Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 27, 2023

Iceland's 'baby volcano' is still spewing lava rivers, in a tantrum visible from space

New drone footage released Wednesday (July 26) confirms that a volcanic eruption on Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula is still going strong, shooting geysers of molten lava into the sky. In the video, a thick ribbon of glowing red lava can be seen coursing through the charred landscape. Geologists are calling the...

Jul 27, 2023

One of the world's most active volcanoes is spewing out weird rings of smoke

Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna, is blowing scores of ethereal vortex rings every day from a single vent located in one of its most active craters. On July 23, Boris Behncke, a volcanologist with Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology who is based in Sicily alongside Mount Etna,...

Aug 2, 2023

Iceland's newest volcano is now spewing out tornadoes

Iceland's newborn volcano is announcing its arrival with a bang, spewing out methane explosions and tornadoes to complement the ribbons of lava painting the landscape. Loud bangs echoed from the eruption site on the Reykjanes Peninsula, the Icelandic Met Office reported on July 27, indicating that pockets of methane gas...

Aug 8, 2023

Volcanoes like Kīlauea and Mauna Loa don't erupt like we thought they did, scientists discover

Volcanoes that sit within Earth's tectonic plates don't erupt how scientists thought they did. It turns out, magma within these volcanoes is propelled up and out of the ground by carbon dioxide — not by water, as was previously thought, a new study finds. This magma also shoots up from...

Oct 11, 2023

Massive New Zealand eruption 1,800 years ago flung volcanic glass 3,000 miles to Antarctica

When New Zealand's Taupō volcano erupted 1,800 years ago, its immense blast flung shards of glass all the way to Antarctica. Now, scientists have unearthed some of this ancient volcanic debris — which could help pinpoint the exact year this huge eruption took place. Fallout from the Taupō eruption —...

Oct 24, 2023

California's supervolcano has a massive lid that causes swarms of earthquakes — and that's a good thing, scientists say

A shuddering supervolcano in California is simmering down, not ramping up, thanks to a giant lid that is covering its magma reservoir, new research finds. The Long Valley Caldera in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains has been unleashing earthquake swarms on a regular basis since 1978, raising concerns that it...

Oct 24, 2023

Perilous expedition to uninhabited island in South Atlantic confirms existence of world's 8th lava lake

In 2001, NASA satellites scanning an uninhabited island near Antarctica in the South Atlantic Ocean detected a thermal anomaly that left scientists reeling. Deep inside an unexplored volcano, they detected the signature of a bubbling lake of molten rock. Only seven such lava lakes were known worldwide. With nothing but...

Oct 31, 2023

Astronaut captures image of a glowering 'skull' lurking in a giant volcanic pit in the Sahara

To celebrate the spooky season, NASA has released a bone-chilling photo of a creepy skull that appears to glower up toward space from the heart of an enormous volcanic pit in Chad. The uncanny image was captured Feb. 12 by an unnamed astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS), as...

Nov 8, 2023

Underwater volcanic eruption gives birth to new island in the Pacific

An underwater volcanic eruption on Oct. 30 has birthed a new island in the Pacific after the explosion flung huge chunks of rock into a pile off the coast of Japan's Iwo Jima island. An aircraft belonging to the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun spotted the first signs of an eruption...

Nov 10, 2023

New island that emerged from the ocean off Japan is now visible from space

A newborn island that recently emerged from the Pacific Ocean after an underwater volcanic eruption is now visible from space, images from the European Space Agency (ESA) reveal. The satellite images show the new landmass sitting around 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) off the coast off Japan's Iwo Jima island. The...

Nov 13, 2023

Iceland volcano: Eruption feared as 10-mile-long 'magma tunnel' forms beneath town

A volcanic eruption in or near the town of Grindavík in Iceland is now likely imminent, with experts warning that magma is moving closer to the surface. An eruption could be possible on a timescale of just days, according to a translated statement from the Icelandic Met Office (IMO). Grindavík...

Nov 14, 2023

Russia's tallest volcano spews out 1,000-mile-long river of smoke after giant eruption, satellite images reveal

Eurasia's tallest volcano has violently erupted, throwing a 1,000-mile-long (1,600 kilometers) cloud of dust and ash into the air, new NASA satellite images show. Klyuchevskoy, sometimes referred to as Klyuchevskaya Sopka, is an active stratovolcano in Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, which is home to more than 300 other volcanos. Klyuchevskoy's peak...

Nov 14, 2023

'Time's finally up': Impending Iceland eruption is part of centuries-long volcanic pulse

Iceland's potentially imminent eruption in the Reykjanes Peninsula is part of a 1,000-year cycle of volcanic activity that will likely cause eruptions for centuries, scientists say. Time's finally up, Edward W. Marshall, a researcher at the University of Iceland's Nordic Volcanological Center, told Live Science in an email. We can...

Nov 15, 2023

Supervolcano 'megabeds' discovered at bottom of sea point to catastrophic events in Europe every 10,000 to 15,000 years

Huge megabeds from ancient supervolcano eruptions are hiding at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, researchers have found. Their discovery points to a cycle of catastrophic events that appear to hit the region every 10,000 to 15,000 years. Megabeds are huge submarine deposits that form in marine basins as a...

Nov 16, 2023

Why is Iceland so volcanically active? A geologist explains

Thousands of earthquakes in recent weeks have shaken the Icelandic fishing town of Grindavík, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the capital Reykjavik. They have triggered evacuations and warnings that a volcanic eruption may be imminent. While the idea of magma rising was no doubt scary for tourists visiting...