geophysics – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-a-landslide-shake-the-earth-for-nine-days-20240912/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-a-landslide-shake-the-earth-for-nine-days-20240912/#respond Thu, 12 Sep 2024 18:00:39 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140655 The post The Search for What Shook the Earth for Nine Days Straight first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> On September 16, 2023, the world began to rumble. A gargantuan rock-ice avalanche tumbled into the deep waters of a fjord in eastern Greenland, unleashing a megatsunami whose initial waves reached a height of 200 meters. The waves scoured the walls of the fjord before flowing into the open sea. Even for this avalanche-prone corner of Greenland, the collapse and subsequent megatsunami were shocking...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-a-landslide-shake-the-earth-for-nine-days-20240912/feed/ 0 Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/#respond Wed, 07 Aug 2024 14:25:32 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139592 The post Physicists Pinpoint the Quantum Origin of the Greenhouse Effect first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In 1896, the Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius realized that carbon dioxide (CO2) traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere — the phenomenon now called the greenhouse effect. Since then, increasingly sophisticated modern climate models have verified Arrhenius’ central conclusion: that every time the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere doubles, Earth’s temperature will rise between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-pinpoint-the-quantum-origin-of-the-greenhouse-effect-20240807/feed/ 0 Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands https://www.quantamagazine.org/simple-equation-predicts-the-shapes-of-carbon-capturing-wetlands-20240528/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/simple-equation-predicts-the-shapes-of-carbon-capturing-wetlands-20240528/#respond Tue, 28 May 2024 14:09:01 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=138158 The post Simple Equation Predicts the Shapes of Carbon-Capturing Wetlands first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> A visit to a peat bog will make you rethink everything you know about the surface of our planet. A bog is land, sort of, but not in the solid-ground sense you’re used to. If you try walking across one’s surface, you may feel the soft organic muck known as peat undulate beneath you — or you may sink into it yourself. From the surface, it’s hard to know whether the waterlogged peat extends 3 feet...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/simple-equation-predicts-the-shapes-of-carbon-capturing-wetlands-20240528/feed/ 0 Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-scientists-life-saving-prediction-of-the-iceland-eruption-20240220/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-scientists-life-saving-prediction-of-the-iceland-eruption-20240220/#respond Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:27:49 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=135544 The post Inside Scientists’ Life-Saving Prediction of the Iceland Eruption first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> On November 10, 2023, Kristín Jónsdóttir, head of the Icelandic Meteorological Office’s department of volcano research, was having a rare day off. “It was my 50th birthday,” she said. Then everything began to shake. She would spend the day staring at her phone, watching the earthquakes bloom across maps of Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula. The peninsula experiences fissure eruptions...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-scientists-life-saving-prediction-of-the-iceland-eruption-20240220/feed/ 0 Deep Beneath Earth’s Surface, Clues to Life’s Origins https://www.quantamagazine.org/deep-beneath-earths-surface-clues-to-lifes-origins-20240104/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/deep-beneath-earths-surface-clues-to-lifes-origins-20240104/#respond Thu, 04 Jan 2024 15:28:32 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=133682 The post Deep Beneath Earth’s Surface, Clues to Life’s Origins first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Near midnight on March 26, 1961, dark waters lapped at the hull of a converted naval barge as it queasily rocked in the Pacific Ocean. The ship had just arrived at this spot, some 240 kilometers off the Baja peninsula, after three days of fighting seas so rough the crew had lashed gear to the deck with heavy chains, “like a rogue elephant,” the novelist John Steinbeck, who was aboard the vessel...

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