Geology In

World's Tallest Active Geyser Erupts in Yellowstone National Park for the 9th Time

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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yellowstone National Park's Steamboat Geyser is the region's largest and up until 2018, it's also erupted quite infrequently, often lying quiet for years. But over the past few months it has sprung to life and now seems to be erupting somewhat on a schedule, at least for the moment.</span><br />
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Just after 1 a.m. Monday it sent boiling water hundreds of feet in to the air for the ninth time this year. Before this recent string of eruptions, Steamboat had been dormant since 2014.<br />
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"Major eruptions over the past several weeks have been occurring with surprising regularity (every 6 to 8 days)," wrote Jamie Farrell, Chief Seismologist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO).<br />
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In fact, its latest eruption came just as his article for the YVO's website was being published early Monday, right on time, seven days after eruption number eight.<br />
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Like most of its previous 2018 eruptions, it went off overnight, when visitors are not allowed to check it out up close. But it shot off for the eighth time on June 4 during visiting hours and Farrell was on site to witness it.<br />
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"If there was one thing to remember about the Steamboat eruption, it was the noise," Farrell explains. "The "roar" was just as impressive as the visual spectacle. Every once in a while, rocks (some baseball sized) were ejected with the water to astonishing heights."<br />
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"We see gas emissions. We see all kinds of thermal activity. That's what Yellowstone does. That's what it's supposed to do. It's one of the most dynamic places on earth," Poland said.<br />
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The least predictable geyser in the park is Steamboat. It could erupt in five minutes, five years -- even 50 years from now. Yet no one visiting Yellowstone wants to turn away from the sight.<br />
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"That would be the chance of a lifetime," one visitor said. "I would be amazed."<br />
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Timing is everything, and only a lucky few get to see it. Poland's team of volcanologists are using thermal-imaging equipment to track the temperature of the 50-mile-wide magma field. They also monitor 28 seismographs since a super volcano would include major earthquake activity.<br />
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That so much is happening now is a boon not just for scientists, but for science enthusiasts like Hannah Gilbert.<br />
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"This is amazing," she said. "This is a nerd's paradise."<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.geologyin.com/2018/06/yellowstone-volcano-magma-is-heating.html" target="_blank">See also: Yellowstone Volcano Magma ‘is Heating the Boiler’ - Experts Estimate Recharging Chamber </a></span></div>

World's Tallest Active Geyser Erupts in Yellowstone National Park for the 9th Time

Yellowstone National Park's Steamboat Geyser is the region's largest and up until 2018, it's also erupted qui...

