https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Forecasting volcanic eruptions in time to alert authorities and populations remains a major global challenge. In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers and engineers from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) and the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences present a new detection method, called "Jerk," using a single broadband seismometer. It is capable of identifying, in real time, very early precursor signals of volcanic eruptions generated by subtle ground movements associated with magma intrusions. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-jerk-volcano-early-method-seismometer.html Earth Sciences Thu, 29 Jan 2026 13:06:27 EST news688914361 Australian and New Zealand scientists have unearthed the remains of ancient wildlife in a cave near Waitomo on Aotearoa's North Island, the first time a large number of million-year-old fossils have been found—including an ancestor of the large flightless Kākāpō parrot. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-lost-world-ancient-cave-reveals.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:13:39 EST news688835581 A volcano in Russia's far east on Wednesday spewed ash several kilometers into the sky, authorities said, putting on a spectacular display in its latest eruption. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-russian-volcano-display-latest-eruption.html Environment Wed, 28 Jan 2026 05:00:06 EST news688797798 Lightning has captured people's fascination for millennia. It's embedded in mythology, religion and popular culture. Think of Thor in Norse mythology or Indra in Hinduism. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-blue-jets-lightning-strange.html Earth Sciences Wed, 14 Jan 2026 10:03:45 EST news687607390 Hawaii's Kilauea was spraying a spectacular fountain of lava on Monday, keeping up its reputation as one of the world's most active volcanoes. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-hawaii-kilauea-volcano-spectacular-lava.html Environment Tue, 13 Jan 2026 05:20:01 EST news687503514 A series of mild eruptions at the most active volcano in the Philippines has prompted the evacuation of nearly 3,000 villagers from a danger zone on its foothills, officials said Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-philippines-evacuates-people-mayon-volcano.html Environment Thu, 08 Jan 2026 05:23:35 EST news687072168 "Kablooey!" That's the word U.S. Geological Survey volcanic experts used to describe a muddy eruption at Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone National Park on Saturday morning. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-muddy-eruption-yellowstone-black-diamond.html Earth Sciences Sun, 21 Dec 2025 14:21:42 EST news685549282 An international assessment report has been released to provide definitive statements on the atmospheric impacts from a huge volcanic eruption in 2022. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-international-reveals-atmospheric-impact-hunga.html Earth Sciences Thu, 18 Dec 2025 14:37:29 EST news685291022 Sometimes you get a small electric shock from touching your car door handle on a dry summer's day. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-nasa-robot-rover-fly-storms.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:10:01 EST news684414514 On November 23, 2025, the Hayli Gubbi volcano in northern Ethiopia erupted in dramatic fashion. The shield volcano in the Danakil (or Afar) Depression began spewing ash and volcanic gases at around 11:30 a.m. local time (8:30 Universal Time) that day, marking its first documented explosive eruption. The plume reached into the upper troposphere and drifted northeast, eventually crossing over northern India and China and disrupting flights. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-hayli-gubbi-explosive.html Environment Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:53:27 EST news684417181 Clues contained in tree rings have identified mid-14th-century volcanic activity as the first domino to fall in a sequence that led to the devastation of the Black Death in Europe. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-volcanic-eruptions-chain-events-brought.html Earth Sciences Thu, 04 Dec 2025 11:00:04 EST news683916542 Atmospheric dust plays an important role in the way Earth absorbs and reflects sunlight, impacting the global climate, cloud formation, and precipitation. Much of this dust comes from the continuous reshaping of Earth's surface through the erosion of rocks and sediments, and understanding how this process has shaped landscapes can help us decipher our planet's history—and its future. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-glimpse-years-climate-landscape-shifts.html Earth Sciences Wed, 03 Dec 2025 09:40:06 EST news683976723 When describing collective properties of macroscopic physical systems, microscopic fluctuations are typically averaged out, leaving a description of the typical behavior of the systems. While this simplification has its advantages, it fails to capture the important role of fluctuations that can often influence the dynamics in dramatic manners, as the extreme examples of catastrophic events such as volcanic eruptions and financial market collapse reveal. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-randomness.html General Physics Fri, 28 Nov 2025 12:40:02 EST news683555841 The on-and-off eruption that's been dazzling residents and visitors on Hawaii's Big Island for nearly a year resumed Tuesday as Kilauea volcano sent fountains of lava soaring 400 feet (122 meters) into the air. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-kilauea-displays-lava-fountains-37th.html Environment Wed, 26 Nov 2025 04:10:02 EST news683351915 The next global volcanic disaster is more likely to come from volcanoes that appear dormant and are barely monitored than from the likes of famous volcanoes such as Etna in Sicily or Yellowstone in the US. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-world-volcanoes-pose-greatest-threat.html Earth Sciences Tue, 25 Nov 2025 18:20:04 EST news683297267 A long-dormant volcano erupted in northern Ethiopia over the weekend, sending ash plumes across the Red Sea toward Yemen and Oman. