Latest news with #JohnVidale
Daily Mail
19-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Scientists are GOBSMACKED by never-before-seen footage of the Earth rupturing during an earthquake
Terrifying footage has emerged from March's Myanmar earthquake showing the ground literally sliding either side of two tectonic plates. The astonishing video clip, originally uploaded to Facebook, was captured by a surveillance camera just south of Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city. Initially, the clip – captured at 12:46pm local time on March 28 – looks like unremarkable security footage from a private property. But about 10 seconds in, the point-of-view begins to shake up and down, plants flap wildly and the gate starts sliding back and forth. Then, at about 14 seconds, the entire driveway starts to move forward relative to the ground beyond, like some kind of horrible fairground ride. Wendy Bohon, an earthquake geologist and science communicator in California, said her 'jaw hit the floor' when she saw the footage from along the fault line. 'We have computer models of it, we have laboratory models of it, but all of those are far less complex than the actual natural system,' she told CBS News. 'So to see it actually happening was mind-blowing.' An account called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive found the video on Facebook and uploaded it to their YouTube page John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California Dornsife, said he knows of no other video showing a so-called 'ground rupture'. 'It's really kind of unsettling,' Professor Vidale told Live Science. The footage was captured by a security camera at GP Energy Myanmar's Tha Pyay Wa solar energy facility, just south of Mandalay. An account called 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive found the video on Facebook and uploaded it to their YouTube page. Although easily missed, the 'surface rupture' event is best viewed by keeping a close eye beyond the gate to the right of the picture. Dividing the driveway and the road beyond is the fault line – the boundary where two tectonic plates meet. When the 7.7-magnitude quake hit, the ground moved as much as 20 feet (6 metres), according to 2025 Sagaing Earthquake Archive. This is the first and currently only known instance of a fault line motion being captured on camera, the page says. What happened during the Myanmar earthquake? Myanmar sits on the boundary between the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates. Right in the heart of the country, these plates move past each other in a zone called the Sagaing Fault. Researchers have warned that part of the Sagaing Fault had been 'stuck', building up a huge reserve of energy. On March 28, that energy was released in a massive earthquake near Myanmar's population centres. The earthquake was also exceptionally shallow, meaning more energy was transferred into buildings at the surface. The video was posted to YouTube on May 11, where it received 12,000 likes and more than 1,000 comments from astonished users. One person said: 'This video is going to be a staple in geology classrooms, while another called it 'truly a groundbreaking video'. A third said: '[It's] terrifying to see the entire landscape shift, very visceral expression of the energy involved', while a fourth said: 'If you're watching this for the first time and only notice the driveway, rewatch it several times looking at different areas.' Another posted: 'There's so many amazing tiny details in this video, that 30 watches in, I'm still finding new things.' Earthquakes occur when two tectonic plates that are sliding in opposite directions stick and then slip suddenly. Myanmar sits directly on top of the Sagaing Fault – a highly active earthquake zone stretching 745 miles (1,200 km) through the heart of the country. In this region, the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates slide past each other at a speed of 1.9-inch (49mm) per year. When those plates catch and stick, they build up a vast reserve of energy which is then released in a violent 'slip-strike' earthquake, as has happened on March 28. The earthquake originated from a fault that runs the length of the country between the Indian and Sunda tectonic plates. It originated from a region called the Sagaing Fault, near Mandalay In January, geologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found that the middle section of the Sagaing fault had been highly 'locked' – meaning the plates had been stuck for an abnormally long time. This indicated that more energy was building up than normal and the researchers warned that the Sagaing fault would be 'prone to generating large earthquakes in the future'. The March 28 earthquake killed more than 5,300 people in Myanmar, as well as more than 100 in neighbouring Thailand and one person in Vietnam. It was the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar since 1912 and the second deadliest in Myanmar's modern history. The Earth is moving under our feet: Tectonic plates move through the mantle and produce Earthquakes as they scrape against each other Tectonic plates are composed of Earth's crust and the uppermost portion of the mantle. Below is the asthenosphere: the warm, viscous conveyor belt of rock on which tectonic plates ride. Earthquakes typically occur at the boundaries of tectonic plates, where one plate dips below another, thrusts another upward, or where plate edges scrape alongside each other. Earthquakes rarely occur in the middle of plates, but they can happen when ancient faults or rifts far below the surface reactivate.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
First-of-its-kind video captures the terrifying moment the ground tore apart during major Myanmar earthquake
