News tagged with molten rock

Volcanic super-eruptions may have surprisingly short fuses

Enormous volcanic eruptions with potential to end civilizations may have surprisingly short fuses, researchers have discovered.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 30, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The Moon may have formed in a nuclear explosion

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new theory suggests the Moon was formed after a natural nuclear explosion in the Earth's mantle rather than after the impact of a massive object with the Earth, as previously thought.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 28, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (35) | comments 47 | with audio podcast report

Rare melt key to 'Ring of Fire'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Oxford University scientists have discovered the explanation for why the world?s explosive volcanoes are confined to bands only a few tens of kilometres wide, such as those along the Pacific ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 07, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (11) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Rover Gives NASA an 'Opportunity' to View Interior of Mars

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars exploration rover Opportunity is allowing scientists to get a glimpse deep inside Mars.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 21, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (14) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

'Atlantis' volcano gives tips for mega-eruptions

Around 1630 BC, a super-volcano blew apart the Aegean island of Santorini, an event so violent that some theorists say it nurtured the legend of Atlantis.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 01, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 2

Electric Yellowstone: Conductivity image hints volcano plume is bigger than thought

University of Utah geophysicists made the first large-scale picture of the electrical conductivity of the gigantic underground plume of hot and partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. The ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 11, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Yellowstone's plumbing exposed

(PhysOrg.com) -- The most detailed seismic images yet published of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano shows a plume of hot and molten rock rising at an angle from the northwest at a depth ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (49) | comments 18

New understanding of Earth's lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary beneath the Pacific Ocean

Scientists have long speculated about why there is a large change in the strength of rocks that lie at the boundary between two layers immediately under Earth's crust: the lithosphere and underlying asthenosphere. ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 22, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Volcanic plumbing exposed

Two new studies into the "plumbing systems" that lie under volcanoes could bring scientists closer to predicting large eruptions.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Visualizing the flow of molten rock through seabed mantle

New information about how most of the Earth’s crust formed has been uncovered by investigators who utilized the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory to obtain unprecedented, three-dimensional ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jul 29, 2011 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Geologists get unique and unexpected opportunity to study magma

Geologists drilling an exploratory geothermal well in 2009 in the Krafla volcano in Iceland encountered a problem they were simply unprepared for: magma (molten rock or lava underground) which flowed unexpectedly ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Feb 16, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (15) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Geologist says there's no need to fight over mineral resources

It's easy to be a pessimist in a world full of calamities. But for those worried about the continuing availability of natural resources, data from the ocean makes a good case for optimism, says economic geologist Lawrence ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Oct 07, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (13) | comments 18 | with audio podcast

Scientists' Drill Hits Magma: Only Third Time on Record

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists drilling a borehole deep into Iceland’s rocky crust to explore new methods of using geothermal energy hit a major roadblock on Thursday: Their drill ran into molten rock at a depth ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Jun 29, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (24) | comments 24

The hot atmosphere of Venus might cool its interior: study

The heat in the atmosphere of Venus, induced from a strong greenhouse warming, might actually have a cooling effect on the planet's interior. This counter-intuitive theory is based on calculations from a new ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Sep 21, 2010 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Biggest, Deepest Crater Exposes Hidden, Ancient Moon

(PhysOrg.com) -- Shortly after the Moon formed, an asteroid smacked into its southern hemisphere and gouged out a truly enormous crater, the South Pole-Aitken basin, almost 1,500 miles across and more than ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Mar 04, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast