There’s no end in sight to the hellish-looking eruption at Mount Mayon, the Filipino volcano that’s been spewing a mix of ash and lava for two weeks. This week, after Mayon ratcheted things up with tall ash clouds and half-mile-high lava fountains, volcanologists placed it on alert level 4 out of 5—meaning a “hazardous eruption” could be imminent.
Continue reading How Much Worse Could That Eruption in the Philippines Get?
On the rocky shores of a windswept island just west of Ireland, the 620-ton boulder looks almost at home. But careful analysis of its position over the last few years has revealed something odd: between the summers of 2013 and 2014, the boulder shifted a couple meters toward the sea. That discovery is causing scientists to rethink what they know about the impacts of powerful storms.
Continue reading Apparently Storms Can Push 600-Ton Boulders Around
Scientists have identified nearly 100 previously unknown volcanoes in West Antarctica, which, in addition to the 47 already known to exist in the region, makes it one of the largest concentration of volcanoes in the world.
Continue reading Scientists Discover Trove of Volcanoes Hidden Beneath Antarctic Ice Sheet
Yikes, is it ever gonna be hot in the western United States this week. The National Weather Service has issued an excessive heat warning for Arizona, Nevada, and parts of California, where temperatures are expected to reach as high as 122 degrees F (50 C). State and local officials are asking people to take the necessary precautions.
Continue reading The Southwest US Is About to Get Torched by a Brutal Heat Wave
A newly-discovered peatland in the Congo Basin of central Africa contains an estimated 30.6 billion tons of carbon in its waterlogged soils—equivalent to three times the total annual carbon emissions of every human being alive today.
Continue reading A Mind-Boggling Carbon Deposit Was Just Discovered in the Congo
Last year, a 225 square-mile chunk of West Antarctica’s Pine Island Glacier broke off and tumbled into the sea. Now, Earth scientists at Ohio State University have pinpointed the root cause of the iceberg calving event: a crack that started deep below ground and 20 miles inland.
Continue reading Huge Cracks In the West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Signal Its Collapse
The sixth mass extinction—the one that seven billion humans are doing their darnedest to trigger at this very moment—is shaping up to be like nothing our planet has ever seen. That’s the conclusion of a sweeping new analysis, which compared marine fossil records from Earth’s five previous mass extinction events to what’s happening in the oceans right now.
Continue reading The Sixth Mass Extinction Will Be Like Nothing In Earth’s History
The Fat Cat Collective 