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A video showing the ground tearing apart in a major earthquake in Myanmar in March may be the first of its kind. The video captures a ground rupture, the ripping of Earth's crust all the way up to the surface, during a major earthquake. The magnitude 7.7 quake struck on March 28 at 12:50 p.m. local time and was felt as far away as Thailand. Nearly 5,500 people died. The video, posted on Facebook by Singaporean engineer Htin Aung, comes from GP Energy Myanmar's Thapyawa solar farm, located near the town of Thazi, according to Aung's post. The feed is centered on a concrete-and-metal gate, which shudders and slides open as the earth begins to move. About 14 seconds into the video, a crack opens across the driveway and yard outside the gate, with the ground literally pulling apart. "It's really kind of unsettling," said John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California Dornsife. Vidale told Live Science he knew of no other videos that show such a ground rupture. Rick Aster, a geophysicist at Colorado State University, concurred. "To my knowledge, this is the best video we have of a throughgoing surface rupture of a very large earthquake," Aster told Live Science. The Myanmar quake occurred on the Sagaing Fault between the Burma and Sunda tectonic plates, two minor tectonic plates. This fault slices through central Myanmar in a straight line, north to south. It's a transform fault, just like California's famous San Andreas, where the two plates move side by side against each other. The epicenter of the Myanmar quake, where the fault rupture started, was north of the location in the video, near the city of Mandalay. This rupture then propagated both north and south, cracking the ground all along the fault line. "The actual segment of the Earth that is slipping side to side goes from the surface down to maybe 20 or 30 kilometers [12 to 19 miles] depth," Aster said. Below that, the crust still moves, but the crust is more malleable and deforms rather than cracks. The shaking first seen in the video comes from the earthquake waves that speed out from the rupturing crack, Vidale said. Then, the rupture itself arrives. RELATED STORIES —The science behind Myanmar's magnitude 7.7 earthquake —Scientists find hidden mechanism that could explain how earthquakes 'ignite' —Huge earthquake 2,500 years ago rerouted the Ganges River, study suggests Seismologists get good measurements of such ruptures from seismic stations that use GPS to quantify even tiny movements of the crust. They also often do fieldwork to find evidence of ruptures after they happen, Aster said. "But we don't really understand the dynamics of what happened, exactly how things move," he said. The video might be useful for researchers who are trying to understand those unusual dynamics. "I have no doubt that seismologists will take a very close look at this," Aster said. "It will probably lead to some kind of a publication at some point, if the location and other details can be sorted out." Live Science reached out to Aung and to GP Energy Myanmar and will update this story with further details, if available.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The Earth's Core Is Not as Solid As We Thought, Yet Another Study Speculates
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." A new study analyzing decades of seismogram data shows that physical changes can occur at the surface of the Earth's inner core. This means that the surface of the inner core could be more viscous than scientists originally thought. The leading theory is that this physical change arises from the inner core's interaction with the more chaotic outer core, though other ideas include inner core convection or interactions with structures in the lower mantle. Love the air you're breathing, the water you're drinking, and the life you're living? Thank Earth's inner core. The intense heat of this ball of nickel and iron drives the movement of the liquid outer core, which produces Earth's magnetic field—that invisible lifeline that protects the planet (and all of its inhabitants) from harmful solar radiation. Despite the inner core's starring role in making life on Earth possible, scientists are still discovering fundamental facts about this ball of metal. A new study from scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) pored over decades' worth of seismograms collected from Fairbanks, Alaska, and Yellowknife, Canada, to try and answer some lingering questions. The research team's original intent was to gather more data from its discovery last year—that the rotation of the inner core may be slowing. However, John Vidale, a seismologist from USC and lead author of a new study published in Nature Geoscience, found evidence that appeared to refute an established 'fact' about the inner core. Maybe, this solid ball of metal wasn't as solid as we previously thought. 'As I was analyzing multiple decades' worth of seismograms, one dataset of seismic waves curiously stood out from the rest,' Vidale said in a press statement. 'Later on, I'd realize I was staring at evidence the inner core is not solid.' Analyzing the interior of the Earth is tricky business. Without the aid of unobtainium to explore the Earth's depths (a la 2003's The Core), scientists instead have to rely on seismograms that track seismic waves as they travel through the Earth. This study took a closer look at 121 repeating earthquakes near the South Sandwich Islands in Antarctica and analyzed the waveforms from receiver-array stations in the northern U.S. and Canada. Vidale said that the uncharacteristic properties of one particular dataset from the Canadian station 'confounded' him, and after further investigation, Vidale and his team surmised that the inner core was changing shape. This means that the surface of the inner core is likely more viscous than we previously realized, and that this physical change likely occurs due to interactions with the more geologically chaotic outer core. 'The molten outer core is widely known to be turbulent, but its turbulence had not been observed to disrupt its neighbor the inner core on a human timescale,' Vidale said in a press statement. 