The central section of the great fault spanning California, thought to be creeping along harmlessly at the moment, has experienced big quakes in the past, says a new study.
Compound risk — when multiple risks occur simultaneously, or one after another — was the topic of a recent discussion as part of the Resilience Media Project, a part of the Initiative on Communication and Sustainability at the Earth Institute.
Glacial flooding is never predictable, but Juneau’s response has become reliably routine, thanks to scientific research and partnerships with government.
Scientists probing under the seafloor off Alaska have mapped a geologic structure that they say signals potential for a major tsunami in an area that normally would be considered benign.
On every continent and ocean, Earth Institute field researchers are studying the dynamics of climate, geology, natural hazards, ecology and other subjects with direct applications to the challenges facing humanity.
An all-purpose guide for journalists covering disasters, natural and manmade.
A new pilot program led by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory aims to provide earlier and more accurate warnings of damaging ground-shaking from earthquakes and the imminent arrival of tsunamis.
A new film takes viewers from the eastern highlands of India to the booming lowland metropolis of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh–and explores an ever-more detailed picture of catastrophic earthquake threat that scientists are discovering under the region.
On a ledge just inside the lip of Chile’s Quizapu volcanic crater, Philipp Ruprecht was furiously digging a trench. Here at an elevation of 10,000 feet, a 1,000-foot plunge loomed just yards away, and wind was whipping dust off his shovel. But the volcanologist was excited. Ruprecht had just found this spot, topped with undisturbed wedding-cake layers of fine, black material that the crater had vomited from the deep earth some 84 years ago. Samples from the currently inactive site might shed light on its exceedingly violent behavior.
High in the southern Andes, Chile’s Quizapu crater is one of South America’s most fearsome geologic features. In 1846, it was the source of one the continent’s largest historically recorded lava flows. In 1932, it produced one of the largest recorded volcanic blasts. The volcano is currently inactive, but could revive at any time. What is next?