Kilauea's Summit Crater Has Been Radically Transformed

Hawaii, volcano 5:14 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BhLSzupSveY/Wypgw4yD-LI/AAAAAAAAQB0/t2n0wUD6nXwalJlJBWVCjRd0DE0QJlCRwCLcBGAs/s1600/Kilauea%2527s%2BSummit%2BCrater%2BHas%2BBeen%2BRadically%2BTransformed%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The lava lake in the summit crater of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been rising in recent" border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1174" height="434" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BhLSzupSveY/Wypgw4yD-LI/AAAAAAAAQB0/t2n0wUD6nXwalJlJBWVCjRd0DE0QJlCRwCLcBGAs/s640/Kilauea%2527s%2BSummit%2BCrater%2BHas%2BBeen%2BRadically%2BTransformed%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The lava lake in the summit crater of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been rising in recent</td></tr>
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Throughout Kilauea’s ongoing and spectacularly destructive eruption, our eyes have mostly been trained on the fire fountains and vast river of lava flowing through the lower East Rift Zone. But there’s also been an incredible amount of drama unfolding at the volcano’s summit that shows no signs of letting up.<br />
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Not two months ago, the Halemaʻumaʻu summit crater was a fiery lake of lava. But just as fissures started to open in the lower East Rift Zone in early May, that lake began draining downward and receding from view, prompting warnings of an explosive eruption should the magma level fall below the water table. Sure enough, explosive eruptions of gas and ash revved up a few weeks after the collapse began as the crater’s walls crumbled and produced rockfalls.<br />
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Nearly seven weeks on from the start of the hullaballoo, the transformation of Halemaʻumaʻu crater has been stark. A drone flyover on June 13 shows that where the lava lake used to be, there’s now a deep, steep walled pit wafting a acrid sulfur dioxide gas and belching the occasional ash plume.<br />
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The changes at the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Kilauea?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Kilauea</a> summit are incredible. You can see the Google Maps image showing the pre-eruption crater, & what the Halema‘uma‘u crater looked like on June 5 and 12 (by USGS). The old car park gives a reference point.<a href="https://t.co/p9ZRiWGxcp">https://t.co/p9ZRiWGxcp</a> <a href="https://t.co/QRiu1wjirT">pic.twitter.com/QRiu1wjirT</a></div>
— Dr Janine Krippner (@janinekrippner) <a href="https://twitter.com/janinekrippner/status/1007262946962149376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) noted in an update on June 12 that the crater’s deepest section is now about 300 meters (1,000 feet) below the rim, meaning you could stack about two Washington monuments in it before reaching the top. The slumping has continued unabated ever since, with one nearby GPS station subsiding an additional 200 feet over the past week, according to an update the agency posted on Monday.<br />
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Satellites are offering additional insight into the nature of the change taking place. Take this animation released by USGS on June 15, which overlays a series of radar images acquired by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana CosmoSkyMed satellite system.<br />
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Darker regions indicate deeper terrain, clearly showing the slumping of parts of the western, southwestern, and northern crater rim over time.A separate visualization made from data collected twice every six days by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 1 satellite uses colored fringes to indicate deformation.<br />
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Per USGS, the smearing of those fringes in the center of the caldera bowl is “a sign of the extreme and rapid style of subsidence.” As dramatic as it seems, this is pretty much what geologists would expect to happen as magma continues to drain and move downrift.<br />
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The magma pressure at the summit is now much lower than it used to be, and like a water balloon that sprung a leak, it’s slumping and deflating as a result.<br />
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“If you look at a lot of these big shield volcanoes, these collapse calderas are fairly common features,” Denison University volcanologist Erik Klemetti told Earther. He added that when Iceland’s Bárðarbunga volcano erupted in 2014-2015, the caldera (which in that case was buried beneath a thick glacier) saw “significant collapse” as eruptions occurred off to the northeast.<br />
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There’s still no indication of when any of this will let up. “I think it’s anybody’s guess,” Klemetti said.<br />
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Kilauea's Summit Crater Has Been Radically Transformed

The lava lake in the summit crater of Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been rising in recent Throughout Kilauea’s ongoing and spectac...