'What we're observing in this study for the first time is likely the outer core disturbing the inner core.' Other theories suggest that this deformation could be caused by interactions with structures in the lower mantle (which separates the core from the Earth's crust), or perhaps even convection within the inner core itself. 'It's really hard to tell,' Vidale told New Scientist. Vidale and his team's work joins a growing chorus of research indicating that the Earth's core isn't a solid as it seems. Two studies from 2023 found that the core likely contained layers of liquid iron and might best described as 'how butter is soft in your kitchen,' one researcher said. It's becoming increasingly clear that the physical structure of Earth's core is far from settled science. Continued observations of seismograms in search of physical changes in the surface of the outer core will hopefully piece together a more complete picture of the life-sustaining geology occurring in the heart of our home planet. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
Saudi Gazette
11-02-2025
- Science
- Saudi Gazette
Earth's inner core may have changed shape, say scientists
LONDON — The inner core of Earth may have changed shape in the past 20 years, according to a group of inner core is usually thought to be shaped like a ball, but its edges may actually have deformed by 100m or more in height in places, according to Prof John Vidale who led the core is the beating heart of our planet as it produces a magnetic field that protects life from burning up in the Sun's inner core spins independently from the liquid outer core and from the rest of the planet. Without this motion, Earth would die and become more like barren Mars which lost its magnetic field billions of years change in shape could be happening where the edge of the solid inner core touches the extremely hot liquid metal outer research is published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. The scientists were originally trying to find out why the inner core may have slowed down to a slower pace than Earth's rotation before speeding back up again in how the Earth's core works is essential to understanding the magnetic field that protects the planet, and whether that could weaken or inside of our planet is an extremely mysterious place. The core is about 4,000 miles from the Earth's surface and, despite best efforts, scientists have so far been unable to reach to try to unlock its secrets, some researchers measure the shockwaves caused by earthquakes as they ripple through the way the waves travel reveals what type of material they moved through, including in the inner core, and help to paint a picture of what lies beneath our new analysis looked at seismic wave patterns from earthquakes that repeated in the same location between 1991 and 2023. That helped to show how the inner core is changing over Vidale, an earth scientist at the University of Southern California, found more evidence to back up the theory that during those years the inner core slowed down around his team also found the evidence of the inner core's changing appears to be happening at the boundary of the inner and outer core, where the inner core is close to melting point. The liquid flow of the outer core as well as pull from an uneven gravity field may cause Hrvoje Tkalcic from Australian National University, who was not involved in the study, said the paper provides "an interesting concept that should be explored further".He said it could allow scientists "to make more informed estimates of some important material properties, such as the viscosity of the inner core, which is one of the least known quantities in modern science".Over time the liquid outer core is freezing into the solid inner core, but it will be billions of years before it becomes completely would almost certainly mean the end of life on Earth, but by then the planet is already likely to have been swallowed by the Vidale's work is part of investigations by experts around the world exploring and arguing over what happens in the core."In science, we generally try to look at things until we understand them," Prof Vidale says."In all likelihood, this finding doesn't affect our daily lives one iota, but we really want to understand what's happening in the middle of the Earth," he is possible that the changes are connected to changes in Earth's magnetic field."The magnetic field has had jerks at various times in the past few decades, and we'd like to know if that is related to what we're seeing at the inner core boundary," he Vidale urged caution about hyping the findings into ideas that the core is going to stop rotating any time also added that there are still lots of uncertainties. "We're not 100% sure we're interpreting these changes correctly," saying that the boundaries of scientific knowledge are always changing and, like many if not all researchers, he has been wrong in the past. — BBC
CNN
10-02-2025
- Science
- CNN
‘It's almost science fiction': Scientists say the shape of Earth's inner core is changing
Scientists who just months ago confirmed that Earth's inner core recently reversed its spin have a new revelation about our planet's deepest secrets — they identified changes to the inner core's shape. Earth's innermost layer is a hot, solid ball of metal surrounded by a liquid metal outer core. For decades, planetary scientists suspected that the solid inner core deformed over time as it spun. Now, researchers have found the first evidence of changes taking place over the past 20 years in the shape of the inner core. Signs of the core's deformation appeared in waves from earthquakes that were strong enough to reach Earth's center. The research team used that same earthquake data for a 2024 study to resolve a longstanding debate over the inner core's rotation. They found that the inner core once spun faster than Earth itself. But beginning around 2010, the solid inner core's spin slowed. It's now revolving backward, relative to the rest of the planet. Their new study, published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience, builds on that discovery, using earthquake data gathered from 1991 to 2023. The scientists' prior work on core rotation helped them interpret variations in the height of seismic waves, defining them as indicators of changes to the surface of the inner core, said Dr. John Vidale, a coauthor of the previous study and lead author of the new study. 