August 2021

Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TVMInzaw74w/YSzmh609hAI/AAAAAAAATTM/C17VFYp4mKoQW9M5Sr4-3KwPn-kX2bmEgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1180/Some%2BRare%2BDiamonds%2BForm%2BOut%2Bof%2BThe%2BRemains%2Bof%2BOnce-Living%2BCreatures%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1180" height="384" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TVMInzaw74w/YSzmh609hAI/AAAAAAAATTM/C17VFYp4mKoQW9M5Sr4-3KwPn-kX2bmEgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h384/Some%2BRare%2BDiamonds%2BForm%2BOut%2Bof%2BThe%2BRemains%2Bof%2BOnce-Living%2BCreatures%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p>Despite humanity's intense fascination with sparkly pieces of carbon, it seems there is still plenty to learn about how diamonds form deep within our planet.<br /><br />The Earth’s deepest diamonds are commonly made up of former living organisms that have effectively been recycled more than 400 kilometres below the surface, new Curtin research has discovered.<br /><br />The research, published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, found that both diamonds found in oceanic rocks and the so-called super-deep continental diamonds shared a common origin of recycled organic carbon deep within the Earth’s mantle.<br /><br />Lead author Dr Luc Doucet, from Curtin’s Earth Dynamics Research Group within the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the findings offered a fascinating insight into the world’s most expensive gemstones.<br /></p><p>“Bringing new meaning to the old trash to treasure adage, this research discovered that the Earth’s engine actually turns organic carbon into diamonds many hundreds of kilometres below the surface,” Dr Doucet said.<br /><br />“Ballooning rocks from the Earth’s deeper mantle, called mantle plumes, then carry the diamonds back up to the Earth’s surface via volcanic eruptions for humans to enjoy as sought-after gemstones.<br /><br />“While recycling is becoming a modern-day necessity for our sustainable survival, we were particularly surprised to learn, through this research, that Mother Nature has been showing us how to recycle with style for billions of years.”<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br /><b>The three main types of natural diamonds</b> include oceanic, super-deep continental and lithospheric diamonds, formed at different levels of the mantle with a varying mixture of organic and inorganic carbon.<br /><br />Co-lead author John Curtin Distinguished Professor Zheng-Xiang Li, the Head of the Earth Dynamics Research Group, said the research provided a model that explains the formation and locations of all three major types of diamonds.<br /><br />“This is the first time that all three major types of diamonds have been linked to mantle plumes, ballooning hot rocks driven by plate tectonics and the supercontinent cycle from deeper Earth,” Professor Li said.<br /><br />“This research not only helps to understand Earth’s carbon cycle, but also has the potential to unlock more secrets of the Earth’s dynamic history through tracking the past locations of mantle plumes and superplumes. This can be achieved by mapping out the distribution of both continental and oceanic diamonds.”<br /><br />However, Professor Li said it remained a mystery as to why diamonds formed in the so-called “mantle transition zone”, 400 to 600 kilometres deep, utilised recycled organic carbon only.<br /><br />“This might have something to do with the physical-chemical environment there”, Professor Li said. “It is not uncommon for a new scientific discovery to raise more questions that require further investigation.”<br /><br />  </p><p><i><u> The above story is based on <a href="https://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/new-curtin-research-shows-mother-nature-recycles-trash-to-create-diamonds/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.curtin.edu.au/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Curtin University.</a></u></i></p>

Some Rare Diamonds Form Out of The Remains of Once-Living Creatures

Despite humanity's intense fascination with sparkly pieces of carbon, it seems there is still plenty to learn about how diamonds form de...

Nature Recycles Trash to Create Diamonds

Diamonds, Geology 8:56 PM

Nature Recycles Trash to Create Diamonds

Map showing oceanic diamond and oceanic mantle plume occurrences. The Earth’s deepest diamonds are commonly made up of former living org...

Paleontologists Find Frog-Legged Beetle Fossil in Colorado

Earth History, Fossils 6:29 PM

Paleontologists Find Frog-Legged Beetle Fossil in Colorado

The new frog-legged beetle species, Pulchritudo attenboroughi, or Attenborough’s Beauty, was identified by Frank Krell, Denver Museum of Nat...

