Earthquakes News

January 26, 2025

Top Headlines

Subterranean 'Islands': Strongholds in a Potentially Less Turbulent World

Jan. 22, 2025 — Deeply hidden in Earth's mantle there are two huge 'islands' with the size of a continent. New research shows that these regions are not only hotter than the surrounding graveyard of cold sunken tectonic plates, but also that they must be ancient: ...

Claims for the World's Deepest Earthquake Challenged by New Analysis

Jan. 23, 2025 — The magnitude 7.9 Bonin Islands earthquake sequence, which ruptured deep within the earth near the base of the upper mantle, did not include an aftershock that extended to record depths into the lower mantle, according to a new ...

Oil Extraction Might Have Triggered Small Earthquakes in Surrey, England

Jan. 9, 2025 — A series of more than 100 small earthquakes in Surrey in 2018 and 2019 might have been triggered by oil extraction from a nearby well, suggests a new ...

Denali Fault Tore Apart Ancient Joining of Two Landmasses

Dec. 19, 2024 — New research shows that three sites spread along an approximately 620-mile portion of today's Denali Fault were once a smaller united geologic feature indicative of the final joining of two land masses. That feature was then torn apart by millions ...

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updated 5:53pm EST

New Research Provides an Improved Understanding of Earthquake Hazards in the Permian Basin

Dec. 2, 2024 — A new collection of published papers offers the most detailed and comprehensive breakdown yet of how water injected into the Permian Basin during oil ...

Technique to Forecast Where the Next Big Quake Will Start

Dec. 12, 2024 — Scientists have a new method for studying faults that could improve earthquake forecasts, shedding light on where quakes start, how they spread, and where the biggest impacts might ...

Unveiling a Century of Stress and Deformation: Insights from Kilauea Volcano's 1975 Earthquake

Dec. 2, 2024 — Scientists assessed an unprecedented 120 years of data from K lauea Volcano on Hawai'i Island, uncovering, for the first time, century-spanning ...

Moving 'Hotspot' Created World's Longest Straight Underwater Mountain Belt

Nov. 27, 2024 — New research has revealed that the Ninetyeast Ridge -- the Earth's longest straight underwater mountain chain -- formed through a different process than previously believed. Stretching 5000 km along ...

Plugged Wells and Reduced Injection Lower Induced Earthquake Rates in Oklahoma, Study Finds

Nov. 13, 2024 — Wastewater injection resulting from oil and gas production in Oklahoma caused a dramatic rise in seismic activity in the state between 2009 and 2015. ...

Earthquake Prediction Techniques Lend Quick Insight Into Strength, Reliability of Materials

Nov. 6, 2024 — Materials scientists can now use insight from a very common mineral and well-established earthquake and avalanche statistics to quantify how hostile ...

New Trigger Proposed for Record-Smashing 2022 Tonga Eruption

Nov. 4, 2024 — Fifteen minutes before the massive January 2022 eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano, a seismic wave was recorded by two distant seismic stations. The researchers propose that the ...

Building Safer Cities With AI: Machine Learning Model Enhances Urban Resilience Against Liquefaction

Oct. 28, 2024 — In earthquake-prone areas like Japan, there is a need for better prediction of soil stability to mitigate liquefaction risks. Towards this end, ...

Shaking from April's Sizable New Jersey Earthquake Traveled Strangely Far

Oct. 21, 2024 — When a magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck northern New Jersey's Tewksbury township on April 5, it triggered widespread alarm as the biggest event since 1884. Based on existing models, it should have ...

Understanding Landslides: A New Model for Predicting Motion

Oct. 17, 2024 — Along coastal California, the possibility of earthquakes and landslides are commonly prefaced by the phrase, 'not if, but when.' This precarious reality is now a bit more predictable thanks to ...

Study Identifies Coastal Black Pine Trees Resistant to Tsunamis and Strong Winds

Jan. 8, 2025 — Researchers have found that the taller the Japanese black pine trees (Pinus thunbergii) along the coast, the deeper their roots penetrate the ground. Deeper roots make trees more resistant to damage ...

Echoes from the Past: A Geological Mystery Unravelled on Easter Island

Oct. 16, 2024 — A mysterious find on Easter Island, investigated by a team of geologists, suggests that the Earth's mantle seems to behave differently than once ...

Closer Look at New Jersey Earthquake Rupture Could Explain Shaking Reports

Oct. 2, 2024 — Geologists show how the earthquake's rupture direction may have affected who felt the strongest shaking on 5 ...