'Slow Earthquakes' on San Andreas Fault Increase Risk of Large Quakes

Earthquakes, San Andreas 6:02 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The southern San Andreas Fault slices across the Carrizo Plain in California. Both the northern and southern sections of the San Andreas have seen large, destructive earthquakes, but the central section between them has remained largely quiet. Work by ASU geophysicists suggests the central section moves in a previously unsuspected way that makes big quakes more likely.<br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Geologists have long thought that the central section of California's famed San Andreas Fault -- from San Juan Bautista southward to Parkfield, a distance of about 80 miles -- has a steady creeping movement that provides a safe release of energy.</span><br />
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Creep on the central San Andreas during the past several decades, so the thinking goes, has reduced the chance of a big quake that ruptures the entire fault from north to south.<br />
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However new research by two Arizona State University geophysicists shows that the earth movements along this central section have not been smooth and steady, as previously thought.<br />
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Instead, the activity has been a sequence of small stick-and-slip movements -- sometimes called "slow earthquakes" -- that release energy over a period of months. Although these slow earthquakes pass unnoticed by people, the researchers say they can trigger large destructive quakes in their surroundings. One such quake was the magnitude 6 event that shook Parkfield in 2004.<br />
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"What looked like steady, continuous creep was actually made of episodes of acceleration and deceleration along the fault," says Mostafa Khoshmanesh, a graduate research assistant in ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE). He is the lead author of a Nature Geoscience paper reporting on the research.<br />
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"We found that movement on the fault began every one to two years and lasted for several months before stopping," says Manoochehr Shirzaei, assistant professor in SESE and co-author of the paper.<br />
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"These episodic slow earthquakes lead to increased stress on the locked segments of the fault to the north and south of the central section," Shirzaei says. He points out that these flanking sections experienced two magnitude 7.9 earthquakes, in 1857 (Fort Tejon) and 1906 (San Francisco).<br />
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The scientists also suggest a mechanism that might cause the stop-and-go movements.<br />
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"Fault rocks contain a fluid phase that's trapped in gaps between particles, called pore spaces," Khoshmanesh says. "Periodic compacting of fault materials causes a brief rise in fluid pressure, which unclamps the fault and eases the movement."</div>
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Looking underground from Earth orbit</h3>
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The two scientists used synthetic aperture radar data from orbit for the years 2003 to 2010. This data let them map month-to-month changes in the ground along the central part of the San Andreas. They combined the detailed ground movement observations with seismic records into a mathematical model. The model let them explore the driving mechanism of slow earthquakes and their link to big nearby quakes.<br />
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"We found that this part of the fault has an average movement of about three centimeters a year, a little more than an inch," says Khoshmanesh. "But at times the movement stops entirely, and at other times it has moved as much as 10 centimeters a year, or about four inches."<br />
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The picture of the central San Andreas Fault emerging from their work suggests that its stick-and-slip motion resembles on a small timescale how the other parts of the San Andreas Fault move.<br />
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They note that the new observation is significant because it uncovers a new type of fault motion and earthquake triggering mechanism, which is not accounted for in current models of earthquake hazards used for California.<br />
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As Shirzaei explains, "Based on our observations, we believe that seismic hazard in California is something that varies over time and is probably higher than what people have thought up to now." He adds that accurate estimates of this varying hazard are essential to include in operational earthquake forecasting systems.<br />
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As Khoshmanesh says, "Based on current time-independent models, there's a 75% chance for an earthquake of magnitude 7 or larger in both northern and southern California within next 30 years."</div>
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<u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://asunow.asu.edu/2018018-discoveries-asu-geophysicists-say-slow-earthquakes-san-andreas-fault-increase-risk-large-quakes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.asu.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Arizona State University</a>.</span></u></div>
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'Slow Earthquakes' on San Andreas Fault Increase Risk of Large Quakes

The southern San Andreas Fault slices across the Carrizo Plain in California. Both the northern and southern sections of the San Andreas ...

True Origin of Ancient Turquoise

Earth History, Mining 7:27 PM

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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">New research published today in the journal Science Advances overturns more than a century of thought about the source of turquoise used by ancient civilizations in Mesoamerica, the vast region that extends from Central Mexico to Central America. </span><br />
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For more than 150 years, scholars have argued that the Aztec and Mixtec civilizations, which revered the precious, blue-green mineral, acquired it through import from the American Southwest. However, extensive geochemical analyses reveal that the true geologic source of Aztec and Mixtec turquoise lies within Mesoamerica.<br />
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Geochemist Alyson Thibodeau, assistant professor of earth sciences at Dickinson College, and a team of researchers from the University of Arizona, California State University at San Bernardino, and the Museo del Templo Mayor in Mexico City, measured the isotopic signatures of Mesoamerican turquoise artifacts associated with both the Aztecs and Mixtecs. These isotopic signatures function like fingerprints that can be used to determine the geologic origins of the turquoise.<br />
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Specifically, Thibodeau and her research team carried out analyses of lead and strontium isotopes on fragments of turquoise-encrusted mosaics, which are one of the most iconic forms of ancient Mesoamerican art. Their samples include dozens of turquoise mosaic tiles excavated from offerings within the Templo Mayor, the ceremonial and ritual center of the Aztec empire, and which is located in present-day Mexico City.<br />
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They also analyzed five tiles associated with Mixteca-style objects held by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The analyses revealed that turquoise artifacts had isotopic signatures consistent with geology of Mesoamerica, not the Southwestern United States.<br />
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"This work revises our understanding of these relatively rare objects and provides a new perspective on the availability of turquoise, which was a highly valued luxury resource in ancient Mesoamerica," said Thibodeau.<br />
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The work is the result of a decade-long collaboration between archaeologists and isotope geochemists to understand the nature of turquoise circulation and trade across southwestern North America. In earlier published research, Thibodeau showed that isotopic signatures could distinguish among turquoise deposits across the southwestern U.S. and identified the geologic sources of turquoise artifacts from archaeological sites in Arizona and New Mexico.<br />
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Thibodeau said that long-standing assumption that Mesoamerican civilizations imported turquoise from the Southwest had not been fully substantiated with evidence and that the new geochemical measurements unveil a different story.<br />
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"These findings potentially re-shape our understanding of both the nature and extent of long-distance contacts between Mesoamerican and Southwestern societies, said Thibodeau. "I hope this inspires people to be skeptical of claims."<br />
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<u><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="http://www.dickinson.edu/news/article/3247/research_by_dickinson_college_earth_sciences_professor_featured_in_the_new_york_times" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Materials</a> provided by <a href="http://www.dickinson.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Dickinson College</a>. Original written by Christine Baksi.</span></u></div>