‘Mammoth Weevil’ Found Preserved in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

amber, Fossils 5:29 PM

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vlSUYsjxboY/YSJ-mTgsrjI/AAAAAAAATSE/08rYEMoJB3UcVvTmSYiT54YMoJ9XG8R5ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1260/image_9923e-Rhamphophorus-legalovii%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="879" data-original-width="1260" height="446" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vlSUYsjxboY/YSJ-mTgsrjI/AAAAAAAATSE/08rYEMoJB3UcVvTmSYiT54YMoJ9XG8R5ACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h446/image_9923e-Rhamphophorus-legalovii%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar represents a new tribe, genus and species and dates back some 100 million years." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rhamphophorus legalovii. Image credit: Poinar & Brown, doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104948.<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p>A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mid-Cretaceous amber from northern Myanmar represents a new tribe, genus and species and dates back some 100 million years.<br /></p><p>Oregon State University research has identified a 100-million-year-old weevil unlike any other known fossilized or living weevil.<br /><br />George Poinar Jr., an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn about the biology and ecology of the distant past, calls the male specimen a "mammoth weevil" because of its "monstrous trunk"—also known as the weevil's rostrum or beak.<br /><br />Poinar said Rhamphophorus legalovii, as the long-bodied weevil fossil is known scientifically, probably wielded its trunk as a weapon while in combat with other males over females.<br /><br />Encased in Burmese amber, the specimen represents a new tribe, genus and species. Rhamphophorus derives from a pair of Greek words meaning "curving beak" and "to bear," and legalovii honors Russian weevil specialist Andrei A. Legalov.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />"Entomologists will be discussing the systematic placement of this fossil for years since it is so bizarre," said Poinar, who has a courtesy appointment in the OSU College of Science.<br /><br />Findings were published in Cretaceous Research.<br /><br />There are nearly 100,000 known species of weevils—small, plant-eating beetles known for their elongated snouts. Well-known North American species are the boll weevil that attacks cotton, the alfalfa weevil and the strawberry root weevil.<br /><br />Weevils with straight antennae are categorized as primitive weevils, and those whose antennae feature an elbow-like bend are known as true weevils; Rhamphophorus is a primitive weevil with an 11-segment antenna and Poinar placed it in the Nemonychidae family, whose members are known as "pine flower weevils."<br /><br />"The story of the family's ancient history is told by species in Mesozoic amber deposits, although no extinct or extant species with such elongated rostrums are known," he said. "The larvae and adults of many nemonychids eat pollen from developing male cones of pines and other conifers."<br /><br />The newly identified weevil genus and species belongs to the sub-family Cimberidinae, consisting of particularly long-nosed weevils whose physical characteristics are developed like highly specialized tools. Of the 70 known species of Cimberidinae, many are sexually dimorphic—males and females look quite different from one another. Thus the female of Rhamphophorus probably had a much shorter rostrum.<br /><br />The new weevil, which likely lived on the ground rather than in trees, is 5.5 millimeters long, almost half of which is head and rostrum. The amber in which it is preserved came from the Noije Bum 2001 Summit Site mine first excavated in Myanmar's Hukawng Valley in 2001.<br /><br />"Rhamphophorus had extended middle foot segments that might have increased its ability to grasp plant surfaces or better reach its foes during fights for females," Poinar said. "It would be interesting to know if females also had this feature."<br /><br />Injuries suffered by Rhamphophorus suggest it may have been doing battle with another male over a female just before it fell into the resin and was preserved.<br /><br />"Rhamphophorus shows many features unknown on living or extinct fossil weevils," Poinar said. "It shows how an adult beetle can become so specialized that even its family position can be questioned. Certainly lifestyle in conjunction with microhabitat influenced the evolutionary development of this weevil, which gives us an exciting glimpse of morphological diversity in mid-Cretaceous weevils."<br /> </p><p><i><u><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"> The above story is based on <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/ancient-newly-identified-%E2%80%98mammoth-weevil%E2%80%99-used-huge-%E2%80%98trunk%E2%80%99-fight-mates" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span>provided by<span> </span></span><a href="http://www.osu.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><strong style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">Oregon State University</strong></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. Original written by Steve Lundeberg.</span></span></u></i><br /></p>

‘Mammoth Weevil’ Found Preserved in Mid-Cretaceous Amber

Rhamphophorus legalovii. Image credit: Poinar & Brown, doi: 10.1016/j.cretres.2021.104948. A fossilized long-bodied weevil found in mi...

