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. Mantle plumes beneath volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos, seem to be anchored into a large structure within the core-mantle boundary (CMB). A new study, published in Science Advances, takes a deeper dive into the structure under Hawaii using P- and S-wave analysis and mineralogical modeling, revealing its composition and properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-solid-iron-rich-megastructure-hawaii.html Earth Sciences Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:20:04 EST news689341995 How can scientists estimate the pH level of Enceladus' subsurface ocean without landing on its surface? This is what a study recently posted to the arXiv preprint server hopes to address as a team of scientists from Japan investigated new methods for sampling the plumes of Enceladus and have provided more accurate measurements of its pH levels. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the subsurface ocean conditions on Enceladus and whether it's suitable for life as we know it. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-enceladus-plumes-clue-ocean-habitability.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 21 Jan 2026 07:30:05 EST news688202241 As marine-terminating glaciers melt, the resulting freshwater is released at the seafloor, which mixes with salty seawater and influences circulation patterns. As the oceans warm, it's growing increasingly important to study this process. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-glaciers-thought.html Earth Sciences Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:13:26 EST news687535981 Bushfires are strongly driven by weather: hot, dry and windy conditions can combine to create the perfect environment for flames to spread across the landscape. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-bushfires-weather.html Earth Sciences Fri, 09 Jan 2026 09:15:30 EST news687172502 Greenland, the largest island on Earth, possesses some of the richest stores of natural resources anywhere in the world. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-greenland-rich-natural-resources-geologist.html Earth Sciences Thu, 08 Jan 2026 12:06:18 EST news687096302 Globally, toxic algal blooms are becoming more frequent and severe, fueled by a warming climate and nutrient runoff. While satellites can easily spot the green carpets once they reach the surface, the "prequels" to these outbreaks remain hidden in the deep. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ghost-plumes-underwater-drones-captured.html Earth Sciences Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:38:25 EST news687022681 A small, icy moon of Saturn called Enceladus is one of the prime targets in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. A new study strengthens the case for Enceladus being a habitable world. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-saturn-icy-moon-enceladus-life.html Astrobiology Wed, 24 Dec 2025 15:00:01 EST news685623106 One of the oldest unsolved riddles in planetary science concerns the origin of the moon. Over a century ago, George Darwin proposed that tidal and centrifugal forces on a rapidly rotating proto-Earth caused the moon to be spun off into an Earth orbit. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-moon-event-explosive-ejection-giant.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:00:32 EST news685011600 What is the importance of studying explosive volcanism on Venus? This is what a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the potential altitudes of explosive volcanism on Venus. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-venus-volcanic-plumes-cloud-heights.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:21:34 EST news683799662 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 The Hayli Gubbi volcano in northeast Ethiopia, believed to have been dormant for up to 12,000 years, erupted on 23 November 2025, sending a massive plume of ash and sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-ethiopian-volcanic-plume-captured-satellite.html Earth Sciences Tue, 25 Nov 2025 09:04:02 EST news683283841 An international team has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets. Using advanced numerical models, the team systematically classified for the first time six distinct planetary tectonic regimes and identified a novel regime: the "episodic-squishy lid." https://phys.org/news/2025-11-tectonic-regimes-terrestrial-planets-earth.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Nov 2025 13:21:04 EST news683212861 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 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 In some parts of Earth's interior, seismic waves travel at different speeds depending on the direction in which they are moving through the layers of rock in Earth's interior. This property is known as seismic anisotropy, and it can offer important information about how the silicate rock of the mantle—particularly at the mantle's lowermost depths—deforms. In contrast, areas through which seismic waves travel at the same speed regardless of direction are considered isotropic. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-seismic-anisotropy-insight-viscous-blobs.html Earth Sciences Tue, 21 Oct 2025 12:57:02 EDT news680270221 A joint research group has identified that the spatial scale of "heterogeneity" in the upper mantle, caused by a large-scale flow called a mantle plume rising from deep Earth, is less than 10 kilometers. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-mantle-chemical-patchiness-evidence-spatial.html Earth Sciences Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:25:03 EDT news677935501 Organic molecules detected in the watery plumes that spew out from cracks in the surface of Enceladus could be formed through exposure to radiation on Saturn's icy moon, rather than originating from deep within its sub-surface ocean. