an archipelago created by the Alpha Ridge. Credit: Tom Whitley Sometime about 90 million years ago, Asian turtles hit the road for North America. Although researchers thought that these reptiles had crawled around the globe via Russia and Alaska, new findings suggest that they may have taken a shortcut--over a series of islands now submerged under the Arctic Sea. The conclusions are...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Mount Redoubt continues to rumble and simmer, prompting geologists to say this Alaska volcano could erupt "within days." Scientists from the Alaska Volcano Observatory have been monitoring activity round-the-clock since the weekend. If Mount Redoubt does erupt, it would be the first time this occurred in nearly 20 years. And if won't likely be pretty. History shows that volcanoes in Alaska, including Redoubt, typically erupt explosively, shooting ash almost eight miles high.

The ground is so hot in one part of Southern California it can melt the shoes right off your feet. An unexplained "thermal anomaly" caused a patch of land in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles, to reach a temperature of over 800 degrees on Friday, baffling experts who have been monitoring the area for weeks. The anomaly was discovered after the land got so hot that it started a brush fire and burned three acres last month. Firefighters were brought to the scene after reports of a blaze, but by the time they arrived only smoldering dirt and...

Source: Geological Society of America Date: October 24, 2006 Far More Than A Meteor Killed Dinos, Evidence Suggests There's growing evidence that the dinosaurs and most their contemporaries were not wiped out by the famed Chicxulub meteor impact, according to a paleontologist who says multiple meteor impacts, massive volcanism in India, and climate changes culminated in the end of the Cretaceous Period. Cottonmouth Creek waterfall over the event deposit with reworked Chicxulub impact spherules. The original Chicxulub ejecta layer was discovered in a yellow clay layer 45 cm below the base of the event deposit. The yellow clay represents a...

Scientists aboard the Scripps research vessel Roger Revelle have solved a 45-year-old geological mystery. In 1960, Scripps oceanographer Dale Krause reported the discovery of extraordinary deep-sea volcanic rocks in waters off Mexico, near Guadalupe Island, approximately 200 miles south of San Diego. When brought to the surface, the rocks spontaneously exploded "with a sharp snapping sound," according to Krause. Since then, only a few other sites, mostly along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, have been reported with similar "popping rocks." An attempt by the late Scripps Professor Harmon Craig to locate the site in 1984 proved unsuccessful, largely because the location of...

For decades, scholars have debated whether the eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean more than 3,000 years ago brought about the mysterious collapse of Minoan civilization at the peak of its glory. The volcanic isle (whose remnants are known as Santorini) lay just 70 miles from Minoan Crete, so it seemed quite reasonable that its fury could have accounted for the fall of that celebrated people. This idea suffered a blow in 1987 when Danish scientists studying cores from the Greenland icecap reported evidence that Thera exploded in 1645 B.C., some 150 years before the usual date. That...

As It Happened: The Day the Earth Nearly Died 8pm, SBS (2.30am, Perth) THINK of the wonderful profusion of life on Earth today. Then imagine 95 per cent of it dying in a terrible cataclysm. As this program from the BBC's Horizon series tells us, it's not a fantasy, it happened 250 million years ago, bringing the Permian period, with its myriad strange life-forms, crashing to an end and sending evolution into an abrupt reverse. The Permian mass extinction dwarfed the demise of the dinosaurs, caused by an asteroid strike 65 million years ago, when 60 per cent of species...

Bulge in lake worries YNP scientists By CAROLE CLOUDWALKER Beneath the serene surface of Yellowstone Lake, where death from hypothermia comes within 30 minutes, seethes a boiling underwater world. And like a pot too long on the stove, it could boil over, says U.S. Geological Survey geologist Lisa Morgan, Ph.D., of Colorado. She and others from the USGS have been studying the hottest hot spot in the 7,731-foot elevation lake, a spot which Morgan has termed an "inflated plain." It lies south-southwest of Storm Point near Mary Bay, in the northern end of the lake. Morgan, representing both the USGS...

HOW IMPACTS CAN TRIGGER VOLCANOS Large asteroid impacts have nasty side effects, as any dinosaur could have told you were she not obliterated by one of these calamity combos 65 million years ago. The ground shakes. Fire arcs across the sky and beyond the horizon. Clouds of debris race around the planet and blot the Sun out for months. At least that's what theory tells us. he scenario has never played out in modern times, scientists don't really know exactly what will happen when the next space rock slams into Earth. One long-supposed incendiary side-effect is enhanced volcanic activity, which...

Earth's volcanism linked to meteorite impacts 14:31 13 December 02 Exclusive from New Scientist Print EditionSpace rocks are blamed for violent eruptions (Image: GETTY) Large meteorite impacts may not just throw up huge dust clouds but also punch right through the Earth's crust, triggering gigantic volcanic eruptions. The idea is controversial, but evidence is mounting that the Earth's geology has largely been driven by such events. This would also explain why our planet has so few impact crater remnants. Counting the number of asteroids we see in the sky suggests that over the past 250 million years, Earth should have...