Billion-year 'Gap' in Grand Canyon Geological Record Explained

Earth History, Geology, sedimentary 7:55 PM

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S_SvERc6su0/YSEvWjHJa9I/AAAAAAAATRs/ygp-9t2e4-4MEsDTVIw5-rsGaFSMKJcLgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Precambrian_-_Cambrian_Unconformity_in_Grand_Canyon%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1200" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S_SvERc6su0/YSEvWjHJa9I/AAAAAAAATRs/ygp-9t2e4-4MEsDTVIw5-rsGaFSMKJcLgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/Precambrian_-_Cambrian_Unconformity_in_Grand_Canyon%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Angular unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks (of Cambrian age) on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks (1.1-1.2 Ga of Mesoproterozoic age) in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Angular unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks (of Cambrian age) on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks (1.1-1.2 Ga of Mesoproterozoic age) in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA.<br />Photo: James St. John <br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p style="text-align: left;">A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder reveals the complex history behind one of the Grand Canyon's most well-known geologic features: A mysterious and missing gap of time in the canyon's rock record that covers hundreds of millions of years.<br /><br />The research comes closer to solving a puzzle, called the "Great Unconformity," that has perplexed geologists since it was first described nearly 150 years ago.<br /><br />Think of the red bluffs and cliffs of the Grand Canyon as Earth's history textbook, explained Barra Peak, lead author of the new study and a graduate student in geological sciences at CU Boulder. If you scale down the canyon's rock faces, you can jump back almost 2 billion years into the planet's past. But that textbook is also missing pages: In some areas, more than 1 billion years' worth of rocks have disappeared from the Grand Canyon without a trace.<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Geologists want to know why.</h4><p style="text-align: left;">"The Great Unconformity is one of the first well-documented geologic features in North America," Peak said. "But until recently, we didn't have a lot of constraints on when or how it occurred."<br /><br />Now, she and her colleagues think they may be narrowing in on an answer in a paper published this month in the journal Geology. The team reports that a series of small yet violent faulting events may have rocked the region during the breakup of an ancient supercontinent called Rodinia. The resulting havoc likely tore up the earth around the canyon, causing rocks and sediment to wash away and into the ocean.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />The team's findings could help scientists fill in missing pieces of what happened during this critical period for the Grand Canyon—today one of North America's foremost natural wonders.<br /><br />"We have new analytical methods in our lab that allow us to decipher the history in the missing window of time across the Great Unconformity," said Rebecca Flowers, coauthor of the new study and a professor of geological sciences. "We are doing this in the Grand Canyon and at other Great Unconformity localities across North America."<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">Beautiful lines</h4><p style="text-align: left;">It's a mystery that goes back a long way. John Wesley Powell, the namesake of today's Lake Powell, first saw the Great Unconformity during his famed 1869 expedition by boat down the rapids of the Colorado River.<br /><br />Peak, who completed a similar research rafting trip through the Grand Canyon in spring 2021, said that the feature is stark enough that you can see it from the river.<br /><br />"There are beautiful lines," Peak said. "At the bottom, you can see very clearly that there are rocks that have been pushed together. Their layers are vertical. Then there there's a cutoff, and above that you have these beautiful horizontal layers that form the buttes and peaks that you associate with the Grand Canyon."<br /><br />The difference between those two types of rocks is significant. In the western part of the canyon toward Lake Mead, the basement stone is 1.4 to 1.8 billion years old. The rocks sitting on top, however, are just 520 million years old. Since Powell's voyage, scientists have seen evidence of similar periods of lost time at sites around North America.<br /><br />"There's more than a billion years that's gone," Peak said. "It's also a billion years during an interesting part of Earth's history where the planet is transitioning from an older setting to the modern Earth we know today."<br /></p><h4 style="text-align: left;">A continent splits</h4><p style="text-align: left;">To explore the transition, Peak and her colleagues employed a method called "thermochronology," which tracks the history of heat in stone. Peak explained that, when geologic formations are buried deep underground, the pressure building on top of them can cause them to get toasty. That heat, in turn, leaves a trace in the chemistry of minerals in those formations.<br /><br />Using this approach, the researchers conducted a survey of samples of rock collected from throughout the Grand Canyon. They discovered that the history of this feature may be more convoluted than scientists have assumed. In particular, the western half of the canyon and its eastern portion (the part that tourists are most familiar with) may have undergone different geologic contortions throughout time.<br /><br />"It's not a single block with the same temperature history," Peak said.<br /><br />Roughly 700 million years ago, basement rock in the west seems to have risen to the surface. In the eastern half, however, that same stone was under kilometers of sediment.<br /><br />The difference likely came down to the breakup of Rodinia, a gigantic land mass that began to pull apart at about the same time, Peak said. The researchers results suggest that this major upheaval may have torn at the eastern and western halves of the Grand Canyon in different ways and at slightly different times—producing the Great Unconformity in the process.<br /><br />Peak and her colleagues are now looking at other sites of the Great Unconformity in North America to see how general this picture might be. For now, she's excited to watch geologic history play out in one of the country's most picturesque landscapes.<br /><br />"There are just so many things there that aren't present anywhere else," she said. "It's a really amazing natural lab."</p><p style="text-align: left;"> </p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G49116.1/606722/Zircon-U-Th-He-thermochronology-reveals-pre-Great" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="http://www.colorado.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Colorado at Boulder</a>.</u></i><br /> </p>

