volcano Archives

Volcanic Eruption - Grok via Astrobiology.com

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Meteorites & Asteroids, Press Release

Massive Volcanic Eruptions Did Not Cause The Extinction Of Dinosaurs

by Keith CowingDecember 19, 2024December 19, 2024

Massive volcanic eruptions on the Indian peninsula have long been proposed as an alternative cause for the demise of the dinosaurs. This phase of active volcanism took place in a […]

Outgassed atmospheric composition at model termination for HD 63433 d (top) and TRAPPIST-1 c (bottom), versus mantle 𝑓 O2 (x-axis), simulated with both atmosphere models (y-axis). Pie chars show volatile volume mixing ratios and white numbers show log10 total surface pressure [bar]. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Status Report, TRAPPIST-1

Convective Shutdown In The Atmospheres of Lava Worlds

by Keith CowingDecember 18, 2024December 18, 2024

Atmospheric energy transport is central to the cooling of primordial magma oceans. Theoretical studies of atmospheres on lava planets have assumed that convection is the only process involved in setting […]

A recent review article by graduate student Nathan Hadland in the Duhamel Lab evaluates how young volcanic terrains can be colonized by microorganisms. -- University of Arizona

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Habitable Zones, Microbiology & Virology, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Young Volcanic Terrains Are Windows Into Early Microbial Colonization

by Keith CowingDecember 16, 2024December 16, 2024

Volcanic eruptions create sterile environments with a variety of habitats available for colonization including hot springs, fumaroles, lava tubes, and rock surfaces.

A schematic illustrating the different planetary models under study. In both models, (A) and (B), the planet has a molten core that contributes negligibly to the tidally dissipated energy (this also stands if the core is differentiated into a solid inner and fluid outer parts). On top of the core lies a viscoelastic solid mantle which can be stratified and further divided into layers of uniform physical properties. Tidal dissipation in this mantle is computed in the solid tidal formalism using ALMA3 (Section 2.1). The solid mantle is enveloped by a fluid magma ocean of unperturbed uniform thickness H, which is the focus of our study. Under tidal forcing of the ocean and the mantle, the ocean’s bottom (top) is displaced vertically by ζ ↓ (ζ ↑ ). This forcing also leads to heating (by virtue of several dissipative mechanisms in reality, but mainly due to friction at the ocean-solid mantle interface, as shown in the sketch). The heating is counteracted by convective cooling. This molten layer can either be the outermost layer of the planet (A), or it can live under a solidified crust (B). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Status Report, Venus

Tides on Lava Worlds: Application to Close-in Exoplanets and the Early Earth-Moon System

by Keith CowingDecember 11, 2024December 11, 2024

Understanding the physics of planetary magma oceans has been the subject of growing efforts, in light of the increasing abundance of Solar system samples and extrasolar surveys. A rocky planet […]

This image was processed from archived Mariner 10 data by JPL engineer Kevin M. Gill.

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Status Report, Venus

A Dry Venusian Interior Constrained By Atmospheric Chemistry

by Keith CowingDecember 9, 2024December 9, 2024

Venus’s climatic history provides powerful constraint on the location of the inner-edge of the liquid-water habitable zone. However, two very different histories of water on Venus have been proposed: one […]

a, Mantle melting is predicted to last 5 Myr or more. b, A rheological transition in the crust on timescales of ~105 years throttles ascent of magmas from deeper storage regions. c, SCION sensitivity tests for the end-Permian with median Siberian Traps co-eruptive outgassing and cryptic degassing ranging from 1013 to 3 × 1013 mol CO2 yr−1 for 2, 4, 6 or 8 Myr, showing that maintaining a given level of warming requires a minimum CO2 flux; if cryptic degassing satisfies this flux, the duration of warming depends on the duration of cryptic degassing and cumulative emissions. d, The combined influence of prolonged mantle melting and declining surface volcanism decouples CO2 flux from volcanic output, with high cryptic CO2 fluxes during early and waning phases of LIP emplacement. During early emplacement, magmas solidify in the cold lithosphere, exsolving gas. During late emplacement, the rheologic shift shown in b inhibits eruptions, but cryptic degassing continues from magmas solidifying in the lower crust and mantle lithosphere.

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extinction events, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering

Carbon Dioxide Release From Magma Deep Beneath Ancient Volcanoes Was A Hidden Driver Of Earth’s Past Climate

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2024October 31, 2024

An international team of geoscientists led by a volcanologist at Rutgers University-New Brunswick has discovered that, contrary to present scientific understanding, ancient volcanoes continued to spew carbon dioxide into the […]

The Carboxysulfitic Scenario. A conceptual diagram linking the carboxysulfitic reaction network and a geochemical environment. Volcanic outgassing supplies SO2 and CO2 to the atmosphere which can then dissolve in mildly alkaline lakes. Dissolution leads to the formation of bicarbonate (HCO3-) and sulfite (SO32-). Photochemical reactions involving UV photons and SO32- can lead to the production of solvated electrons. These solvated electrons can then be used to reduce CO2 . The effective rate constant for this multi-step reaction is denoted as keff. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Habitable Zones, Mars, Sample Return, Status Report

Shedding A Light On The Kinetics Of The Carboxysulfitic Scenario

by Keith CowingOctober 31, 2024October 31, 2024

One way in which we can attempt to relate chemical pathways to geochemical environments is by studying the kinetics of a given sequence of reactions and identifying the conditions under […]

Kristen Bennett setting up a Terrestrial Laser Scanner (ground-based LiDAR) to acquire detailed topographic information for a complex esker system. The Breiðamerkurjökull glacier is visible in the background. -- USGS

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Astrogeology, Away Teams & Field Reports, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Fossils & Paleontology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Press Release, Tricorders & Sensors

USGS Away Team: A Martian Landscape Right At Home

by Keith CowingOctober 18, 2024October 18, 2024

Sitting in the middle of a vast landscape, bordered by a ridge and filled with loose rocks, Lauren Edgar held a hand lens to her eye as she peered at […]

The plume from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai behaved like a mega-thunderstorm that rose 58 kilometers (38 miles) into the atmosphere. NASA Earth Observatory images and video by Joshua Stevens, using data courtesy of Kristopher Bedka and Konstantin Khlopenkov/NASA Langley Research Center, and GOES-17 imagery courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). Story by Sofie Bates, NASA’s Earth Science News Team, with Mike Carlowicz. Larger image

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Caves, Craters, Mountains, Subsurface, Lava Tubes, Extinction events, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

X-Raying Neutral Density Disturbances in the Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere induced by the 2022 Hunga-Tonga Volcano Eruption-Explosion

by Keith CowingOctober 16, 2024October 16, 2024

We present X-ray observations of the upper atmospheric density disturbance caused by the explosive eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai (HTHH) volcano on 15 January 2022.

Panel A: crust age and thickness for 15 different zones of Loki Patera. Panel B: location of the zones chosen for the analysis. The color of the zones is coded according to the age of the crust, as indicated by the color bar to the right. The reference time for the crust age is set to the final observation epoch: April 9, 2024. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Io, Jupiter, Lava / magma ocean / Volcanic Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Status Report

Volcano World Survey: Observations Of Loki Patera By Juno During Close Flybys

by Keith CowingOctober 15, 2024October 15, 2024

We used data from the Juno spacecraft to investigate both the spatial and temporal properties of Loki Patera on Io, acquired in two infrared bands between December 2022 and April […]