Deep Underground Flooding Beneath Arima Hot Springs: A Potential Trigger for the 1995 Kobe (Hyogo-Ken Nanbu) Earthquake

Sep. 27, 2024 — Researchers showed that the 1995 Kobe (Hyogo-ken Nanbu) earthquake, which struck southern Hyogo Prefecture, may have been triggered by deep underground flooding beneath Arima Hot Springs. By ...

Ancient Sunken Seafloor Reveals Earth's Deep Secrets

Sep. 27, 2024 — Geologists discover a mysterious subduction zone deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, reshaping our understanding of Earth's ...

Climate-Change-Triggered 2023 Mega-Landslide Caused Earth to Vibrate for Nine Days

Sep. 12, 2024 — A landslide in a remote part of Greenland caused a 200 meter (650 foot) mega-tsunami that sloshed back and forth across a fjord for nine days, generating vibrations throughout Earth, according to a ...

Doughnut-Shaped Region Found Inside Earth's Core Deepens Understanding of Planet's Magnetic Field

Aug. 30, 2024 — A doughnut-shaped region thousands of kilometers beneath our feet within Earth's liquid core has been discovered, providing new clues about the dynamics of our planet's magnetic ...

Scientist's Method Could Give Months' Warning of Major Earthquakes

Aug. 29, 2024 — The public could have days or months of warning about a major earthquake through identification of prior low-level tectonic unrest over large areas, according to research by scientists who analyzed ...

Algorithm Raises New Questions About Cascadia Earthquake Record

Aug. 27, 2024 — A study is calling into question the reliability of the earthquake record of Cascadia. The researchers analyzed a selection of turbidite layers from the Cascadia subduction zone dating back about ...

Two Epicenters Led to Japan's Violent Noto Earthquake on New Year's Day

Aug. 23, 2024 — The 7.5- magnitude earthquake beneath Japan's Noto Peninsula on Jan. 1, 2024, occurred when a 'dual-initiation mechanism' applied enough energy from two different locations to break ...

Decoding Mysterious Seismic Signals

Aug. 16, 2024 — Geophysicists find link between seismic waves called PKP precursors and anomalies in Earth's mantle that are associated with hotspots associated with volcanism on the ...

Researchers Unveil Mysteries of Ancient Earth

Aug. 14, 2024 — A team of researchers has made strides in understanding the formation of massif-type anorthosites, enigmatic rocks that only formed during the middle part of Earth's history. These ...

Greenland Mega-Tsunami Led to Week-Long Oscillating Fjord Wave

Aug. 9, 2024 — In September 2023, a megatsunami in remote eastern Greenland sent seismic waves around the world, piquing the interest of the global research community. The event created a week-long oscillating wave ...

Sichuan Province Earthquake Offers Lessons for Landslide Prediction from GNSS Observations

Aug. 7, 2024 — Using data collected from a 2022 magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Luding County in China's Sichuan Province, researchers tested whether Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) observations could be ...

Study Revisits Texas Seismic Activity Occurring Before 2017, Confirming Connection to Wastewater Injection

Aug. 6, 2024 — A new study by seismologists reexamines earthquakes in the Permian Basin that occurred before 2017 against the real-time data collected from earthquakes taking place after 2020. Results confirm that ...

Seismic Detectors Measure Soil Moisture Using Traffic Noise

Aug. 5, 2024 — Using state of the art techniques, researchers use vibrations from traffic to measure underground soil ...

New Model Refutes Leading Theory on How Earth's Continents Formed

Aug. 5, 2024 — Computational modeling shows that plate tectonics weren't necessary for early ...

Towards Smart Cities: Predicting Soil Liquefaction Risk Using Artificial Intelligence

Aug. 1, 2024 — Soil liquefaction that results in infrastructure damage has long been a point of contention for urban planners and engineers. Accurately predicting the soil liquefaction risk of a region could help ...

Iceland's Volcano Eruptions May Last Decades

June 26, 2024 — Scientists predict from geochemical data that Iceland is entering a new volcanic era that will last for decades, possibly centuries. Under an hour's drive from the country's capital city, ...

An Earthquake Changed the Course of the Ganges: Could It Happen Again?

June 17, 2024 — A major earthquake 2,500 years ago caused one of the largest rivers on Earth to abruptly change course, according to a new study. The previously undocumented quake rerouted the main channel of the ...