Billion-year 'Gap' in Grand Canyon Geological Record Explained

Angular unconformity between horizontal Tonto Group rocks (of Cambrian age) on top of tilted Grand Canyon Supergroup rocks (1.1-1.2 Ga of Me...

Giant Blobs of Subducted Sediment Float Up Through Deep Earth

Geology, Tectonic 8:17 PM

<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJfDT1LYVj8/YRvt45iZ7_I/AAAAAAAATRI/by7GW17ECj8SO-6mDncedAid1ThnWk07ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1118/Diapir-Modeling%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Numerical modeling of sediment subducted beneath North American crust suggests that the sediment may buoyantly rise up through the mantle, like a lava lamp blob, and become attached to the base of the crust. Credit: Jay Chapman" border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="1118" height="244" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jJfDT1LYVj8/YRvt45iZ7_I/AAAAAAAATRI/by7GW17ECj8SO-6mDncedAid1ThnWk07ACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h244/Diapir-Modeling%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Numerical modeling of sediment subducted beneath North American crust suggests that the sediment may buoyantly rise up through the mantle, like a lava lamp blob, and become attached to the base of the crust. Credit: Jay Chapman<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <br /></p><p>A University of Wyoming professor has used computer modeling to propose that sand and mud subducted off the coast of California around 75 million years ago returned to the Earth's crust by rising up through the mantle as enormous diapirs, like blobs in a lava lamp.<br /><br />These blobs are now found at the surface of the Earth, far inland from the coast, in places including the Mojave Desert and western Arizona.<br /><br />"These rocks aren't the prettiest to look at, but they went on an extraordinary journey and have an incredible story to tell," says Jay Chapman, an assistant professor in UW's Department of Geology and Geophysics who focuses on tectonics.<br /><br />Chapman is the author of a new paper, titled "Diapiric relamination of the Orocopia Schist (southwestern U.S.) during low-angle subduction," which was published in the August issue of the journal Geology.<br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br />"The rocks started their lives as sediment eroded from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and carried by rivers and streams down to the ocean, where they ended up deposited in a subduction trench, similar to the modern-day Marianas trench," Chapman says. </p><p>"Then, they were carried about 20 miles deep into the Earth by a subducting oceanic plate, where the sediments were metamorphosed into a rock called schist. That in and of itself is pretty amazing, but the truly special thing about these rocks is that they didn't stay subducted, but somehow made their way back up to the surface, where you can go stand on them today."<br /><br />How the subducted sediments returned to the surface of the Earth and the distribution of the sediments in the subsurface are some of the questions Chapman is trying to answer with his research.<br /><br />"The prevailing theory is that the sediments were smeared against and plastered to the base of the North American tectonic plate, forming a sheet-like layer," Chapman says. "However, the density of these sediments is much lower than rocks in the mantle or lower crust and, over millions of years, computer modeling predicts that the sediments will flow and buoyantly ascend, like hot wax in a lava lamp."<br /><br />The research has implications for understanding subduction zone processes and the distribution of natural resources.<br /><br />"Geoscientists around the world are working to understand what gives continental crust its unique composition, and subduction and reincorporation of sediment are a popular hypothesis," Chapman says. "In addition, many researchers are now wondering whether fluids and elements released from the subducted sediments may have contributed to the concentration of economically important minerals and metals."