True Origin of Ancient Turquoise

New research published today in the journal Science Advances overturns more than a century of thought about the source of turquoise u...

These Are the Most Ancient Frogs Ever Found Preserved in Amber

amber, Earth History 10:50 PM

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">99-million-year-old amber fossils provide the earliest direct evidence of frogs living in wet, tropical forests. Credit: Lida Xing/China University of Geosciences</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The extraordinary discovery of four small frogs preserved in amber is providing the earliest evidence of these now-prolific amphibians living in tropical rainforests.</span><br />
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New research published today Scientific Reports shows that frogs—an animal that first emerged some 200 million years ago—were occupying soggy forested regions at least 100 million years ago. This discovery is a big deal because fossils of forest amphibians are rare, and because scientists haven’t been sure when frogs first started to venture into tropical habitats.<br />
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“Frogs are common animals to encounter in the wet tropical forests of today, and easily more than a third of the nearly 7,000 species of frogs live in these wet forests,” David C. Blackburn, a co-author of the new study and the associate curator of amphibians and reptiles at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said. “But being small and living in a tropical forest also means that your likelihood of ending up in the fossil record is pretty low.”<br />
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Along with Lida Xing from the University of Geosciences in China, Blackburn analyzed four exquisite amber fossils found in a deposit in northern Myanmar, formerly Burma. These amber fossils, along with others found nearby, also contained traces of plants, spiders, insects, and marine mollusks.<br />
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For scientists like Blackburn and Xing, these tiny droplets of preserved tree sap are like a time machine, allowing them to visualize the ecosystems of ancient Cretaceous rainforests.<br />
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“The forests in which this amber formed was probably a wet tropical forest with freshwater streams or ponds and located somewhere near the beach,” said. Blackburn. “We know this through the diversity of invertebrates and plants found in other pieces of amber.<br />
<br />
In many ways, this tropical ecosystem seems to resemble wet tropical forests that we have today. But important aspects of the life of this frog are unknown, such as what sound it made, if it had a tadpole, or whether it climbed or jumped.”<br />
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The four frog fossils were not dated directly. Instead, other amber specimens found within the same geological deposits were previously dated directly and indirectly, including traces of volcanic material and fossilized insects.<br />
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A comparative analysis of the ancient frogs, dubbed Electrorana limoae, with similar species living today revealed more similarities than differences; it seems frogs haven’t changed all that much across the millennia.<br />
<br />
“Our comparisons of the skeleton of these new frog fossils indicate that these amber-preserved frogs were ‘true frogs’ but may represent one of the most ancient lineages seen today,” said Blackburn. “The presence of ribs and a bones in the cartilaginous plate that supports the tongue suggests an affinity with the species alive today, such as fire-bellied toads and midwife toads.”<br />
<br />
In addition to providing the earliest direct evidence of frogs in a wet tropical forest ecosystem, these are the oldest records of frogs preserved in amber. Prior, the oldest were from amber deposits found in the Dominican Republic, dated to around 25 million years ago. For Blackburn, it’s a discovery that still blows his mind.<br />
<br />
“Honestly, I’m still astonished that there are even frogs found in amber!” he said. “It is a remarkable experience holding up these small gems and seeing the parts of frogs that look like they might have been left there last month.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The above story is based on <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/amber-fossils-oldest-frogs-tropical-forests/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a href="https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Florida Museum of Natural History</a>.<span style="box-sizing: border-box; color: black; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"></span></span></i></u></div>

