Natural Disasters News

April 18, 2024

Top Headlines

CO2 Worsens Wildfires by Helping Plants Grow

Apr. 16, 2024 — By fueling the growth of plants that become kindling, carbon dioxide is driving an increase in the severity and frequency of wildfires, according to a new ...

Cloud Engineering Could Be More Effective 'Painkiller' for Global Warming Than Previously Thought

Apr. 11, 2024 — Cloud 'engineering' could be more effective for climate cooling than previously thought, because of the increased cloud cover produced, new research ...

Rock Permeability, Microquakes Link May Be a Boon for Geothermal Energy

Apr. 11, 2024 — Using machine learning, researchers have tied low-magnitude microearthquakes to the permeability of subsurface rocks beneath the Earth, a discovery that could have implications for improving geothermal energy ...

Unintended Consequences of Fire Suppression

Mar. 25, 2024 — A new study reveals how fire suppression ensures that wildfires will burn under extreme conditions at high severity, exacerbating the impacts of climate change and fuel ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:54pm EDT

Research Examines Tweets During Hurricane María to Analyze Social Media Use During Disasters

Apr. 9, 2024 — Understanding how social media is used during a disaster can help with disaster preparedness and recovery for future ...

Mathematical Innovations Enable Advances in Seismic Activity Detection

Mar. 26, 2024 — Scientists successfully addressed mathematical challenges in conventional Spectral Matrix analysis, used to analyze three-component seismic signals, by introducing time-delay components. The new ...

What Kinds of Seismic Signals Did Swifties Send at LA Concert?

Mar. 13, 2024 — Seattle may have experienced its own Swift Quake last July, but at an August 2023 concert Taylor Swift's fans in Los Angeles gave scientists a lot of shaking to ponder. After some debate, a research ...

Advanced Noise Suppression Technology for Improved Search and Rescue Drones

Mar. 6, 2024 — Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are beneficial in search and rescue missions during natural disasters like earthquakes. However, current UAVs depend on visual information and cannot detect victims ...

Study Finds Drought Fuels Invasive Species After Wildfires

Feb. 28, 2024 — Scientists uncover the intricate dance between drought, wildfires and invasive species in Southern California's coastal sage scrub ...

Climate Change Threatens Thousands of Archaeological Sites in Coastal Georgia

Feb. 28, 2024 — Thousands of historic and archaeological sites in Georgia are at risk from tropical storm surges, and that number will increase with climate change, ...

Biggest Holocene Volcano Eruption Found by Seabed Survey

Feb. 22, 2024 — A detailed survey of the volcanic underwater deposits around the Kikai caldera in Japan clarified the deposition mechanisms as well as the event's magnitude. As a result, the research team found that ...

New Detection Method Aims to Warn of Landslide Tsunamis

Feb. 21, 2024 — Researchers have devised a way to remotely detect large landslides within minutes of occurrence and to quickly determine whether they are close to open water and present a tsunami ...

Cooler, Wetter Parts of Pacific Northwest Likely to See More Fires, New Simulations Predict

Feb. 22, 2024 — Forests in the coolest, wettest parts of the western Pacific Northwest are likely to see the biggest increases in burn probability, fire size and ...

Climate Change Linked to Rise in Mental Distress Among Teens, According to Drexel Study

Feb. 22, 2024 — Worsening human-induced climate change may have effects beyond the widely reported rising sea levels, higher temperatures, and impacts on food supply ...

Ready for the Storm: Researchers Analyze Infrastructure, Demographics to See Where Tornadoes Are Most Disruptive

Mar. 13, 2024 — Researchers examined demographics, infrastructure and more than seven decades of weather data to determine which places in Kentucky are most vulnerable to ...

Wildfires Linked to Surge in Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits

Feb. 20, 2024 — A new studyshows wildfires lead to an increase of anxiety-related emergency department visits in the western United States, amplifying the concerning parallel trajectory of two escalating public ...

Earthquake Fatality Measure Offers New Way to Estimate Impact on Countries

Feb. 16, 2024 — A new measure that compares earthquake-related fatalities to a country's population size concludes that Ecuador, Lebanon, Haiti, Turkmenistan, Iran and Portugal have experienced the greatest ...