<br /><br /></p><p><u><i><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The above story is based on <a href="http://www.uwyo.edu/uw/news/2021/08/lava-lamp-tectonics-uw-professor-suggests-giant-blobs-of-subducted-sediment-float-up-through-deep-earth.html" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span> </span>provided by<span> </span></span><a href="http://www.uwyo.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank"><strong style="border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;">University of Wyoming</strong></a></span></i></u></p>

Giant Blobs of Subducted Sediment Float Up Through Deep Earth

Numerical modeling of sediment subducted beneath North American crust suggests that the sediment may buoyantly rise up through the mantle, l...

Haiti Struck by 7.2-Magnitude Earthquake

Earthquakes, News 5:54 PM

<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3Vw9lyuGFg/YRfYnyFnqrI/AAAAAAAATRA/KhgW7o4mMn4eNZAdE_-oT-GQd210YT69QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1241/Haiti%2BStruck%2Bby%2B7.2-Magnitude%2BEarthquake%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="1241" height="225" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3Vw9lyuGFg/YRfYnyFnqrI/AAAAAAAATRA/KhgW7o4mMn4eNZAdE_-oT-GQd210YT69QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h225/Haiti%2BStruck%2Bby%2B7.2-Magnitude%2BEarthquake%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="7.2 magnitude earthquake hits off the coast of Haiti" width="400" /></a></div> <br /><p></p><p>The US Geological Survey said it's likely that casualties are "high" after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck near Haiti Saturday morning.</p><p><br />"High casualties are probable and the disaster is likely widespread," according to the USGS.<br /></p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Notable quake, preliminary info: M 7.2 - 12 km NE of Saint-Louis du Sud, Haiti <a href="https://t.co/tnySNtAOq3">https://t.co/tnySNtAOq3</a></p>— USGS Earthquakes (@USGS_Quakes) <a href="https://twitter.com/USGS_Quakes/status/1426528538589503491?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 14, 2021</a></blockquote><p> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div></p><p>A tsunami threat was issued for the region, the US Tsunami Warning System reported. Waves as high as 3 meters (about 10 feet) above the tide level are possible along some of the country's coast. <br /><br />The earthquake was about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) northeast of Saint-Louis-du-Sud and 13 kilometers deep, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).<br /><br />At least two cities reported major devastation: Les Cayes and Jeremie. Phone lines were down in Petit Trou de Nippes, the epicenter of the quake, and no news emerged immediately from that city, leaving Haitian officials to fear for the worst.<br /><br />“Many houses fell, many people are trapped under the rubble,” said Widchell Augustin, 35, said from Les Cayes, where he lives. “We can hear people screaming under the rubble. People are running back-and-forth to the hospital.”<br /><br />Haiti’s southern peninsula, the site of the quake, was hit hard by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and, five years later, has still not fully recovered. Remnants of the devastationstill linger, with Haiti’s broke government unable to fully restore all the houses, roads and government buildings destroyed.<br /><br />The devastating magnitude 7.0 quake in 2010 killed more than 220,000 people and leveled much of the capital, Port-au-Prince.<br /><br />The U.S. Tsunami Warning Center reported  a tsunami threat because of Saturday’s earthquake, saying that “tsunami waves are forecast for some coasts.” <br /></p><p></p>