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-enceladus-plumes-ocean.html Astrobiology Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:26:42 EDT news676632357 What do the rumblings of Iceland's volcanoes have in common with the now peaceful volcanic islands off Scotland's western coast and the spectacular basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland? https://phys.org/news/2025-08-iceland-fiery-mantle-plume-ancient.html Earth Sciences Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:15:04 EDT news675515701 We all remember the advice frequently repeated during the COVID pandemic: maintain six feet of distance from every other human when waiting in a line to avoid transmitting the virus. While reasonable, the advice did not take into account the complicated fluid dynamics governing how the airborne particles actually travel through the air if people are also walking and stopping. Now, a team of researchers led by two undergraduate physics majors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has modeled how aerosol plumes spread when people are waiting and walking in a line. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-line-feet-social-distancing-airborne.html Soft Matter Wed, 06 Aug 2025 14:00:04 EDT news673612981 Canada is facing another dangerous wildfire season, with burning forests sending smoke plumes across the provinces and into the U.S. again. The pace of the 2025 fires is reminiscent of the record-breaking 2023 wildfire season, which exposed millions of people in North America to hazardous smoke levels. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-satellite-tech-wildfire-plumes-3d.html Environment Mon, 28 Jul 2025 13:40:04 EDT news672925146 In 2023, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. In 2025, a series of destructive wildfires ravaged Los Angeles. In both cases, a toxic plume—a cloud of harmful airborne materials that disperse over time and space due to wind and turbulence—was released. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-deep-toxic-plume-movement-urban.html Environment Tue, 22 Jul 2025 13:30:04 EDT news672409308 Earth's continents may look fixed on a globe, but they've been drifting, splitting and reforming over billions of years—and they still are. Our new study reveals fresh evidence of rhythmic pulses of molten rock rising beneath east Africa, reshaping our understanding of how continents break apart. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-deep-pulses-beneath-africa-volcanic.html Earth Sciences Sun, 20 Jul 2025 10:50:02 EDT news672050814 Tungsten (W), a hard, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant metal, is indispensable to modern high-tech industries—from aerospace and defense to computing. While its global distribution is uneven, most tungsten deposits share defining geological traits: close ties to highly evolved, volatile-rich granites; formation from melted sedimentary rocks (anatexis) in tungsten-rich granitoids; and occurrence in back-arc or intraplate zones rather than convergent tectonic margins. These features have long supported theories of a purely crustal origin for tungsten mineralization. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-mantle-hidden-role-tungsten-formation.html Earth Sciences Fri, 11 Jul 2025 09:15:17 EDT news671444113 Colossal volcanic eruptions like the kind that may have obliterated the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago are caused by mantle plumes that rise from shifting underground mountains deep within the Earth's mantle, new research led by University of Wollongong (UOW) geophysicists and statistical scientists has revealed. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-blobs-deep-earth-giant-volcanic.html Earth Sciences Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:07:23 EDT news671364441 Geologists from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have made a breakthrough in understanding how Earth's early continents formed during the Archean time, more than 2.5 billion years ago. Their findings, recently published in Science Advances, suggest that early continental crust likely formed through deep Earth processes called mantle plumes, rather than the plate tectonics that shape continents today. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-geologists-early-continents-mantle-plumes.html Earth Sciences Thu, 03 Jul 2025 10:16:04 EDT news670756561 What can the pH level of the subsurface ocean on Enceladus tell us about finding life there? This is what a recent study accepted to Icarus hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the potential pH level of Enceladus's subsurface ocean based on current estimates. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-enceladus-highly-alkaline-subsurface-ocean.html Astrobiology Mon, 30 Jun 2025 11:27:03 EDT news670501621 An international team of geoscientists, chemists and climate scientists, has found evidence of a possible ghost plume beneath the territory of Oman. In their paper published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the group describes the different types of evidence for the plume they found and what it could mean for the study of plate tectonics. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-evidence-ghost-plume-beneath-oman.html Earth Sciences Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:09:32 EDT news669478166 Extended drought and warm weather are damaging South Australia's marine ecosystems, and periodic flooding of the River Murray poses another major risk. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-floodwater-murray-mouth.html Environment Fri, 13 Jun 2025 10:19:46 EDT news669028784 As Hurricane Idalia approached Florida's Big Bend in August 2023, warm waters of the Gulf fueled its growth. In less than 24 hours, the storm jumped from a Category 1 to a Category 4 in a phenomenon known as rapid intensification. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-rivers-fuel-hurricanes-knowledge.html Earth Sciences Thu, 12 Jun 2025 12:15:04 EDT news668949301 Canada's wildfires, which have already forced evacuations of more than 26,000 people, continued their stubborn spread Tuesday, with heavy smoke choking millions of Canadians and Americans and reaching as far away as Europe. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-canadian-europe-eu-climate.html Environment Tue, 03 Jun 2025 10:53:49 EDT news668166824