These Are the Most Ancient Frogs Ever Found Preserved in Amber

99-million-year-old amber fossils provide the earliest direct evidence of frogs living in wet, tropical forests. Credit: Lida Xing/China ...

Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Has Created 250 Acres of New Land

Geology, Hawaii, volcano 9:30 PM

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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NCKlIv4WVrc/WyFQgDyWcMI/AAAAAAAAQAA/lhygIxhqvtYEBb_PnniK8XJ-QCsn7yLeACLcBGAs/s1600/Hawaii%2527s%2BKilauea%2BVolcano%2BHas%2BCreated%2B250%2BAcres%2Bof%2BNew%2BLand%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Has Created 250 Acres of New Land" border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1245" height="426" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NCKlIv4WVrc/WyFQgDyWcMI/AAAAAAAAQAA/lhygIxhqvtYEBb_PnniK8XJ-QCsn7yLeACLcBGAs/s640/Hawaii%2527s%2BKilauea%2BVolcano%2BHas%2BCreated%2B250%2BAcres%2Bof%2BNew%2BLand%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The remains of the Kapoho Beach Lots subdivision and a fissure flow front at the town of Kapoho in Hawaii (US Geological Survey/AP)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lava from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano that flowed into Kapoho Bay has created nearly a mile of new land, officials from the US Geological Survey have said.</span><br />
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They added that the flow is still very active and there is no way of knowing when the eruption will end or if more lava-spewing vents will open.<br />
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The fast-moving lava poured into low-lying coastal Hawaii neighbourhoods in just two days this week, destroying hundreds of homes.<br />
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“Lava continues to enter the ocean along a broad front in Kapoho Bay and the Vacationland area and it continues to creep north of what remains of Kapoho Beach Lots,” said USGS geologist Janet Babb.<br />
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As the lava marched toward the bay, it vaporised Hawaii’s largest freshwater lake, which was hundreds of feet deep in some places.<br />
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The new land in Kapoho Bay is now owned by the state, but the peninsula will not look like the farmland that dominates that region of the Big Island anytime soon.<br />
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Depending on climate, rainfall and other variables, new vegetation could start growing soon, but it would take much longer for the fertile land and lush rainforests to build back up.<br />
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“How soon vegetation comes back on a lava flow really depends on the type of lava it is, and how much rainfall there is in the area,” said Ms Babb.<br />
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“There are flows on the Kona side of the island that are much older than some flows on east Hawaii, they are much older but they have far less vegetation and that’s just a reflection of the difference in rainfall.”<br />
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A small ohia tree was observed by a National Park Service employee during of a tour of a two-year-old inactive flow in Kalapana last week.<br />
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“Rainfall really makes a difference,” said Hawaii Volcanoes National Park spokeswoman Jessica Ferracane. “A lot of ferns will pop up first. So, it’s usually ohia and ferns that are the first pioneers of those new lava flows.”<br />
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But the land is still highly unpredictable, and once the lava cools and hardens it will leave behind a jagged, scorched landscape with razor-sharp shards of volcanic rock.<br />
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Any new land masses that are formed by lava within the national park become federal land and any ocean entries outside the park becomes state land.<br />
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“A lot of the ocean entries are extraordinarily unstable,” Ms Ferracane said.<br />
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“The bench that was formed during 2016 and 2017 61G flow has already collapsed and fallen into the ocean, so nobody really owns that any longer.”<br />
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The lava, which has covered more than 5,000 acres (2023.47 hectares) in this latest eruption is not only expansive, but very thick.<br />
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Scientists said that while the height of the lava is variable depending on the source and local topography, much of the area is covered in 10ft-20ft (3m-6m) of lava.<br />
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People who have private property in the affected areas will still own their land, though it will need to be reassessed once the lava stops flowing.<br />
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There are homes still standing in several subdivisions that have been inundated by lava, but many homeowners are unable to get back to those properties because the lava has already cut them off.<br />
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There are no homes left in the Vacationland subdivision and neighbouring Kapoho has only a few homes left standing. They too are cut off and inaccessible.<br />
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Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim said lava has destroyed more than 600 homes since early last month.<br />
<br />
<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Press Association</span></i></u></div>

Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Has Created 250 Acres of New Land

The remains of the Kapoho Beach Lots subdivision and a fissure flow front at the town of Kapoho in Hawaii (US Geological Survey/AP) ...

Is Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Shooting Green Gems Into the Air?

gemstones, Hawaii, volcano 9:11 PM

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<br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been fiercely erupting for well over a month. Now, residents are finding little green gems that have fallen out of the sky during Kilauea's eruption.</span><br />
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Embedded in the lava still spewing some 130 feet into the air from Hawaii's Kilauea volcano are green crystals. <br />
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Called olivine, these minerals can turn Hawaiian beaches green, and it appears some of the green gems are raining down upon homes near the eruption or popping up near lava flows.<br />
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Olivine may be found in pieces of pumice — that is, rapidly cooled lava — or the gems may have been left behind when weaker lava rocks were crushed by car or foot traffic, she said.<br />
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It's not unusual for people to find olivine crystals in Hawaiian lava rock, whether it's ancient or new, as in the case of that produced since Kilauea began erupting on May 3.<br />
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"It's pretty common," U.S. Geological Survey scientist Wendy Stovall told Mashable. "There's often olivine in rocks all over Hawaii."<br />
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Friends of mine live in Hawaii, right next to the area impacted by the most recent lava flows. In the midst of the destruction nearby & stress of the unknown, they woke up to this - tiny pieces of olivine all over the ground. It is literally raining gems. Nature is truly amazing. <a href="https://t.co/inJWxOp66t">pic.twitter.com/inJWxOp66t</a></div>
— Erin Jordan (@ErinJordan_WX) <a href="https://twitter.com/ErinJordan_WX/status/1006147665275453440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 11, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Common in the Earth's subsurface, olivine is a mineral containing magnesium, iron and silicate. In some cases, the green crystals work up to the surface of old lava rocks under normal weathering conditions.<br />
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But in events like the continuing Kilauea eruption, the olivine can be separated from the lava in explosive ocean eruptions that break the lava into smaller pieces, fast-tracking the separation process, Stovall said.<br />
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The lava flows themselves are spectacular displays of the volcano's force. These curtains of fire make for art-worthy pictures of blaze orange on a canvass of black, charcoal gray or metallic silver.<br />
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Behind the stunning photographs, of course, is devastation left by Kilauea's relentless eruptions, which began May 3 and so far have covered 9.1 square miles with hot lava. On Tuesday, the volcano was still producing a large, channelized flow entering the ocean at Kapoho. As many as 700 homes have been destroyed.<br />
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The gems are perhaps nature's consolation prize.<br />
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The crystals may be flying through the air from exploded bits of lava, but it's unlikely they're also coming from the volcano's summit, where there's been a large plume of steam and ash erupting from the crater — and at times rare, explosive eruptions. <br />
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"One thing I can say is that olivine is not raining out of the plume," Michael Poland, a USGS volcanologist, said over email.<br />
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Poland added that olivine is common on the ground regardless, because roads in Hawaii are made up of ground up olivine-rich lava rock.<br />
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The little crystals, however, are not being created during the eruption. They've been formed deep underground long ago, brewing in the molten rock. <br />
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"It really is one of the first things to form," said Stovall. <br />
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And olivine might not be the only crystal falling down inside the nearby neighborhood.<br />
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"It's possible that other crystals are being found," said Stovall, adding that a USGS rock specialist said olivine is difficult to tell apart from another common crystal, called clinopyroxene.<br />
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It's also quite possible nearby islanders will continue to find semi-translucent crystals on the ground. The eruption, over a month old now, shows no signs of relenting, and could very well last months — or longer.<br />
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<br />
<u><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Mark Kaufman on Mashable  </span></i></u></div>

Is Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano Shooting Green Gems Into the Air?