Haiti Struck by 7.2-Magnitude Earthquake

The US Geological Survey said it's likely that casualties are "high" after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck near Haiti Satu...

A Mineral Unknown On Earth Could Be The Most Abundant Mineral On Mars

Meteorite, NASA 11:41 PM

<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yPXqh0A2OMU/YRGRYJp3q0I/AAAAAAAATQU/S2wV207ghIoVYBLqMCqFBc4LlWNI3YdxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1077/A%2BMineral%2BUnknown%2BOn%2BEarth%2BCould%2BBe%2BThe%2BMost%2BAbundant%2BMineral%2BOn%2BMars.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="1077" height="468" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yPXqh0A2OMU/YRGRYJp3q0I/AAAAAAAATQU/S2wV207ghIoVYBLqMCqFBc4LlWNI3YdxQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h468/A%2BMineral%2BUnknown%2BOn%2BEarth%2BCould%2BBe%2BThe%2BMost%2BAbundant%2BMineral%2BOn%2BMars.jpg" title="A Mineral Unknown On Earth Could Be The Most Abundant Mineral On Mars" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;">A mineral unknown on Earth could be the most abundant mineral on Mars, according to a discovery made analyzing the chemical composition of a meteorite.</span><br /><br /><br />Even when the precise properties on the Martian mantle – a layer of rock between the crust and the planet’s core – are nonetheless not recognized, seismic surveys carried out by NASA’s InSight lander counsel that its density is larger than that of Earth. Scientists clarify this commentary by proposing that Mars consists primarily of minerals with a excessive focus of heavier components, like magnesium and iron, however no mineral recognized from Earth suits the wanted chemical properties. <br /></p><p>Elgoresyte, a new mineral that may be present in abundance in the heart of Mars, was discovered in a meteorite. The discovery is due to Luca Bindi, a researcher at the University of Florence, at the head of an international group of scholars who identified a new material with unprecedented characteristics in a meteorite fragment, whose existence until now could only be hypothesized .<br /></p><div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div><br />The study by the team involving researchers from Bayreuth University (Germany), Meiji University (Japan), Russian Academy of Sciences, ESRF (France) and Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is was published in the journal ‘Acs Earth and Space Chemistry’.<br /><br />The new mineral was isolated from a sample of a meteorite, called Suizhou, which fell in April 1986 in Dayanpo, China, and was formed in the collision between asteroids in space, under conditions of very high pressures and temperatures, comparable to those present in the deep mantle of our planet; but in its chemical composition the quantity of magnesium and iron is so high as to suggest that it is the material of which the mantle of Mars is mainly composed.<br /><br />“Although the details of the composition of the mantle of Mars are still under discussion – explains Bindi, professor of mineralogy -, it seems certain that it contains a higher quantity of magnesium and iron than the Earth and above all a ratio (Mg + Fe) / More than double silicon “.<br /><br />“A similar mineral has never been found on our planet. It is a magnesium silicate containing iron and aluminum, which has a ratio (Mg + Fe) / Si = 2.5. If we think that the mineral that until today is attested as the main component of the earth’s mantle, bridgmanite, has a ratio (Mg + Fe) / Si = 1, what we have discovered – comments Bindi – has a quantity of magnesium and iron so high as to make it the ideal candidate for the composition of the Martian mantle “.<br /><br />The results of the analysis conducted by the team of researchers were approved by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association and the elgoresyite – named after Ahmed El Goresy, an Egyptian scientist known for characterizing meteorites that have undergone shock phenomena – was officially recognized as a new mineral. <p></p><p><br /></p><p><i><u>The above story is based on <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsearthspacechem.1c00157" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.unifi.it/changelang-eng.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of Florence.</a></u></i><br /></p>

A Mineral Unknown On Earth Could Be The Most Abundant Mineral On Mars

A mineral unknown on Earth could be the most abundant mineral on Mars, according to a discovery made analyzing the chemical composition of a...

