Geography

According to a new study led by scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, the 2022 eruption of an undersea volcano in Tonga was more powerful than the biggest nuclear detonation in the United States. The 15-megaton volcanic explosion from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai, one of the largest natural explosions in more than a century, caused a mega-tsunami with waves up to 45 meters (148 feet) on Tonga's Tofua Island and 17 meters (56 feet) on Tongatapu, the country's most populated island. Rosenstiel School researchers created

Time series satellite images from 2000 to 2021 were analyzed in a study led by researchers with the Center for Earth Observation and Modeling at the University of Oklahoma. The results showed the critical importance of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Brazilian Amazon forest conservation. The study's findings, which were recently published in Nature Sustainability, highlighted the detrimental effects of the government's newly weakened conservation laws. The Brazilian Amazon is home to the world's largest tropical forest and richest biodiversity. Since 2000, Indigenous territories and protected areas have increased substantially in the region, and by 2013; Indigenous territories and

According to a study headed by UCLA geophysicists and published today in Nature Geoscience, powerful supershear earthquakes, once thought to be rare, are significantly more prevalent than previously believed. The scientists analyzed all 6.7-or-greater magnitude strike-slip earthquakes worldwide since 2000 there were 87 in all and identified 12 of the supershear type or about 14%. (Four of those earthquakes were previously unreported.) Less than 6% of strike-slip earthquakes had previously been classified as supershear, which means that this percentage is more than twice what experts had anticipated. When the margins of two tectonic plates collide sideways, strike-slip earthquakes result. Supershear

A 10-kilometer asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago caused the demise of the dinosaurs. According to recent research, the Chicxulub impact also produced an enormous earthquake that shook the earth for several weeks to months after the collision. This “mega-earthquake” is predicted to have released 1023 joules of energy, which is nearly 50,000 times more energy than the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004. Hermann Bermúdez will present evidence of this “mega-earthquake” at the upcoming GSA Connects meeting in Denver this Sunday, 9 October 2022. Earlier this year, with support from a GSA Graduate Student Research Grant, Bermúdez

Given that hillslopes make up about 90% of the Earth's surface, chances are excellent that most readers are located on one. Hillslopes are important landscape elements that carry sediments and nutrients, connect terrestrial and aquatic habitats, and flow water from ridges down to valleys. A new large-scale analysis of hillslope connectivity at the continental scale from the University of Kansas was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters. The study contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which hillslopes influence landslides, floods, and the development of wetlands. “'Connectivity' describes the likelihood that a part of the landscape is linked

The Bering Land Bridge, also known as Beringia, was a land bridge that connected present-day Siberia and Alaska during the last ice age. It formed about 20,000 years ago, when sea levels were much lower due to the large amount of water that was locked up in the ice sheets. As the glaciers began to melt and sea levels rose, the Bering Land Bridge was eventually submerged, forming the Bering Strait. The Bering Land Bridge played a significant role in human history, as it is believed to have been the route by which humans first migrated from Asia to North