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-volcano-erupts-northern-ethiopia-ash.html Environment Mon, 24 Nov 2025 10:11:28 EST news683201484 The explosiveness of a volcanic eruption depends on how many gas bubbles form in the magma—and when. Until now, it was thought that gas bubbles were formed primarily when the ambient pressure dropped while the magma was rising. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-volcanoes-dont.html Earth Sciences Fri, 21 Nov 2025 08:39:04 EST news682936741 The massive 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano on Hawai'i Island lasted for months, destroyed neighborhoods, and was associated with 60,000 earthquakes. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-hidden-beneath-klauea-aid-eruption.html Earth Sciences Tue, 18 Nov 2025 09:11:04 EST news682679461 Currently, scientists struggle to forecast volcano eruption events, as no universally reliable, real-time eruption forecasting framework is available. Instead, researchers often rely on retrospective analysis to evaluate eruptions. And although much has been learned from doing this, it can sometimes introduce biases, such as data snooping, hindsight reinterpretation, and post-eruption model adjustment. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-axial-seamount-real-eruption.html Earth Sciences Thu, 13 Nov 2025 14:59:22 EST news682268357 Over the past few days, an active sunspot has erupted multiple times, sending clouds of high-energy plasma into space. The sunspot happens to be facing Earth just now, so the plasma clouds are heading in our direction. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-aurora-tonight-solar-flares-earth.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Nov 2025 09:51:03 EST news682163461 Earth scientists have discovered how continents are slowly peeled from beneath, fueling volcanic activity in an unexpected place: the oceans. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-continents-trigger-oceanic-volcanoes.html Earth Sciences Tue, 11 Nov 2025 05:00:03 EST news681989073 Lake Turkana in northern Kenya is often called the cradle of humankind. Home to some of the earliest hominids, its fossil-rich basin has helped scientists piece together the story of human evolution. Now, researchers from Syracuse University and the University of Auckland are revealing that the lake's geologic history may be just as significant as its anthropological one. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-climate-impact-earthquakes-lake-turkana.html Earth Sciences Mon, 10 Nov 2025 05:00:31 EST news681736182 Techniques to reflect an additional small portion of sunlight back into space could help cool the planet if deployed globally, but they cannot address the full range of climate impacts or replace emission cuts, according to a Royal Society briefing. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-solar-cool-earth-emissions.html Earth Sciences Wed, 05 Nov 2025 13:08:17 EST news681570491 A research team led by Academician Jin Zhijun from the Institute of Energy, Peking University, has revealed how interactions between Earth's tectonic activity and astronomical cycles jointly shaped the planet's climate and carbon cycle during the Late Paleozoic Era (360–250 million years ago, or 360–250 Ma). The findings are published in Nature Communications, titled "Tectonic-astronomical interactions in shaping Late Paleozoic climate and organic carbon burial," offering new insights into the deep-time climate system. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-tectonics-astronomical-late-paleozoic-climate.html Earth Sciences Mon, 27 Oct 2025 12:19:03 EDT news680786341 One of the largest volcanic eruptions in the last 10,000 years took place at the Greek island of Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean Sea, but its dating during the late 17th or 16th century BCE remained controversial. Volcanic ash from the eruption spread over a large area in the eastern Mediterranean region. One of the lingering questions in archaeology was how this huge geological event lined up with royal Egyptian chronologies. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-radiocarbon-dating-egyptian-artifacts-thera.html Archaeology Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:16:02 EDT news680361361 Nearly 600 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption sent clouds of sulfurous gas and ash high into the atmosphere. The blast known as the 1458/59 CE event was so huge that it triggered decades of cooling, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-antarctic-ice-reveals-volcanoes-erupting.html Earth Sciences Wed, 22 Oct 2025 10:50:04 EDT news680347937 Once considered a fringe idea, the prospect of offsetting global warming by releasing massive quantities of sunlight-reflecting particles into Earth's atmosphere is now a matter of serious scientific consideration. Hundreds of studies have modeled how this form of solar geoengineering, known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), might work. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-solar-gaining-traction-climate-intervention.html Earth Sciences Tue, 21 Oct 2025 08:12:54 EDT news680253169 Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki, one of Indonesia's most active volcanoes, erupted for a second straight day Wednesday, spewing towering columns of hot ash that later blanketed villages. No casualties were immediately reported. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-indonesia-lewotobi-laki-volcano-unleashes.html Environment Wed, 15 Oct 2025 04:37:10 EDT news679721826 Explosive volcanic eruptions on early Mars may have transported water ice to equatorial regions, according to a modeling study published in Nature Communications. The authors suggest that these eruptions could have led to conditions that allow these ice deposits to still exist under the surface today, which would expand our knowledge of Mars's terrain for future exploration. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-volcanic-eruptions-hidden-ice-mars.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 14 Oct 2025 14:12:02 EDT news679669921 A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides scientists with a powerful new tool for monitoring and predicting tectonic activity deep beneath the seafloor at mid-ocean ridges—vast underwater mountain chains that form where Earth's tectonic plates diverge. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-hydrothermal-vent-temperatures-reveal-eruptions.html Earth Sciences Tue, 14 Oct 2025 09:31:04 EDT news679653061