Early-Stage Subduction Invasion

Feb. 15, 2024 — Our planet's lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to ...

Ancient Rocks Improve Understanding of Tectonic Activity Between Earthquakes

Feb. 7, 2024 — Rocks once buried deep in ancient subduction zones -- where tectonic plates collide -- could help scientists make better predictions of how these zones behave during the years between major ...

What Turned Earth Into a Giant Snowball 700 Million Years Ago? Scientists Now Have an Answer

Feb. 7, 2024 — Inspired during field work in South Australia's Flinders Ranges, geoscientists have proposed that all-time low volcanic carbon dioxide emissions triggered a 57-million-year-long global ...

New Method to More Accurately Spot Underground Nuclear Tests

Feb. 7, 2024 — A more accurate way of identifying underground nuclear tests, including those conducted in secret, has been ...

A New Origin Story for Deadly Seattle Fault

Feb. 6, 2024 — The Seattle fault zone is a network of shallow faults slicing through the lowlands of Puget Sound, threatening to create damaging earthquakes for the more than four million people who live there. A ...

Self-Powered Movable Seawall for Tsunami Protection and Emergency Power Generation

Jan. 24, 2024 — A movable seawall system, capable of generating sufficient electricity to raise gates and protect ports against tsunamis, has been proposed by researchers. The system has been found feasible in areas ...

Discovering the Physics Behind 300-Year-Old Firefighting Methods

Jan. 23, 2024 — Inspired by a 1725 fire engine that pumped water at larger distances and higher speeds than previously possible, authors analyzed the pressure chamber's Windkessel effect to capture the physics ...

Key Factors in Human-Made Earthquakes

Jan. 18, 2024 — Researchers report that the roughness of pre-existing faults and associated stress heterogeneity in geological reservoirs play a key role for causing human-made earthquakes, so-called runaway events. ...

Stalagmites as Climate Archive

Jan. 17, 2024 — When combined with data from tree-ring records, stalagmites can open up a unique archive to study natural climate fluctuations, a research team has demonstrated. The researchers analyzed the isotopic ...

New Map Shows Where Damaging Earthquakes Are Most Likely to Occur in US

Jan. 16, 2024 — Scientists recently revealed the latest National Seismic Hazard Model, showing that nearly 75% of the United States could experience a damaging earthquake, emphasizing seismic hazards span a ...

Is Natural Spa Water a Fossil of Water? Uncover the Real Ultra-Deep Water Cycles

Jan. 9, 2024 — Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding the origins of non-meteoric water in natural spa waters located in central Japan. Based on numerical modeling, their results suggest that ...

Seismic and Infrasonic Signals Used to Characterize Nord Stream Pipeline Events

Jan. 3, 2024 — A new study provides further evidence that the Nord Stream seismic signals came from a complex source. The signals lasted longer than would be expected from a single explosive source, the researchers ...

Wildfires Increasing Across Eastern U.S.

Dec. 18, 2023 — Researchers examined 36 years of wildfire data in the eastern United States, focusing on fires that burned large areas. The overall trend for the region showed an increase in fire size, frequency, ...

Morocco Earthquake Had Unusual Deep Slip, According to New Modeling

Dec. 15, 2023 — In their rapid characterization of the magnitude 6.8 Al Haouz earthquake in Morocco, researchers suggest that the earthquake ruptured roughly 25 kilometers deep beneath the ...

U.S. Renters Are Hit the Hardest When a Hurricane Strikes, New Research Shows

Dec. 14, 2023 — Two new studies based on data from 2009 to 2018 show that renters living along the East and Gulf coasts of the United States face rent increases, higher eviction rates, and a lack of affordable ...

Was the Earthquake Induced or Natural? New Study Tests Frameworks to Answer the Question

Dec. 13, 2023 — Using questionnaires created to determine whether a particular earthquake is natural or induced by human activity, a panel of experts concluded that the November 2022 magnitude 5.2 Peace River ...

New Geophysical Technique Enhances Imaging of Fluid-Filled Rocks Finding Connections With Microearthquakes

Dec. 11, 2023 — Scientists have recently introduced a new method called ambient noise differential adjoint tomography, which allows researchers to visualise rocks with fluids better, leading to potential ...