ESI: News and Information
ESI: News and Information
Earth
Sep 13, 2019
In the Davis Mountains of far west Texas, at the University of Texas McDonald Observatory, astronomers spend their nights peering at the stars through some of the world’s most powerful telescopes. Soon they’ll be adding a more down-to-Earth job. Within sight of the giant domes, NASA is installing a... Read More
Earth
Jul 2, 2019
NASA’s Earth Science Research and Analysis (R&A) pro- gram’s Earth Surface and Interior (ESI) focus area sup- ports research and analysis of solid-Earth processes from crust to the core. This includes research on how the solid Earth interacts with the storage, movement, and trans- port of... Read More
Earth
Jun 25, 2019
Unlike some of its perpetually active neighbors on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Raikoke Volcano on the Kuril Islands rarely erupts. The small, oval-shaped island most recently exploded in 1924 and in 1778.
The dormant period ended around 4:00 a.m. local time on June 22, 2019, when... Read More
Earth
Jun 21, 2019
On May 29, 2006, hot mud and gas began gushing from a rice field near a gas exploration well in East Java. More than a decade later, the Lusi mud flow continues on the Indonesian island. (The name is a combination of lumpur, the Indonesian word for mud, and Sidoarjo, the location of the flow). Over... Read More
Earth
Feb 25, 2019
The Shiveluch volcano is erupting once again. It is one of the largest and most active volcanoes in Kamchatka Krai, a territory in northeast Russia. At least 60 large eruptions have occurred at Shiveluch in the past 10,000 years. The Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 acquired an image of the... Read More
Earth
Feb 11, 2019
It is increasingly rare to find new large impact craters on Earth, let alone such craters buried beneath ice. This study by MacGregor et al. describes a possible impact crater buried beneath two kilometers of ice in northwest Greenland. The circular structure is more than 36 kilometers wide, and... Read More
Earth
Dec 22, 2018
Dispersed across the Sahara Desert in northern Niger, the Aïr Mountains rise sharply from the low-lying sea of sand to provide unique scenery, aesthetically and geologically. The mountain range hosts volcanic peaks, is traversed by deep valleys, and makes up one of the world’s largest ring dike... Read More
Earth
Nov 14, 2018
The Hiawatha impact crater was first suspected to exist in the summer of 2015, from examination of a compilation of Greenland's sub-ice topography radar measurements made by NASA over two decades. The visualizations of the subsurface shown below are derived from a spring 2016 airborne survey by... Read More
Earth
May 26, 2018
Though Kilauea has been erupting continuously from the Pu’u O’o vent since 1983, the eruption took a dangerous turn on May 3, 2018, when new fissures opened in the residential neighborhood of Leilani Estates. Three weeks later, some fissures have become less active but several... Read More
Earth
May 16, 2018
NASA scientists used GRACE data to identify regional trends of freshwater movement, and combined that information with data from other satellites, climate models and precipitation measurements to determine the causes of major regional trends in freshwater storage. In these visualizations, the... Read More
Earth
May 14, 2018
You have probably seen dramatic images and videos of several new fissure eruptions cracking open the land surface in Hawaii, emitting plumes of gas, and spitting up fountains of lava in the middle of a residential neighborhood. If you are tracking Kilauea’s eruptions, the U.S. Geological Survey... Read More
Earth
Mar 26, 2018
It is one of the most famous patches of coral outside of the Great Barrier Reef. Stretching a mere 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) by 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) and surrounded by deep ocean, it is barely a speck on world maps. Though uninhabited today, Nikumaroro atoll is noteworthy for someone who... Read More
Earth
Mar 16, 2018
If you ever have an urge to hike—or even bathe—inside a volcano, you may want to visit Torfajökull. While this volcano has not had a large eruption since 1477, its 18-kilometer by 12-kilometer caldera is home to one of Iceland’s largest geothermal areas—an exotic landscape dotted with steaming... Read More
Earth
Feb 21, 2018
Indonesia’s Mount Sinabung has been sporadically active since 2010, following four centuries of quiet. On February 19, 2018, the stratovolcano on the island of Sumatra erupted violently, spewing ash at least 5 to 7 kilometers (16,000 to 23,000 feet) into the air over Indonesia. At 11:10 a... Read More
