A tectonic plate that disappeared millions of years ago has turned up in Central California and Mexico. New research from Brown University found that part of the Baja region of Mexico and part of central California near the Sierra Nevada mountains sit upon slabs of this long-lost plate. It’s a big breakthrough in how we…
Structural Geology/Lithospheric Geodynamics News Archive
The Geological Society of London, the world’s oldest and one of its most prestigious geological organizations, has announced it will award medals to two scientists working at the Bureau of Economic Geology, Martin P. A. Jackson, senior research scientist, and Christopher Jackson, senior research fellow. Martin Jackson will receive the William Smith Medal, presented for…
It’s the nightmare scenario: A magnitude 7.8 earthquake begins at the southern end of the San Andreas Fault and the rupture continues moving northwest 200 miles along the fault to a spot about 50 miles north of Los Angeles. Buildings collapse, wildfires spark, and electric power and water systems are damaged. Experts project such an…
Scientists have discovered underwater evidence that Haiti’s unusual 2010 earthquake may not have been the first of its kind in the region. They took core samples from the seafloor that reveal a 2000-year-old sequence of sediment layers closely resembling landslide deposits triggered by the 2010 quake, indicating an older event of similar violence and other…
Traditionally, geothermal energy has been associated with regions of intense volcanic or hydrothermal activity, like Iceland. For decades, however, scientists have wondered if the less volatile subsurface in areas such as Texas could provide economically viable locations for geothermal power. Bruce Cutright, a research associate at the Bureau of Economic Geology, and colleagues are helping answer that question through several…
Like many kids in the Indiana Jones generation, Danny Stockli wanted to be an archaeologist when he grew up. In high school, he volunteered at ancient Roman digs in his native Switzerland. Like most of us though, the dream changed somewhere along the way. “I don’t have a gun or a whip,” he said, “but…
Ian Dalziel is a jocular and spirited Scotsman. As a boy growing up in Glasgow, he and his parents would spend their summers in the Scottish Highlands. They’d rent a cottage on a windy speck of an island called Iona, which had an ancient stone abbey, puffins, and more sheep than people. You could walk…
Researchers have found the strongest evidence yet that North America and Antarctica were connected 1.1 billion years ago. ”I can go to … West Texas and stand next to what was once part of Coats Land in Antarctica,” said Staci Loewy, a geochemist at California State University, Bakersfield, who led the study. “That’s so amazing.”
An international team of geoscientists has discovered an unusual geological formation that helps explain how an undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in December 2004 spawned the deadliest tsunami in recorded history. ”The results suggest we should be concerned about locations with large thicknesses of sediments in the trench, especially those which have built marginal…
The following geophysicists, engineers, and social scientists with expertise in earthquakes, some specifically regarding Japan and the Pacific Rim, are available to talk on today’s earthquake in Japan, the tsunami affecting the Pacific region, impacts of earlier earthquakes and tsunamis on Japan, and safety issues related to construction and nuclear engineering in Japan. Earthquakes &…