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been fiercely erupting for well over a month. Now, residents are finding little green gems that have f...

Hawaii Volcano: Pele's Hair Is Falling From the Sky

Hawaii, Lava 10:11 PM

Hawaii Volcano: Pele's Hair Is Falling From the Sky

A photo of Pele’s hair on the Big Island in Hawaii. Fine, glass tendrils — Pele’s hair — are flying around Big Island after explosive ...

Scientists Discover 'Oldest Footprints on Earth'

Earth History, Fossils 10:21 PM

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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The identity of the creature that made the 546-million-year-old tracks is still unknown, but they come from the period when the earliest animals are thought to have evolved.</span><br />
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These trackways, preserved near burrows, were discovered in Dengying Formation – a rich fossil preserve in China's south – and constitute the first evidence confirming that an ancient group of animals called bilateria actually pre-dates the Cambrian explosion.<br />
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This 'explosion' – which ignited some 541 million years ago – saw the rapid emergence of a diversified spread of animal phyla over a period lasting perhaps 25 million years.<br />
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Prior to this, animal life on Earth consisted of simpler, single-celled or multicellular organisms, but the Cambrian Period gave rise to more complex creatures of a kind we recognise today, including bilaterian animals, who exhibited the first bilateral symmetry.<br />
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This nifty piece of evolution gave them things like heads, tails, bellies, and backs – not to mention something else that's incredibly useful: legs.<br />
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"Animals use their appendages to move around, to build their homes, to fight, to feed, and sometimes to help mate," one of the researchers, geobiologist Shuhai Xiao from Virginia Tech University, told The Guardian.<br />
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"It is important to know when the first appendages appeared, and in what animals, because this can tell us when and how animals began to change to the Earth in a particular way."<br />
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While bilaterian animals – including arthropods and annelids – were suspected to have first stretched their innovative legs prior to the Cambrian explosion, in what's called the Ediacaran Period, before now there was no evidence for it in the fossil record.<br />
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That's why these Dengying track marks are a big deal for our understanding of evolutionary history – one small step for a bilaterian perhaps, but one giant leap for animal kind.<br />
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In a sense, it's amazing the researchers were able to find anything at all.<br />
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The 550-million-year-old tracks measure only a few millimetres in width, and consist of two rows of imprints arranged in what the researchers describe as a "poorly organised series or repeated groups", which could be due to variations in gait, pace, or interactions with the surface of what was once an ancient riverbed.<br />
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"The footprints are organised in two parallel rows, as expected if they were made by animals with paired appendages," Xiao told The Independent.<br />
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"Also, they are organised in repeated groups, as expected if the animal had multiple paired appendages."<br />
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In other words, this prehistoric critter wasn't a biped like you or me, but perhaps something with multiple paired legs – such as a spider, or a centipede – although given we have so little to go upon, the researchers emphasise it's impossible to know for sure what specific form this early walker embodied.<br />
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"We do not know exactly what animals made these footprints, other than that the animals must have been bilaterally symmetric because they had paired appendages," Xiao explains.<br />
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"Unless the animal died and [was] preserved next to its footprints, it is hard to say with confidence who made the footprints."<br />
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Still, due to the proximity of the track marks to fossilised burrows discovered nearby, the researchers hypothesise the creature may have exhibited "complex behaviour", such as periodically digging into sediments to mine oxygen and food among its riverbed habitat.<br />
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More than that, it's hard to say, but we know that this little thing walked when the world was young, and right now that's everything.<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><u>The study was published in the journal  <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6691" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Science Advances</a>.</u></span></div>

Scientists Discover 'Oldest Footprints on Earth'

The identity of the creature that made the 546-million-year-old tracks is still unknown, but they come from the period when the earlies...