More Than 1,000 Earthquakes Swarmed Yellowstone Park Last Month

Earthquakes, Yellowstone 8:56 PM

<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SXlsGFJwHoc/YQwlRn7ERoI/AAAAAAAATP4/Zy0f9W7jSmsUXdU3Vtnv5OJPz1qX5ZIxQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/Yellowstone%2BTours%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1440" height="265" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SXlsGFJwHoc/YQwlRn7ERoI/AAAAAAAATP4/Zy0f9W7jSmsUXdU3Vtnv5OJPz1qX5ZIxQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h265/Yellowstone%2BTours%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="More Than 1,000 Earthquakes Swarmed Yellowstone Park Last Month." width="400" /></a></div> <br /><p></p><p>The Earth is rumbling beneath Yellowstone National Park again, with swarms of more than 1,000 earthquakes recorded in the region in July 2021, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) report. This is the most seismic activity the park has seen in a single month since June 2017, when a swarm of more than 1,100 rattled the area, the report said.<br /><br />Fortunately, these earthquakes were minor ones, with only four temblors measuring in the magnitude-3 range (strong enough to be felt, but unlikely to cause any damage) — and none of the quakes signal that the supervolcano underneath the park is likely to blow, park seismologists said.<br /><br />"While above average, this level of seismicity is not unprecedented, and it does not reflect magmatic activity," according to the USGS report. "If magmatic activity were the cause of the quakes, we would expect to see other indicators, like changes in deformation style or thermal/gas emissions, but no such variations were detected."<br /><br />Throughout July 2021, the University of Utah Seismograph Stations, which are responsible for monitoring and analyzing quakes in the Yellowstone park region, recorded a total of 1,008 earthquakes in the area. <br /><div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div><br /></p><p>These quakes came in a series of seven swarms, with the most energetic event occurring on July 16. According to the USGS, at least 764 quakes rattled the ground deep below Yellowstone Lake that day, including a magnitude-3.6 earthquake — the single largest of the month.<br /><br />The month's remaining six swarms were all smaller, including between 12 and 40 earthquakes apiece, all measuring below magnitude 3, the report said.<br /><br />These quakes are nothing to worry about, the USGS added, noting that the earth-shaking is likely the result of motion on preexisting faults below the park. Fault movements can be stimulated by melting snow, which increases the amount of groundwater seeping under the park and increases pressure levels underground, the researchers said.<br /><br />Yellowstone is one of the most seismically active regions in the U.S.; the area is typically hit by anywhere from 700 to 3,000 earthquakes a year, most of which are imperceptible to visitors, according to the National Park Service. The biggest quake on record in Yellowstone was the magnitude-7.3 Hebgen Lake quake, in 1959.<br /><br />Why so shaky? The park sits atop a network of fault lines associated with an enormous volcano buried deep beneath the ground (this volcano last erupted about 70,000 years ago, according to the USGS). Earthquakes occur as the region's fault lines stretch apart, and as magma, water and gas move beneath the surface. These features also feed the park's reliable geysers and steamy hot springs.<br /><br />The Yellowstone volcano has erupted several times in the past, with gargantuan eruptions occurring every 725,000 years or so. If this schedule is accurate, the park is due for another big eruption in about 100,000 years. Such an eruption would devastate the entire United States, clogging rivers with ash across the continent and causing widespread drought and famine.<br /><br /><br /><u><i> Originally published on Live Science.</i></u><br /></p>

More Than 1,000 Earthquakes Swarmed Yellowstone Park Last Month

The Earth is rumbling beneath Yellowstone National Park again, with swarms of more than 1,000 earthquakes recorded in the region in July 2...

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