Volcano on uninhabited Galapagos island spews lava

ECUADOR - A volcano on an uninhabited island of Ecuador's famous Galapagos archipelago is spewing lava, authorities said Sunday, potentially threatening an array of unique animal species. The La Cumbre volcano on the island of Fernandina blew its top late Saturday, the South American country's Geophysical Institute said. La Cumbre, which stands 1,463 meters (4,799 feet) high, has erupted three times previously since 2017. The Galapagos archipelago, some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the mainland of Ecuador, has flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. Observing its wonders led British scientist Charles Darwin to develop his ground-breaking theory of evolution by natural selection in the 19th century. La Cumbre has the highest eruption rate of all volcanos in the archipelago, which is a favorite with tourists. Fernandina, with no hotels or restaurants, can only be accessed for short visits from a cruiseGALAPAGOS NATIONAL PARK/AFP |boat. The Institute said La Cumbre blew a gas cloud about three kilometers into the air, dispersed by the wind without passing over other islands with human settlements such as neighboring Isabela. It said the duration of the eruption cannot be predicted, nor whether the lava will reach the shore, but data on the volcano's activity suggested this one was likely to be greater than those in 2017,...

Read More........→March 06, 2024

Underground nuclear tests are hard to detect. A new method can spot them 99% of the time

US Department of Energy via Wikimedia Mark Hoggard, Australian National UniversitySince the first detonation of an atomic bomb in 1945, more than 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been conducted by eight countries: the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Groups such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization are constantly on the lookout for new tests. However, for reasons of safety and secrecy, modern nuclear tests are carried out underground – which makes them difficult to detect. Often, the only indication they have occurred is from the seismic waves they generate. In a paper published in Geophysical Journal International, my colleagues and I have developed a way to distinguish between underground nuclear tests and natural earthquakes with around 99% accuracy. Fallout The invention of nuclear weapons sparked an international arms race, as the Soviet Union, the UK and France developed and tested increasingly larger and more sophisticated devices in an attempt to keep up with the US. Many early tests caused serious environmental and societal damage. For example, the US’s 1954 Castle Bravo test, conducted in secret at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, delivered large volumes of radioactive fallout to several nearby islands and their inhabitants. Between...

Read More........→February 21, 2024