volcanoes tagged posts

By staring into the hellish landscape of Jupiter’s moon Io – the most volcanically active location in the solar system – Cornell University astronomers have been able to study a fundamental process in planetary formation and evolution: tidal heating.

“Tidal heating plays an important role in the heating and orbital evolution of celestial bodies,” said Alex Hayes, professor of astronomy.

“It provides the warmth necessary to form and sustain subsurface oceans in the moons around giant planets like Jupi...

The preservation of Cretaceous mollusk fossils from Seymour Island is excellent, with shells preserving original mother-of-pearl material as in these two specimens of Eselaevitrigonia regina. Credit: Sierra V. Petersen

A new reconstruction of Antarctic ocean temperatures around the time the dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago supports the idea that one of the planet’s biggest mass extinctions was due to the combined effects of volcanic eruptions and an asteroid impact. 2 University of Michigan researchers and a Florida colleague found 2 abrupt warming spikes in ocean temperatures that coincide with two previously documented extinction pulses near the end of the Cretaceous Period...