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Top AIPG eNews Articles of 2020
As 2020 comes to a close, AIPG would like to wish its members, partners and other industry professionals a safe and happy holiday season. As we reflect on the past year for the industry, we would like to provide a look back at the most accessed articles from the year. Look for more of the top articles from 2020 in the Jan. 5 issue. Our regular publication will resume Tuesday, Jan. 12.
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Geologists find evidence of two new supervolcano eruptions at Yellowstone
Massive Science
From July 7: Super-eruptions can decimate entire regions, and their cocktail of ash and gases can alter the climate. But, even though they eject huge amounts of material, there are very few documented super-eruptions in the geologic record. So we don’t fully understand why they are so big or how often they occur. Now, details of the Yellowstone supervolcanic eruption — some 8.7 million years ago — are documented in a new study published in the journal Geology.
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A 32-million year cycle detected in sea-level fluctuations over the last 545 Myr
Geoscience Frontiers
From Sept. 22: Spectral analyses of past relative sea-level oscillations as represented by the ages of 57 Phanerozoic (the last 545 Myr) stratigraphic sequence boundaries from the Canadian Arctic show a strong spectral peak at 32 Myr (>99.9% confidence). These findings concur with previous reports of significant cycles with periods of around 30 Myr in various records of fluctuations of sea level, and in potentially related episodes of tectonism, volcanism, climate and biotic extinctions.
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Giant tectonic plate under Indian Ocean is breaking in two
Live Science
From May 26: The giant tectonic plate under the Indian Ocean is going through a rocky breakup ... with itself.In a short time (geologically speaking) this plate will split in two, a new study finds. The plate, known as the India-Australia-Capricorn tectonic plate, is splitting at a snail's pace — about 0.06 inches (1.7 millimeters) a year. Put another way, in 1 million years, the plate's two pieces will be about 1 mile (1.7 kilometers) farther apart than they are now.
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Previously unknown viruses discovered in melting glacier
The Weather Channel
From Jan. 28: Scientists sampling ice cores from a glacier in China discovered 28 viruses that had been frozen in time for as long as 15,000 years, and were not previously known to mankind. The find was detailed in a paper posted earlier this month on the website bioRxiv by researchers from Ohio State University, the University of Nebraska and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute.
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Scientists detect unexpected widespread structures near Earth's core
University of Maryland via ScienceDaily
From June 16: A new study has produced the first analysis of seismic echoes from hundreds of earthquakes at once, revealing widespread structures at the core-mantle boundary. Previous studies were limited to analysis of single earthquakes, providing only a narrow window into the structure deep inside the Earth. This study enables a much wider view than ever before, revealing new, unexpected features and expanding the size of a previously known feature beneath Hawaii.
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Uplifting of Columbia River basalts opens window on how region was sculpted
University of Oregon via ScienceDaily
From July 21: Uplifting of Columbia River basalts has allowed University of Oregon researchers to better understand of how magma 14-16 million years ago shaped the region and why greenhouse gases released during a series of volcanic eruptions did not trigger a global extinction event. The insights, published in Scientific Reports, were drawn from analyses of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in crustal material, a mix of magma and original rocks, that is now exposed by geological uplifting and erosion.
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Indonesia's Mount Merapi erupts, spewing ash 6 km high
Phys.org
From June 23: Indonesia's Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, erupted twice on Sunday, sending clouds of grey ash 6,000 metres into the sky, the country's geological agency said. The two eruptions lasted around seven minutes, according to the agency, and prompted local authorities to order residents to stay outside a three-kilometre no-go zone around the rumbling crater near Indonesia's cultural capital Yogyakarta.
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Biggest ever Yellowstone eruption revealed
Scientific American
From June 16: Roughly 8.7 million years ago, in areas that would become southern Idaho and northern Nevada, the grasslands began to break open, unleashing curtains of lava and clouds of gas and ash that rolled across the North American landscape. Within hours, if not minutes, the land would have been pummeled by black volcanic glass that rained from above, killing animals such as rhinoceroses, camels, and horses that roamed the region, and destroying plants. Soon the ground would cave in altogether. The event was the largest explosion ever from the supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park. And scientists just found out about it.
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Geologists find rare earth element-bearing rocks in Mojave Desert
Sci News
From Jan. 14: Rare earth elements are a set of 17 chemical elements (atomic numbers 57-71) in the periodic table. They are essential in modern civilian and military applications, health care and medical devices, and "green" technologies. Although REEs have crustal abundances similar to common industrial-grade metals, large economically viable REE deposits are uncommon. The findings were published in the journal Geosphere.
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