'We can compare the signals that we see when the inner core is returned to the same position as it was in some other time and see if there's differences that can't be explained by the rotation,' Vidale, Dean's Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California's Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, told CNN. Shape changes in the core could hold clues about the forces deep inside Earth that power our magnetosphere, the invisible lines of magnetic energy that protect our planet from solar weather and deadly radiation, the researchers reported. 'Earth evolves on a geological timescale, so observing changes on an annual timescale is always intriguing, as it enhances our understanding of inner core dynamics,' said Dr. Yoshi Miyazaki, an associate professor in the department of Earth and planetary sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. 'Previous studies have already discussed how inner core rotation has changed over the past decade, and this study introduces a new perspective — non-rotational changes — adding another dimension to the discussion. I believe this will further fuel these debates,' Miyazaki, who was not involved with the new research, told CNN in an email. 'Almost science fiction' Of all Earth's layers, the inner core is the most remote and mysterious. This solid sphere of iron and nickel is about 70% the size of the moon, with a radius of approximately 759 miles (1,221 kilometers). Temperatures in the inner core are as high as 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit (5,400 degrees Celsius), and pressures can reach up to 365 gigapascals (GPa) — more than 3 million times greater than Earth's average atmospheric pressure on land. While direct observation of the core is impossible, scientists study it by analyzing changes in the size and shape of seismic waves as they pass through the core. Earthquakes generate two types of waves. Primary waves, or P waves, are the first waves produced by a quake, and move the ground in the same direction that the wave is moving. Shear waves, or S waves, are slower than P waves and move the ground perpendicular to the wave's direction. Amplitude changes in a type of core-penetrating P wave — PKIKP waves — hinted at deformations in the inner core's shallowest level, according to the new study. At the boundary where the solid inner core meets the liquid of the outer core, the sphere's surface might be more malleable than it is at deeper levels. 'It's almost science fiction to visualize what's happening on the surface of the inner core,' Vidale said. 'It's a place that's so different from our day-to-day lives, with different timescales, different materials and incredible forces. And yet, we can get down there and learn more about it by just sifting through some of the latest observations.' Movement 'like landslides' The scientists analyzed 168 paired waves from quakes in 42 locations near the South Sandwich Islands, a chain of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Tracking the speed and direction of the core's rotation gave the researchers a way to detect changes in the shape of the core. Once they knew the core's rotation speed, they could model its position and then compare different PKIKP waves that reached the core as it revolved into the same spot. Amplitude changes in those paired waves could then be assigned to shape changes in the core, rather than rotation changes, according to the study. However, what that deformation of the inner core might look like is harder to pin down. 'Maybe the topography is going up and down. Maybe it's sloughing around like landslides,' Vidale said. 'The most likely thing is the outer core is just pushing on the inner core and moving it around a little bit.' While just one inner core location showed signs of deformation between 2004 and 2008, there may be more that are yet to be detected, the researchers reported. 'It's hard to know if we are looking at an anomalous or a normal location,' Vidale said. 'But one guess would be that some amount of deformation is happening fairly often in many places.' As Earth's solid inner core spins, the molten outer core churns and sloshes. Their interactions generate magnetic energy, which unspools to enfold our planet in the magnetosphere. But the liquid outer core is shrinking. Millimeter by millimeter, the inner core has siphoned molten metal from the liquid core surrounding it, Vidale said. It likely took billions of years for the inner core to cool and solidify, and over the next few billion years, the inner core will continue to cool, sipping drops of liquid metal from the outer core, until Earth's entire core is a solid metal sphere, he added. 'That'll kill the magnetic field,' Vidale said. 'There won't be the moving iron down there anymore.' However, such an event is billions of years in our future. And before that could happen, Earth will likely be obliterated as our sun expands into a red giant and swallows the inner planets of the solar system, Vidale said. Until then, scientists should have ample time to investigate the unseen workings at the heart of our planet and discover what Earth's internal spinning, churning and shape-shifting might hold in store for the planet. 'Regarding the impact on life, as mentioned in the paper's introduction, inner core growth plays a crucial role in generating Earth's magnetic field, which protects us from harmful solar radiation,' Miyazaki said. 'While a direct connection between life on Earth's surface and the ICB (inner-outer core boundary) remains distant, what happens at the ICB still has some implications for Earth's long-term evolution.' Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.
