All articles tagged with #volcanism
NASA's Juno spacecraft, using its Microwave Radiometer, detected heat rising beneath Io’s surface during two close flybys, revealing a subsurface temperature gradient of more than 40°F a few feet deep. The heat could come from a conductive crust or cooling lava flows and underscores Io's extreme tidal heating, offering insights into volcanism and potentially informing studies of subsurface oceans on other worlds.
Io, Jupiter’s volcanically active moon with roughly 400 volcanoes and plumes hundreds of kilometres high, was first revealed by Voyager 1 in 1979 and is now understood to be powered by tidal heating that fuels local magma sources, continually resurfacing Io and feeding material into Jupiter’s magnetosphere.
Volcanic activity helped trigger the end-Triassic mass extinction, but a giant fern spike produced dry, combustible mats that fueled massive wildfires, leaving charcoal- and PAH-rich layers in sediment cores. Ferns, resilient underground, may have amplified the crisis for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, illustrating how interconnected Earth systems can worsen disasters.
Around 252 million years ago, a long-lived Siberian Traps volcanic episode released vast greenhouse gases—via surface lava and underground sill intrusions—warming the climate and oceans and triggering the end-Permian extinction, which wiped out about 90% of marine species; the exact mix of sources and mechanisms (lava, heated sediments, methane release, acidification) remains debated.
A Waitomo cave in New Zealand yielded a million-year fossil cache—including 12 bird species, four frog species, and an ancient parrot related to the kākāpō—trapped between two volcanic ash layers dated at about 1.55 and 1.0 million years ago. This makes the site the oldest known North Island cave and offers a pre-human avifauna markedly different from later communities, illustrating how volcanic eruptions and rapid climate shifts reshaped ecosystems long before humans arrived (with estimates that 33–50% of species disappeared in that interval). The find fills a major gap in New Zealand’s fossil record and reshapes understanding of the islands’ natural history.
Harvard researchers simulate the Sturtian glaciation (about 717–660 million years ago) as a cycle of glaciation and thaw driven by carbon-cycle feedbacks: volcanic CO₂ input and basalt weathering lowered CO₂ to trigger ice cover, while ongoing volcanism and reduced weathering during ice cover allowed CO₂ to build and melt, repeating for ~56 million years—reconciling the geological record and the survival of early aerobic life, with implications for exoplanet climates.
Scientists pulled a 1,268‑meter section from the Earth’s mantle during JOIDES Resolution Expedition 399, a milestone in Earth science. The mantle rocks show less pyroxene and more magnesium than expected, suggesting more melting in the mantle than previously thought and offering new clues about how magma forms and powers seabed volcanism. The findings also hint that olivine reacting with seawater could produce hydrogen, a potential piece of life’s origin puzzle. The team, led by Professor Johan Lissenberg, will continue analyses, with the study published in Science.
Space.com reports that evidence from Magellan radar and atmospheric gases suggests Venus may still be volcanically active today, with future NASA missions like VERITAS expected to detect recent lava flows. In parallel, researchers studying Hawaii’s 2022 Mauna Loa eruption used private and public satellites plus machine learning to map lava thickness in 3D and identify a month-long underground heat buildup before eruption; they found lava thicker than about 20 meters cooled in roughly 21 months. These findings help calibrate Earth-based volcanic models and could improve how scientists spot and date Venusian lava flows, with results slated for the June 2026 issue of the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research.
A new study finds Mount Etna's lava originates from a melt in the mantle's low-velocity zone and rises through a tectonically complex zone at the Africa-Eurasia boundary, producing early silica-rich lava and later alkali-rich lava, suggesting Etna represents a previously unclassified form of volcanism that could be more widespread than scientists previously thought.
ESA’s Mars Express captured a November 9, 2024 image showing a dark blanket of volcanic ash creeping over Mars near Utopia Planitia, contrasting with NASA’s 1976 Viking views. Scientists suggest the ash spread could be wind-driven or the dust covering it has been removed, indicating surface change over decades. The feature sits above ice beneath the surface and includes scalloped depressions that hint at periglacial processes, underscoring Mars’ volcanic history and ongoing landscape evolution mapped by Mars Express since 2003.
Researchers analyzing radar data from the Magellan mission detected what appears to be a large underground lava tube beneath Venus, near the Nux Mons region. The tube is about 1 kilometer wide, with a roof around 150 meters thick and a hollow cavity at least 375 meters high, marking the first confirmed subsurface feature on Venus and supporting long-held ideas about the planet’s volcanic activity. If confirmed, there may be more tubes beneath Venus’ surface, a task for upcoming radar-focused missions VERITAS and EnVision, planned to launch around 2031.
USGS scientists report a roughly one-inch uplift over a 19-mile area near Yellowstone’s Norris Geyser Basin, likely due to deep magmatic activity about 10 miles beneath the surface. It’s considered part of the Norris Uplift Anomaly and does not indicate an imminent eruption of the park’s supervolcano. A separate Yellowstone study found deep-borehole microbes spike around earthquakes, revealing subsurface life dynamics with implications for life-detection on other worlds. In short, Yellowstone stays geologically active, but a cataclysmic eruption is not expected soon.
New modeling suggests Venus could harbor underground lava tubes up to about 1 kilometer wide, implying a vast subsurface network. Surface radar observations hint at ongoing volcanism, especially at Maat Mons and Idunn Mons, while simulations indicate explosive plumes could reach tens of kilometers into the atmosphere, informing future missions to study Venus's geology and atmospheric chemistry.
NASA's Juno spacecraft captured what scientists describe as the solar system's most energetic eruption observed on Io, with multiple volcanoes lighting up simultaneously from a vast subterranean magma network. The Dec. 27, 2024 event, spotted by JIRAM during a flyby about 74,400 km above Io, released an estimated 140–260 terawatts of power and covered about 40,400 square miles (65,000 sq km). Io harbors around 400 active volcanoes driven by Jupiter's tidal forces. The synchronized eruption suggests interconnected magma reservoirs beneath Io's lava-encrusted surface, and future Io flybys will map new lava flows and ash deposits.
Scientists warn that about 245 volcanoes are ice‑covered and could awaken as glaciers melt, releasing pressure and allowing more magma to form. Iceland’s Bardarbunga beneath Vatnajökull is a prime example—its 2014 eruption showed how ice‑bound volcanoes can erupt violently. Ongoing research links warming climate to potential increases in ice‑volcano activity, which could affect regions near ice‑covered volcanoes around the world, including parts of North and South America and Antarctica, with millions living within reach of possible eruptions.