To experience a volcanic eruption is to witness the sheer force of nature. If you want to see one for yourself, Iceland is a great location. Since 2021, there have been seven eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula, near Reykjavík. These recent eruptions in Iceland have caught the attention of geoscientists like me. The eruptions are … Read more
To experience a volcanic eruption is to witness the sheer force of nature. If you want to see one for yourself, Iceland is a great location. Since 2021, there have been seven eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula, near Reykjavík. These recent eruptions in Iceland have caught the attention of geoscientists like me. The eruptions are … Read more
Extraterrestrial life capable of communicating through space interstellar space might not be able to develop if the home planet doesn’t have plate tectonics, and just the right amount of water and dry land. Plate tectonics is absolutely essential if complex life is to evolve, argue Robert Stern of the University of Texas at Dallas and … Read more
The interiors of rocky planets and moons are usually quite hot compared to their surfaces. This heat, which can be caused by a number of sources – such as tidal stretching and compression, the initial accretion of the planet, and the radioactive decay of heavy elements – can drive large convective currents of rocky material … Read more
Early Mars may have been more tectonically and volcanically active than previously thought. Evidence of tectonic activity some 4 billion years ago was provided by 63 new examples of several volcanoes found in a strange region of Mars with strange features that set it apart from the rest of the Martian highlands. A team of … Read more